A Memorable Walk

Dad has recently written about our love of Burke Lake Park, a spot that is deeply sewn in our souls because we have taken so many memorable walks and jogs there. Sometimes we jog in relative silence because I get out of breath, but when we walk, we talk in such a soul-searching, revelatory sort of way about how to live with beauty and grace that it has forever changed me. Recently we discovered a wide, paved path that meanders far into the woods, one that surprisingly we had never really looked at before. Yesterday we explored it and had one of those times of life that I shall ever remember and will continue to feed me. It was a misty morning, a gray mysterious day, with low-lying patches of fog, so much so that the earthen dam at one end of Burke Lake Park looked as if it disappeared into nothingness. The distance around Burke Lake is 4.6 miles, but this new path, our road less traveled by, went farther to another lake, and we never made it to the end.
The forest around the path was scattered with trees spaced far enough apart that you could see well into the woods, revealing a landscape of lovely undulations, hills that rose and fell, covered with last year's rusty leaves. In the woods we saw a curious, brown rabbit, the tracks of a deer, that hesitated for a moment in the mud, a black squirrel that skittered up a spare, unsubstantial tree. Most enchanting in the mist was that the forest was dotted with puffs of white, the silken handiwork of artistic spiders where the moisture clung to each strand. This was a place forgotten, a place of silence like a dreamscape. I've never been anywhere quite like it--so far away from the demands and busyness of any day, it was as if time stopped. I don't have a picture of that view, but I will add one that looks something like it to this post.
This was a place I always thought existed, but hadn't seen it until today.