I am usually on-the-go on weekends, but this Saturday found me in a somber kind of mood. While I’ve been enjoying the mild winter and am really excited about the signs of spring that have blossomed around me, I kind of felt out of sorts. To cheer up, I decided to go for a walk.
Always fun to find history.
Walking is a great spirit-lifter, of course. But I wasn’t looking forward to taking a walk around my own neighborhood. Not that it’s a bore, but frankly, I walk the mile-radius around my house all the time and what I really needed was a change of scenery. So, I picked out an older neighborhood in Denton and strolled my way through quaint gardens, rock fences, and bungalows with deep porches. I even found a few petrified wood pieces inside herb and flower beds. I saw a few cats and lots of squirrels, a couple of grinning garden gnomes, dog foot prints forever encased in concrete, and dodged lots of mosquito hawks.
I’ve done this a few times before – picked out a cute place in a different town and went for a stroll. It’s simply fun to blend in with the environment and experience the place as a resident would. And it’s a great way to get ideas for how to spruce up my own yard and front porch. I also like that I’m left alone with my thoughts, and that I can pace myself without worrying too much about traffic or other people. The discoveries made on these walks tend to make me feel as if I uncovered secrets, too, like when I noticed the WPA stamp on a broken sidewalk when I strolled through Mineral Wells, or the old toys strewn along an alley behind a garage apartment in Durant.
If it wasn’t for walking around and being nosy, I’d never have found these trolley tracks in Mineral Wells, either.
Yes, my entertainment runs on the cheap and boring side. I’m never going to be the life of the party when my idea of fun involves walking through the city streets of some strange town. Guess what, though? I realized today that I need to do it more often.
