I don’t know why this has been so hard for me to write about, but it has been. I’ve been avoiding it all week.

On Tuesday I woke up at 3:30am, as I’m prone to do when I try to go to sleep early and thus, I was up at dawn with nothing to do. The sun was just starting to rise when I got it in my head that it was time to quit writing about how I’m not doing very well with my immersion therapy and just go for a damn walk.

Admittedly it took a couple of hours to psych myself up and I had to take Ativan before I went, which is actually a “no no” with immersion therapy (because you’re supposed to learn how to do it on your own), but it was my maiden voyage so I think it’s forgivable this time.

So, at 7am, armed with my iPod and my camera, I went outside and braved the world.

I started off in my front yard, not even sure if I’d make it further than that.

And the next thing I knew, my feet were walking themselves down the street. Now, where I am in my immersion therapy, I’m only supposed to go to the end of the block, but when I got there I thought the end of the block was stupid because really from my house to the end of the block, it’s only like, 4 houses, so I kept going.

This is a truck refueling station that actually extends sort of behind my house, but the driveway is 4 houses down.

This sign told me to go “this way”, but I went “that way” instead, towards Heritage Park.

The stage in Heritage Park. In the summer they have concerts there. There’s also a pavilion that I didn’t take pictures of, where they have food type events, like pancake breakfast for the Maple Syrup Festival, which is this weekend.

At the back of Heritage Park there’s a trail that takes you to another park called Bishop Park, which I decided was going to be my destination. I suck at estimating distance, but I’d say from my house to Bishop park, it’s about a kilometer.

This is red dogwood, which I think is so beautiful, especially so early in the morning when it’s wet and the sun’s shining right on it.

This is the path ahead. Truthfully, as I was walking I didn’t know how far the park was and I kept being afraid that someone was going to come up behind me and like, beat me up for my iPod /camera or rape me or kill me or something. This feeling was amplified by the fact that I never left a note for anyone at home because I didn’t think I’d get far enough to bother.

But then I remembered, this is Elmvale. The odds of anything like that happening are fairly slim. Especially at 7 o’clock in the morning.

To the left of the trail is private property and they really don’t want you anywhere near it.

Along the path is a creek. I titled all of the pictures I took of the creek as “SunnysCreek1.jpg” etc and I’ve had the Dawson’s Creek theme song stuck in my head ever since.

I think moss is one of the coolest things in nature. I always have. I’m not sure why.

This is iPod Crittenden.

More no trespassing…

Where the path and the creek bend, there’s a little island in the middle that I’m kind of obsessed with. This summer I’d really like to find a way to get me and the kids over there so I can take pictures of them. The light there in the summer is really beautiful filtered through the trees and it’s definitely on my list of things to do once I’m over this whole agoraphobia thing.

I found a treasure. :o) I brought it home for Wes and he loved it. (Obviously it was empty.)

This is a squished snake. Over the winter a lot of trees fell down across the trail, so they’ve been doing a lot of work back there to clear them and I’m assuming this guy got run over by some sort of machine.

I did not stay away from the fence, nor the barbed wire.

If you read my Live Journal, then you’ll know that this bench was one of my goals. It’s still a goal in that I plan on making this trip more than the one time and I plan on sitting on that bench and reading because part of immersion therapy is to remain immersed in the environments that make you uncomfortable.

Annnnnd I made it to Bishop Park…

Then I turned around, crossed the bridge and started my journey home. I think in the summer when the gardens bloom, which are straight ahead of the bridge, this shot is going to look awesome.

This squirrel did not want me to take his picture.

Hello geese! Welcome home!

More moss. How cool is that? Doesn’t it look like it should be growing under water?

Here’s a different kind of moss. As I said in the beginning, I think moss is really really cool.

I love nature’s defiance.

On the other side of that fence is the remnants of an old building, which I think may actually be part of the old mill that used to be there. Keep in mind, I took over 60 pictures on my adventure and I’m only posting what I think are the best shots from the trip. There were historical plaques explaining the area that I took pictures of which I’ll link to at the end.

I love this picture. I’m not sure why.

I’m not really sure what’s going on in this picture. I saw something shiny on my way back and this is what I found…

Morning sky…

Getting closer to home…

This is the trail that the sign refers to. It’s at the end of my block on the opposite side of the road and really only snowmobiles use it.

And finally, home sweet home.

All in all the walk was a positive experience and obviously by doing this I’m way ahead of schedule as far as my immersion therapy. Now I have to keep doing it, ideally every day but I know that won’t happen, until it’s no big deal anymore. But at least now I know I’m capable of it and while I think I took pictures of everything there is to take pictures of back there, I know the landscape will change in a few weeks when these flowers I don’t know the name of will bloom and there will be leaves on the trees.

So I made it to Bishop Park. The next test of bravery is going to have to be the post office, but that’s a much bigger deal because it involves interacting with people, while going to the park was so early in the morning I only ran into one.

Anyway, as I said before, I took over 60 pictures while I was on my adventure, so if you’re interested in seeing the rest, feel free to peruse the gallery.(Just keep hitting “next” for a walking tour.)

And with that, I’m going to bed.