Winterreise

Winter Panorama

As the snow and cold persisted, we felt sort of obliged to go out and capture some more of the fleeting wonderment of nature to save it, as it were, for enjoyment at a later day.  We first took a walk to Bryan Park, a designation where we normally go to get in a 3-mile run.  The park was quite deserted and the trails not yet all ploughed, as you can see from the picture above.  The frozen swimming pool and colorful water slides looked a bit surreal behind the wired fence.  Now that we've done a snowman, we thought we should also attempt a snow angel.  We picked out a pristine, snow-covered slope in the park and Kirk accordingly plopped down and waved his arms in the snow a couple of times.  I won't tell you what he proceeded to do next; you shall find out in the slide show later.  A big, friendly dog came trotting up to us shortly afterwards and unceremoniously wiped out the angelic impression in the snow, while his owner apologetically remarked on the ephemeral nature of things...

Next we drove up to the campus and walked around there.  The winding paths and footbridges over the little stream, not yet frozen, near Bryan House gave the IU campus a rustic charm in the wintry landscape.  Afterwards, we thought we should go a bit farther and see what the countryside looked like at this time.  The scenery on both sides of the hilly road to Nashville was indeed picturesque.  We drove past a couple of the quintessential Indiana red barns brilliantly silhouetted in the snow but couldn't stop to take pictures.  I suggested that we turn up one of the side roads to the T.C. Steele State Historic Park.  The last time we visited the House of the Singing Winds was in the spring last year.  The Steele's home site stood solitarily on a wind-chilled and snow-bound hilltop, a stark contrast to the verdant splendor when we saw it last.  We were surprised to see that the park was still minded by a woman all alone in one of the small buildings on the site. On the way back, Kirk admitted to being a little jaded after seeing so much snow.  

Here is a slide show of the pictures we took of our outing yesterday, accompanied by one of the songs of Schubert's Winterreise.