Hiking Down A Foggy Memory Lane

  Here on the Bayou, winters are weird.  Mention the season and folks automatically think of cold, snowy days and icy nights where winds are blustery and Jack Frost visits nigh on every night.  Here, we have a few days of cold, then things turn to fog...thick, pea-soup type fog.  Following that, we have rain that precedes a bit of cold again.  It is an endless cycle that rarely varies far from the pattern.  The only bit of this weather cycle that lasts any length of time is the fog.  We have LOTS of fog.  For the past several days, the air has been filled with a fog so thick that it is difficult to see even a few feet in front of you.  Water droplets hang on anything that lingers long outside.  

Mid afternoon and the fog is so thick that it is difficult to see anything on the Bayou!

  While out hiking about the hillside with the old dog, PJ, I suddenly started thinking of times past.  When the kids were small, nights with a heavy fog usually found us scampering about the hillside.  There was something almost enchanting about being unable to see each other even though we were only a few feet apart.  We would often hike back into the drippy woods or even down along the marsh edge. The kids would "disappear" in the fog only to jump out at a sibling or at me.  Peals of laughter would fill the fog laden air after each "attack". Other times, one would start a ghost story that would grow and grow as the hike continued.  More oft than not, our hikes would end back up in the yard with a bonfire and more stories and then inside for a warming mug of hot cocoa.  

  It is sort of odd what can jog a memory.  The foggy woods with all its drippy tree limbs triggered a memory of happy times when the kids were young.  Now, I have PJ as my hiking partner and, while I enjoy his company, it is just not the same.  His antics do include a bit of prancing about at times but, lets face facts, he just cannot tell a good ghost story.