Into the woods

On Saturday, the institute hosted a guided tour of their woods. They own "589 acres of woods, wetlands, and farmland that are historically important and environmentally vital to central New Jersey and beyond." (From the brochure, The Institute Woods.)

There are five miles of trails, starting just outside our door. It's beautiful, and I suspect it will become even more and more beautiful as the woods are touched with autumn color. But acres and miles. These are words that help you to get an idea of how isolated we are here.

In any case, woods photos.

One with family.

One of the Quaker meeting house at the end of the trail.

We were gone for a couple of hours, meeting other visiting families and seeing the beautiful scenery. As seems to be the case for family outings, not everyone was completely excited about being there the whole time. But everyone was mature enough about it that we didn't have any public meltdowns.

Home.

Lunch.

Errands.

As the sun was setting, I asked Jonathan if he wanted to take the flashlights after dark and go back on the woods walk? This time, the whole family thought that would be fun.

Flashlights.

Long pants.

The night insects were loud, humming in all the trees. The path was totally dark except for the light of our flashlights, with a misty fog drifting eerily across it. We walked all the way to the swinging bridge over the creek, shined the flashlights into its brown, murky depths, then walked back.

As I spotted the first glimmer of light from the apartment buildings off in the distance, I decided that isolated can be good.

At least if it's just for a short time.