"I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beech-tree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines.
For many years I was a self-appointed inspector of snow storms and rain storms, and did my duty faithfully; surveyor, if not of highways, then of forest paths and all across lot routes, keeping them open, and ravines bridged and passable at all seasons, where the public heel had testified to their utility.
It is a great art to saunter.
It is a certain faeryland where we live. You may walk out in any direction over the Earth's surface, lifting your horizon, and everywhere your path, climbing the convexity of the globe, leads you between heaven and Earth, not away from the light of the sun and stars and the habitations of men. I wonder that I ever get five miles on my way, the walk is so crowded with events and phenomena. How many questions there are which I have not put to its inhabitants."
Henry David Thoreau — Journal entry, June 7, 1851
Photo: Trinity County, CA
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