The last three days have brought early mornings, late nights and lots of running around as I’ve helped out with my organization’s annual leadership conference downtown. It’s been fun, inspiring and exhausting. I didn’t have any ideas of catching up on sleep today because the kids had to get up at 5:30 to leave for a tennis tournament. After I saw them off, I thought about going back to bed. But then I saw the early morning sun and had a different idea. I headed to Powder Valley.

Not sure why I was compelled to go there other than I wanted to touch base with normalcy. A familiar pace in familiar surroundings, listening to familiar sounds…it’s just what I needed. Juno said it best: “I really never realized how much I like being home until I’ve been someplace really different for awhile.”

There wasn’t a car in sight when I got there this morning at oh-gawd-o’clock. The early morning light made the leaves come alive — it was fascinating. The light and shadows played around, creating beautiful patterns in the canopy of leaves that covered the trails.  

So many different shapes of leaves, typed of seeds, reactions to the light. I found myself looking up so much that I forgot to look around. But then, as I was pointing my camera towards the sky, I had this weird feeling — like something or someone was nearby. I knew I was the only person there, but I lowered my camera and did a little scan out of the corner of my eye. Way back in the shadows and out of the range of my long lens, was a deer. She was settled in on the forest floor, ears perked and eyes fixed on me. Then I saw that she had one of her deer buddies resting next to her, who was also watching me. Then I saw another…and another…and another. In all, seven deer were watching me stare up at the trees. I could only imagine what they were thinking. I’m guessing it was something along the lines of, “It’s the crack of dawn and that chick woke us up. Stupid humans.” or “What gives? It’s a tree, for crying out loud. Stupid humans.” But I found the whole experience to be pretty amusing. Made me wonder how many times I’ve walked around that place not knowing that I had company keeping an eye on me.

On the way home, I dropped by a nearby lake to see if any of its resident geese had welcomed any little ones recently. I was in luck. They’re so cute when they’re little yellow fuzz balls. Then it’s all down hill from there. They have that gawky, ugly teenager stage followed by filthy, hissing, nasty adulthood. Their only redeeming quality is the cuteness of their offspring. But that’s a big redeeming quality.

Now I’m going back to bed.