Went out for an early morning walk for a little time away from the air conditioned hotel. Down to Onion creek, a greenbelt park in the floodplain, crossed by two pipelines buried under a cut across the steep sedimentary banks. It is a heavily used park, with some folks living out of their cars along the access road. Along the creek there are signs of deer, dogs, dog walkers, egrets wading or in flight, fishermen (one midstream in waders, and the chairs set up for absent anglers), tree climbers, and above all the waters: all through the trails and scrub there are signs of past flooding, water-tossed logs, a mulch of branches, twigs, and man-made detritus large and small.
I came upon two forest giants, bald cypress trees on opposite banks of the creek that must have been — even a century ago — too big to extract. A knotted rope dangled from the giant of the north bank, the ladder of some ascended sentinel of the creek.
Climb on up, the view is unequalled.