I love shoes, I have over 80 pairs: most of them I have worn once and relegated to my shoe wardrobe. You see they are usually 5 inch heels and very VERY impractical. I love each and every one of them but my life has not yet reached the limousine-pavement-expensive restaurant phase.
At the start of this trip I packed five pairs, then cut it down to three, all flats. The team is now in Aspen Ridge Lodge, a gorgeous retreat in Bly Oregon (blink and you miss it Bly). Right now I am sitting on the porch enjoying the sunshine, bird calls, squirrel chatter and amazing view across a plain with snowy wooded hills on the other side.
In this plain are fenced in buffalo and an abandoned homestead replete with derelict barn, and house – a photographer’s delight. Small problem – the chatty and friendly Karen – waitress, host and everything else of Aspen Ridge advised that due to a spring that runs into the field it is extremely muddy under all that lush grass. “If you don’t have mud boots you’ll get wet”.
You know where this is going, don’t you? After a huge breakfast and a slightly smaller lunch I got antsy and thought myself a frontiers type explorer. Off I went by myself (yes my team are a bunch of wusses, we’ve established that) to find a path to the near but yet so far historic nirvana.
My socks and sneakers are now drying on the radiator in the bathroom and I have borrowed Liesl’s crocs for now. I may have failed in my quest to take close ups of the bison (they all fled as soon as I got within earshot) and the wonderful homestead – but I did make a bridge of old fencing to cross a “crick” and had fun winding my way through the wetlands of bison poo and swamp grass.
About 1/5 of the way in I figured – sneakers are not the best shoes to cross a muddy, swampy, wet, cold plain in and y’all can appreciate the bison and derelict buildings with the great zoom on my Canon Powershot. That, after all, is why we have zoom.
A sense of accomplishment still prevails.
No comment on the shoe situation . .. LORL
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