Ryan McGovern- Natural Setting entry #2 4-21-09

The Noland Trail.
Today was our Noland trail experience. It started with Justin and I riding our bikes there. I thought it would be a better way to get there than riding in a car, so that we would be less cut off from the elements. After getting there it rained decently hard for a few minutes, but then the sun came out strong. It's like nature was washing off the trail for us or something. Once we got into our solo time, the first thing I noticed was that all of the cycles of life are represented on the trail. Take the pine trees for instance. There were pine cones everywhere, baby pine saplings, medium sized pines, large old pines, and finally, pines that had fallen over. So the cycle of birth, life, and death was clearly visible there. It was a good chance to reflect on that same cycle in human lives, and what that means for me. The woods seemed very alive with birds and squirrels all over the place. When we got to the bridge with the turtles, I started feeding them gold fish crackers. They seemed to like that, and many creatures came up from the depths to enjoy them. Large fish, small fish, and even a giant snapping turtle joined in. This was interesting because all of those things were there all along, but they were not visible. They had to be coaxed out of there more comfortable spot near the bottom. It kinda goes along with the whole "sacred place can be tread upon without being entered" thing. If we had just walked by the bridge, we would have never seen all those other creatures. But, since we stayed there and got in the right state of mind, they appeared.