Lux Aeterna?

Leaving my house I decided to walk down to the river. I spotted two lights shining across the river, calling to me. I headed towards them.

River park

This is a park that my city built on the river. Cleaver name, no? I headed up it towards the bridge.

A Stage?

The park has a sort of hemi-circle set up with several levels of benches. I think the site needs to be the location of a production, preferable of the SF0 variety in the future. The city certainly doesn't use it.

Donut rock?

Yeah, I have no idea what this is supposed to be. I suspect if the snow was gone I'd have a better idea.

Climb rock

This rock called out to me to climb it...

So I did

And I was rewarded with this nice picture of a semi-frozen fox river. Yay intuition.

Shed

This is a shed at the end of river park. It looks lonely. I think I will climb it sometime in the future. But the lights were calling me.

Bridge

I was getting close to the bridge. I really like the lighting on this picture.

Industry Rocks!

*ahem* sorry, couldn't help myself. There was also a stewerdship rock. But I thought it was less interesting.

Under the bridge

So, due to a string of bad photos I magically teleport to the other side of the river. It's pretty cool, because there is a path under the bridge for pedestrians which leads to island park. That is, unless it floods and becomes river park (literally) which it did last year. But the lights were the other way, so I set off again.

river complex

This is the corner of the river shops complex. It has a bunch of really cool lights and neat wooden stairs and second level walkways. Unfortunately none of my photos of the place showed up. Ah well.

startle

Yeah, so as I walked past this ?pipe? the wind picked up and the duct tape on it whipped around. Scared me good.

River path

A downhill slope leading directly into the river. I decided to run down it at full speed for fun. Nothing like playing chicken when the ground is covered in snow/ice! note my light shining near the top of the picture.

Getting closer

This is a picure of the lights from the bottom of the path.

The house

After some boring road I came to the house with the lights in its backyard.

the orb

I stopped and took notice of this neat decoration. I like it!

The source!

Finally, I stood in the backyard of that house and got a questionable quality photo of the lights. They were christmas tree pier ornaments!

The next path

Having gotten to the source of the lights I wondered where to go next. I almost went back and explored the large building complex near the river, but this hill called to me. I liked the idea because I always wander on the other side of the river so I had no idea what to expect.

Stilts

What I found were a bunch of houses built into a natural valley. They were all on stilts. It was really cool so I decided to take the steps down and explore the valley...but I chickened out. I don't like trespassing...

Ice!

Yeah, so I nearly took a spill on this nasty ice patch on the road. But I didn't, so yay!

Tower

This was the last building on stilts. It must have been 4-5 stories tall and it was more or less square. Also, there was blue flickering coming out of the top windows. I want to go get a better look at it tomarrow in the light. Also, I want to live there in my future.

Wooded path!

A little disappointed with myself for chickening out on going into the valley, I noticed a nice path into the woods between the two rows of houses. Maybe my intuition was just waiting for this.

tree path

as I followed the path it was neat to see the trees obscure the houses on either side. In the dark it wasn't hard to imagine that I was actually out in the wilderness, not the suburbia I'm cooped up in for most of my days.

frozen pool

at a curve in the wooded path there was a drop-off into a partially frozen stream of water. I snapped a photo and carefully made my way around it.

Wait...

This is the picture I took when I realized I was nowhere near where I thought I was. For the last....20-30mins I'd been under the impression that I was on the other side of the river walking in the opposite direction that I really was. Kinda shook me up for a second, but I thought it was neat that the derive was sucsessful enough to mess up my normally good sense of direction.

Footprints! for real!

leaving the wooded path (it let out into a clearing by the street) I started walking up the sidewalk, still away from the bridge I came across when I noticed two other travellers had passed this way. The right traveller was very interesting to me and I started to track his footprints.

Footprints 2

I ran along following the footprints. Things I noted at this point. 1. This guy has a very strange gait, as his left and right foot fall at nearly the same point along a line. 2. This guy has very long strides, probably about one and a half of mine, and my strides are fairly big, as people who travel with me can attest.

mailbox!

This was just a neat mailbox that I passed. I liked the look.

Branches

A neat shot of a creek I took over a fence. The brances were a neat side effect of the postioning.

Ice 2

Forced to walk in the street due to lack of sidewalks, I take my second near spill due to more ice.

Geneva!

As I chased the footprints I almost failed to notice I was leaving my town. Yes, Geneva, a nice little place as long as you like suburbia. We do have a great chocolate shop however...

The middle

One of the benefits of being a night owl. This is county highway 25. I am in fact standing dead in the middle of it to take this photo. gotta love being out past midnight.

St. Charles

and I found myself in St. Charles. Don't be fooled, they may be bigger but they certainly aren't the pride.

hay!

Yeah, there was a long red plastic fence, and at a break in it there were hay bales. I have no idea why.

bridge 2

This is the bridge I crossed in St. Charles so I could start heading back towards my house. I was getting really, really cold, mostly my fingers.

footprints 3

These were the last two footprints of the man that I had been tracking. I ran all over looking for where they may continue, but to no avail. I had lost him. My final conclusions were that he was male, around 6'2" (210cmish) as justified by his stride and that he had walked the path sometime in the last 5 hours. THe rest of the trip was spent hoping to run into his tracks again as I had thought them lost twice before, but to no avail. However...

Mural!

When I finally took my eyes off of the ground I noticed this mural I had never seen before. It was on the back of a building that was only really visable if you were going up the wrong way on a one way street. Maybe that's what footprint man was trying to show me?

Church surrondings

a bit of a closer look at the left side of the mural. I liked the look of the ruins/church building so...

The Church

At least, I thought it was a church. I was really taken with it and spent a good few minutes stareing at it. I would say this was more or less the climax of my derive. funny how a random wander ended up having a bulid up (the footprints) and a climax.

Bull

Just another mural on the building. This one of a bullfighter.

Horse

And I fnally got around to the side of the building where I was met with a horse.

The front

And a nice father and son and an actual sun for the front. I still think it is a shame that the best, in my opinion, mural is on the back of the building where very few people see it.

bordering!

On the way back I ran into some neat stonework surrounding...

Stairs...

yes, stairs. They lead to....someones backyard apparently. There were two such sets. I still have no idea why. I few minutes after I took this photo I got a worried call from my dad. Mom had told him I left on a walk, but he was wondering if anything had happened. When I said I was fine he noted that I must of stopped somewhere. Heh.

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Shiny!

After the sign I kinda went into a daydream. It was a bad one and I started getting angry. I snapped out of it and looked down and saw the snow, glittering away at me. It was like the earth itself was telling me there was no need to get upset. Then my camera died and I enjoyed a peaceful walk back home. Just me and nature.