Second longest walk so far

April 20 - Wednesday - Today we walked 8.1 miles, or possibly a little more. About two miles along we climbed down under the barbed wire to a little babbling brook to let Biscuit wet her paws, and noticed what looked like an old road bed running parallel to the highway. It was cool and shady and much nicer than the pavement, so we walked on it instead. It turned into game trails, and there was bushwacking involved, but we managed to stay about a quarter mile away from the highway for about 5 miles, and the last mile into Luna we had to get back on the road.

According to Larry at the store, and the topo map he has hanging on the wall, we were walking on what used to be a wagon road, and although the little stream wasn't marked, and seldom has any water in it, we were walking in what the map said was Mail Hollow. Anyway, it was heavenly - the pleasant sounds of the water, the screeching of scrub jays in the pines, and the wonderful smell of the trees. It took me back to boarding school, when my friend Peter and I would head off campus into the woods surrounding Northfield and just walk and talk and find little patches of sunlight to bask in. We never kept track, in those days, of how far we had walked, or how fast or how long.

So, a great day, marred somewhat by the psychocop I encountered on the way home. An under-medicated sheriff's deputy stopped me for exceeding the speed limit, which I admitted to doing, and wrote up a ticket, and then things got strangely weird. I asked how much the fine would be, and he said that depended on what I was willing to do. Then he went on a little riff about he could do whatever he wanted, that he even had the power to take away my freedom.
I was starting to get kinda freaked out. Then he wanted to know what I wanted to do, and when I said I just wanted to get home to my kids, he started yelling at me that if that's what I wanted then he was going to make me stay there for as long as he wanted, and went back to his car. At this point I was beginning to get a little unglued myself. When he came back he was still yelling, and he screamed at me did I want him to just make it a warning? Which was pretty much the last thing I expected out of his mouth, since I was beginning to have visions of being dragged out of the car by my hair and hauled off, hopefully to jail, but who knew what this crazy guy had in mind? And I've never had an angry person offer to give me a break at the top of his lungs, before. Anyway, he made it a warning, and I signed it and then he threw it at me, and said he was just going to give me a warning anyway, and then he stomped back to his car shouting about how I was the third nutjob he'd had to deal with today. Then he peeled off at about 80 miles an hour.

I think he was having a bad day.