The Epic Walk

Every time we take the kids to line-up, Adam and I look to the distance and see the most epic sight; A huge tree at the top of a story-book hill straight out of a children’s tale. I had been wanting to walk to the tree for the entire duration of camp. Finally on the last day, Adam, myself, and our mutual friend Shmaya were planning out a time to hike. We decided to hike in the afternoon. However, in the meantime we knew not what we would do. I proposed we walk to the story-book tree.

I had assumed the tree was at the end of the road that was right across the street. So we started on our way. Hardly a second passed when we came across a horse. We scooped up handfuls of grass and allowed the horse to take it from our hands. It’s always a funny ordeal. We continued and came across ponies as well. We walked and walked soaking in the scenery of the distant hills when the road began to turn the other way. We just followed it w/ the faith that it would take us to out tree, but then it ended. And our simple walk wound up being far more interesting than expected.

The road led right up to a gate into a big field. Luckily the gate was latched but not locked. W/ no one watching we simply opened the gate and slipped in. We immediately discovered that we were not alone in the field. A dairy cow, the proper kind white w/ black spots, greeted us w/ relentless and very loud moos. I suppose it was not happy w/ us there. Since the field was bordered by a barbed wire fence, and we would have to cross it eventually to get to my tree, and because the cow was unhappy w/ us in its field, we used a nearby tree to hoist ourselves over the barbed wire into a sort of field-between-fields. We stared walking up the hill toward an opening to the next field. We finally came up to the cow (still mooing) and fed it some grass from our hands. It came and stuck out its large tongue and we had a pretty fun time w/ the cow for a bit. We continued up the hill where the fences on each side of us eventually wedged together. Luckily there was an opening in the fence to the next field. When we crossed over the sight was spectacular. The hill was covered in daisies and we could look down the rolling hill to a pond at the bottom. There was a patch of thorn w/ lovely blue flowers within in one part of the field and the rest was just an endless curved world of daisies and dandelions. The gentle breeze from the west sent waves along the sea of flowers that surrounded us. Never in my life had I seen such a place. One might have thought they were fast asleep and dreaming.

We began walking still to our ultimate destination, being sure to make noise, wary of the poisonous snakes that are likely to lurk in the tall grass. We came to another barbed wire fence that also had and opening into yet another field. A little further and we came to small farm w/ a dozen cows. We were separated from the cows by a fence giving us the field to ourselves. We came across a gigantic tire which I wanted to roll down the hill, but since we were on someone else’s property, refrained from doing so. Our tree was dead ahead now- protected by a barbed wire fence. The fence was well maintained, constructed w/ planks of wood and four taught strands of barbed wire. There was a top wire that was simply a smooth wire across the fence. My friend Shmaya warned it could be electric. I thought nonesense and was just about to put my hands on it to climb over when I heard a distinctive SNAP SNAP. Shmaya had already drawn his knife to use it as a conductor between the smooth wire and the barbed wire. I was ^ this ^ close to touching it!

So it was. We could not reach our tree. We started to head back, heading on a lower part of the hill to check out the pond previously neglected. As we approached we could see a mound of dirt that formed a sort of bridge to the other side. However a cow conveniently blocked our path. Not only this, but a barbed wire fence served to deter us. Luckily we found a section where the middle wire had been cut and we went in one at a time; One of us held the wires apart, while the second went in, and the third guided them so as to not come in contact w/ the menacing fence. We checked out the pond, nothing there, and the guardian cow was gracious enough to let us through. A little more walking and fence jumping and we were back on the main road to camp.

Alas, we never made it to our destination and may never will, but this is a clear example of how it’s the journey that really counts!