Logan O'Leary: Nature Blog 2

While running on a beach trail recently near the bay in Norfolk I found myself deep in thought about the complexity of nature. Starting on a paved road, I noticed the cracks in which small grasses took their opportunity to grow and pushed through the asphalt. Covering the road were the leaves that had recently fallen from the trees. It was almost like nature was trying to reclaim what man had taken from it. The trail then moved onto a dirt path. Pushing through the hills, I began to note the differing scenery. While the trees were largely the same, there were a much larger amount of small plants and bushes growing up onto the path. It seemed like the influence of man was waning as I continued to push through the trail, deeper into nature. The grasses that pushed through the rare cracks in the pavement at the beginning of the trail, were becoming more common under foot. Suddenly I found myself running what seemed to be an almost completely different biome all together. The dirt path I had been running on seemingly disappeared and turned into little more than a sandy path through the saw grass hills. The ground underneath became much less firm as I struggled to push up the small 10-15' hills, and the grass that grew close to the middle of the trail would occasionally cut my legs. The bushes that surrounded disappeared and I could seen the surrounding area much more clearly. I could see the river nearby that emptied into the bay, along with the nearly 30' drop  just beside the path that led toward that river. The trees in the area were all seemingly dead with no leaves or even significant branches remaining. There were even some trees strewn along the side of the trail that led to the river. As I reached the end of my journey before turning back, I stopped to explore the river, and crawled shimmied down the tree toward the water. It felt especially cool on my feet in the chilly late October air. It was then that I got up and started my journey back to my car, attempting to note the distinctly different parts of the same trail that seemed like completely separate worlds.