The brief faux spring is over. Thick darkly puffy clouds lumber across the sky. I wander around the college campus, looking for the trail head and for a visitors lot to park that won’t get me towed or tickets within minutes of leaving my truck.
I find the trail, and it seems at first to be a simple off road path for the students. It’s pleasantly busy with traffic and students. Within the campus, it overlooks fountains and landscaping and beautiful buildings. A designated crosswalk, gets me safely across a roaring intersection and heads toward the off-campus student apartments.
I really think that’s going to be all there is to it, until the trail curves behind the apartments. Suddenly, I’m on a quiet residential streets with charming old brick houses on one side and wooded fields on the other.
A few minutes walk, shared with dogs on their afternoon stroll and children walking home from school, brings me to St Vincent Park.
Ball fields stretch across the opening section of the park, followed by picnic areas and playgrounds and then a long winding trail through the woods.
The trail tempts me over and over to go a little farther, to take another curve.
I’ve gone as far as I dare tonight, in the quickly falling winter twilight. I can’t wait to come back with a bike, and follow it to its end.
Rambling ... 