I had located the old parking area off a mostly quiet dirt road.  Cut in the woods, it gave no indication why it was there.  If you had stumbled across this place without knowing its history, you wouldn’t be wrong for thinking its existence was a mistake: no signs, no other vehicles, just a dirt road with a cul-de-sac.   

Leaving the comfort of my vehicle, I find the stairs to the old picnic area and made my way along this old, mostly forgotten path in the woods. 

My journey on that path didn’t start that day, but many years earlier, during a conversation with someone who knew the land there better than I did.  Luckily, he told the story while he still could, about the old picnic area.  

How many stories of old, almost forgotten places are there waiting to be told? How many of those stories will be lost with the passage of time?  More important than finding where the path takes us, perhaps, is the hidden story that brings us to the path.