John and I went on an adventure today. (You may remember that “adventure” means not knowing that it’s all going to turn out okay.)

We went out to the west side of Wind Pudding Lake Natural Area, after I discovered an unmarked network of roads/trails that showed up on Google Satellite maps. We drove in, parked at a “y” about a mile from the road, and headed out by 8:30. We’d first gone to the farmer’s market at Pioneer Park—at the height of summer’s production now. Sweet corn, onions, beets, green beans. Am planning to make split pea soup tomorrow and the onion will be perfect.

The narrow road into the west side of Wind Pudding Lake is not used by anybody, not known by anybody, and was lined for most of the way with early ripening blackberries and leftover raspberries, which we picked and ate and gave Suki her own rations which she ran up gustily for our handouts.

That got old and we kept walking. A beautiful morning. Not hot, but getting sweaty nonetheless in the sunny open areas. Suki ran and ran and ran without stopping.
John shuffled, but kept up. We both carried our cameras and stopped occasionally for photos. We came to a few “Ys” in the road, and one “T”, both times taking the left route, making sure that we noted that direction. At one “Y” I got a small downed tree and laid it aiming in the direction we should go, should we have needed to backtrack.

Hot. Fun wearing thin. Blackberry pricklers stuck at our clothes as we slid past. An hour and a half into the walk, both of us refusing to give up and get lost going back, we stopped at another trail that ran off to the left and north, dark and cool. We considered which way to go. We were on a nice wide and easy woods road, but we wanted to find Wind Pudding Lake (I was sure that we’d passed south of it a few hours earlier.)

So, we turned onto Cool Shady Trail. All along I saw where guys driving pickup trucks or old Ford Tauruses had bottomed out and picked up the center grass and deposited it ten feet further on.

We walked. Suki had diminished to a trot, but was still routinely a hundred yards ahead, turning around to see “what the hell was keeping us so slow!”
I finally stopped, crossed my arms defensively, and waited for John to catch up.

“Okay, Bucko, let’s turn back.”

He asked me what time it was.

“10:52.”

“Let’s give it another 5 minutes,” he suggested.

So, we went on. I 2 minutes we came out at a familiar road. Familiar mud puddles, familiar huge white pine, and easy walking, west to the truck.

“I know where we are,” John said.

Oh yeah, of course. We were on the road to the boat landing at the west side of Wind Pudding Lake and the truck was a mere 10 minutes southwest with its lemonade cooler in the back of the truck, in the shade.

Great! We slapped a high-five and set off left, toward the truck, which was an easy quarter mile walk.

Five minutes later I looked up and saw a familiar left downhill curve and was seized by “Oh-oh.”

“John?”

“Yes?” he wheezed from 50 yards back in the brush.

“This is the west side of Wind Pudding Road that we walked along a week ago. The truck is NOT just up ahead. It’s way far off on the other side of the lake through the woods. We walked further east than we realized.”

John collapsed flat on his back on the road. Suki, always ready for an opportunity to get personal, ran up and gave him a quick sloppy kiss.

John recovered, sat up swiping his lips, then rose so we could consider our options.

Swim across the lake to the far boat landing, and to the road where the truck was parked a mile away? No, our cameras might get wet.

Retreat via the way we’d come? That was most sensible, but an hour and a half away at least and, would we take a wrong turn at one of the myriad junctions?

Lie down and submit to death? Since our bodies had expected John’s lemonade soon back at the truck, that seemed most reasonable. So, I lay down and crossed my hands over my chest.

Suki ran up and gave me a wet sloppy kiss.

“NO!” Suki ran away into the woods.

That wouldn’t do. She’d eat our cadavers.

So, we set off down to the lake, then along the clear wide stony beach around the lake until the wide stony beach disappeared and we were forced up into the woods. Faint deer trails showed themselves, so I led the way. Heavy underbrush and weaving between and under branches. Exasperating, but we moved forward along the side of a steep hill.

Came to a platform built into the side of the steep hill.

The olde tree swinge

(An aside here: the lake level is easily 4 feet lower than it had been 8 years ago before a prolonged drought lowered everything around here, including human spirits and water table wells.)

The platform was built beside a large white pine. 2×2 “steps” had been nailed into the 45-degree angle tree trunk and a rope swing had been tied to an upper branch far out over the lake which, these days dangled motionless over a 2-foot deep shoreline. The platform “creaked” adventurously when I stood on it for a picture. (How the hell did the builders get lumber and tools and all the other requirements into this hellishly remote location?! In the winter? By helicopter? John suggested that they came in by boat. Oh, of course.)

We went on, slapping brush and stepping on branches and debris hidden deep beneath our steps. Uphill finally, as a timber a thinning operation appeared. Through ferns and tall grasses, far easier than underbrush. Uphill and down, always scanning ahead to pick the most sensible way to proceed.

Finally we came out on the road. John breathed heavily. Suki sauntered ahead of us by 50 yards. I clapped.

So, we got to the truck and gulped John’s lemonade.

Obsessed with the area and the unmarked trails, I’ve screenshot a few images to stitch together so we can go out tomorrow in the truck and cover more ground. There are hundreds of acres of secret roads, unmarked, but traveled by guys like us in pickup trucks. In fact, with that in mind, I’m going to have John bring along the apple flavored Jim Beam whiskey tomorrow. Just in case we get fouled up somewhere and need to get drunk.