Took a wrong turn on a hike and found my favorite spot in the woods

Last Saturday I was out near the Chipola River trail and decided to skip the marked path to follow this little creek I heard. I figured I'd just loop back in 10 minutes but the ground got muddy and I slid down a small embankment. Ended up in this clearing with mossy rocks and sunlight coming through the trees like a spotlight. No sign of anyone else for like an hour. I sat there listening to the water and realized I'd been stressing over nothing at work all week. Now I'm wondering if you all ever had a time where messing up actually led to something better? What's your story with getting lost?

2 comments

2 Comments

richard_kelly544d ago

@davis.emma you're onto something there. A buddy of mine once got his truck stuck in a mudhole off a back road he wasn't supposed to be on. Had to walk two miles to get cell service and ended up finding this old abandoned fishing cabin by a lake nobody knew about. He goes back there every summer now to camp. Sometimes getting off track is the only way to find the good stuff.

davis.emma4d ago

Does anyone else think this is why kids don't get to have this kind of experience anymore? I mean, we're so terrified of our phones dying or getting a scratch that we'd never just wander off a trail. I remember getting lost in the woods behind my grandmother's house when I was maybe 12, ended up following a fox for half a mile and found this old stone wall nobody knew about. That spot became my secret reading nook for the whole summer. Now parents track their kids with smartwatches and nobody gets to have those accidental discoveries.