Snowy Run: Two

And so we continue the Snowy Run, an exercise in aesthetics and cold-hardiness, 4.5 miles out and back. Just think...all this can be found within a couple of miles of my home. That, I'm grateful for.

I simply must give you another season change.  December.

Aaaand....September. Please wait while I roll around in the flowers, kicking my feet in the air. Aggh.

Pleased as punch that, come December, I remembered where I stood for the September shot. Those are sweet peas abloom, with tall goldenrod, and a basking Chet Baker in the road. I knelt to get the flowers in the picture, hence the lower angle. But still. 

 September, I remember. A love once new has now grown cold.

I look back and see my beloved tower poking up through the trees, just left of center. 

Closer:

It's a good place to live, a good space to have. Just below it, my studio, where I spend my days painting and not painting and writing and not writing, packing up books and prints to send, fooling around and talking to my kids and laughing and wiping tears too.

So far away now.

I can't resist a climb to the Waxler Church and Cemetery, which sits on a high hill, now overshadowed by a big blue water tower. 

This must be the original church bell, now encased in a plexi-sided box and dedicated to a local parishoner. The church is vacant, but not abandoned. I can't see inside but I hold up my G-12 and let it look for me. Ohhh. Those are punitive pews. Imagine sitting in that for an hour and a half. I'd have to bring a rubber donut.

Intrigued by the reflections, I make more images.

Inside and outside, reflected in glass. Hooo.

I like it. I find myself wishing there could be a square dance in here, some kind of life in it again, even as I know there aren't enough churchgoing people in the area to fill it with worshipers. So it will stand and reflect on its past. What's its choice? That, or fall down.

It doesn't really have the "move forward" option. I pick that.

The bouquet of fake flowers on the old altar gets me, especially as combined with the drifts of what is likely bat guano on the floor. There's an upright piano just to the left. Sigh. So cold, gone dirty. A perfectly good building, wasted.

Outside, a common name in this area. Married 66 years. Trying to imagine that.

Way to go, Clarence and Bessie. I hope you were happy.

My favorite stones are auf Deutsch, but I can't read it. It's too worn, the lettering too unfamiliar. If I came back here for a year or so I'd probably get it figured out. But I won't come back here that much, so it will remain a mystery.

Another familiar name. I'm thinking he dug NASCAR (Dale Earnhardt in particular) and deer hunting. Quite a shrine,  Jim Morrison-esque by country graveyard standards. A well-loved man, well-remembered. I'm guessing he left too soon.

Next post, we'll conclude the run, the musings, and the cheek-freezing, and hope it all melts off. I'm writing this January 3, and there's no hope in sight. Having to walk my run. Phhhhh.