Lock down life – Page 3

Tower Grove Park

These people are ridiculous. I get it, I really do. It’s the first truly spring like day of the year, with bright sunshine and soft warm breezes. I want to be out as much as anyone, and it’s a huge, beautiful city park, with plenty of room for social distancing.

They are not social distancing.

Some are of course, maybe even most,

but there are groups tossing footballs, couples holding hands, gatherings of picnickers on blankets and crowded into pavilions.

I’m all for a walk on this gorgeous day.

Managed right, it’s even well within safety guidelines.

Wander a quiet tree lined trail.

Bask in the scents of the blossoming flowers and trees.

Rest in the shade on a rustic bench and listen to the chorus of birds.

But please,

for the sake of yourself,

and us all …

Keep a six foot distance.

Truman Park

It’s warmer today, and brighter. My winter coat flaps open and feels intermittently like a mistake, until a sudden cool gust makes me glad to have it.

Birds call, dogs bark, voices drift lightly above the background drone of midday traffic. The sky is a patchwork of blue with occasional brushes of sunshine.

Fifteen minutes they said. I’m somewhat skeptical. I tried this before in January. This trail is supposed to connect to Saint Stanislaus, I never found it when I looked before, but it was later in the day, and the sun was setting early, so my chances seemed better today.

Follow the red blazes and 15 minutes of steady hiking should get me to the paved connecting trail. I mentally adjusted that to at least 20, since there’s nothing steady about my endless discovery of a new photo op.

It’s actually there! One startled toddler, running ahead of his parents, and several somewhat scary sets of muddy railroad tie steps, and I emerge from the woods and onto the trail.

Swampy low lands and the half flooded trail hum with the drone of frogs and the clatter of the woodpeckers dinner bell.

The sunshine is steady and warm by the time I walk back, and the coat is now tied around my waist.

The park is filling with walkers and bird watchers and a teenager kicking a ball around.

Mostly still distant, we smile and nod and move on in our quiet worlds.

McDonnell Park

It’s thickly overcast and wintry cold on Covid lock-down day 2. The park seems oddly populated. Several cars, carefully spaced, dot the various loops. Scattered walkers and occasional joggers wander the trails. We mostly keep our distance and choose different paths.

Birds are everywhere. They call from the trees and peck at the ground. Camouflaged against soggy cast-off leaves of fall, I can’t even see them, until they suddenly flutter in mass irritation to the nearest trees as I pass.

A sudden drizzly rain dots a puddled hollow.

While springs glows fearless in all it’s defiant glory

Riverwoods Trail

The river side of the trail is open, at least a good part of the way. I don’t know when was the last time it was. The Missouri River hugs the banks and splashes over in random puddles. It brushes just beneath the edges of the bridge, completely drowning the banks of the summer fishing hole.

The nearly apocalyptic look of the tangled brush and tumbled limbs seems somehow appropriate on the first day of official 30 day lock-down of the county.

Scrambling up ledges and ducking under branches to skirt the puddles, we make it about half way around before it’s just too thick to go on.

I was really a little unsure about coming out today. They did say walking was fine, but did they mean only a neighborhood park?

Brand new signs, that both welcomed and warned, answered the question for the handful of carefully distant co-visitors we met.

Spring marches on, caring nothing for the fears and questions we hold.

It flows in with the river and the scent of fresh air and the promise of life renewed.