The View from St. Michaels, MD

So I'm in DC this weekend visiting my friend Susan, who I've known for going on twenty years, and this afternoon we drove out to St. Michaels, MD with her 2.5 year old daughter Helena. Her parents own a house here situated at the end of a creek which eventually connects to Chesapeake Bay.

This is the view I'm looking at right now, and it reminds me how important it is to get out of the city every so often if only to reconnect with environments I so rarely get to experience. Susan told me that the covered bridge is new - there didn't used to be anything there, but the city recently expanded its walk and bike trails and built the bridge to connect the nature preserve (off in the distance) with the town (which extends out off to the left of the photo).

It's comforting to know that communities all over -- not just urban ones -- continue to expand the ways that allow people to travel by means other than motorized ones. Just now, as someone was biking over the bridge, another person was going underneath it in a kayak. And a couple stopped to admire the blue heron, which according to Susan has made its home here for some time.

What a lovely day.