Yesterday, we went for a hike at Loblolly Woods Nature Park in Gainesville, FL, a gem in the middle of the small university city. There are no hikes like this in downtown Miami.
The park has a wider path that is shared with bikers, but we only saw other hikers, alone or with their dogs. At one point, the path turned into a boardwalk.
The sun dappled through the heavy tree canopy, making it the perfect temperature for our walk. The noise of the cars on the roads disappeared, birdsong and rustling leaves taking its place. We’d missed this.
We held hands and walked, letting our conversation bounce around effortlessly from more serious topics to silly ones to those inspired by what we saw around us. I truly believe we’ll never run out of things to talk about.
We followed side paths that branched off from the trail, encountering a pond where we watched two turtles sitting on a small log in the water.
“Look, there’s another one that just came up for air!” you said.
I stepped closer, but he didn’t re-emerge.
Then I noticed the strangest-looking bark pattern I’d ever seen on a log:
I walked down towards it.
“Be careful there,” you warned.
The turtles dropped into the water at the sound of my footsteps rustling on the leaves. I snapped a close-up:
“What kind of tree is this?”
The bark looked to me like a topographical map, rivulets running along it. I tried a Google image search this morning but came up with nothing conclusive. A cottonwood tree? A southern live oak?
We continued walking, stepping into a huge empty basin that looked like it had once housed water, covered in brown and red leaves.
“This is so cool,” you proclaimed.
We turned back to the main trail, took another side path down by the creek, and found a bench to sit on as we watched the water burble and heard a tiny bird rustle in the brush behind us. You shared about your Catholic school upbringing and we talked about different styles of behavior management and discipline in schools until our stomachs grumbled.
We searched for a lunch spot that would allow dogs and discovered a Pan-Asian restaurant sitting at the bottom of a lake. Perfect.
The food was delicious, too.
A perfect way to soak up all the nature before we went back to the city.
Writing With Abandon 
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