Wander project Raven and Dylan's walk continued - inviting deer for dinner...

The point of known return is an aeronautics term. It describes the moment of the commit. That line, or distance that once you get there, you can still safely turn around and return. After that point, it is equal-distant, and then you are closer to where you are going than you are to where you were. There are a couple of those points in our daily walk. We track them when it is cloudy and may rain. We do have a second option, and that is the point of calling home. We’ve been out in a few torrential downpours over the years. Sometimes we have umbrellas and weather the storm. Sometimes we stand under a tree and wait for someone to drive over and pick us up.

Sometimes, we just get wet. Yesterday was such a day on the walk. The rain wasn’t enough to slow us down. It was comfortable outside with a high around 75, The Labs complain about it being too hot right around 80. The dogs are older now, Dylan has been walking with me for seven years, Raven has been walking for five years now. Dylan joined our family in our first Maryland house. Raven joined us after the old lady (Fran) passed away. I remember the first walk we took Raven on. Her previous life had been hard; she was a rescue. It took her a couple of months to adjust to walking every day. I suspect we’ve prolonged her life by 2-3 years by walking every day.

The pictures today are of the part of our walk that is just after the fire station as we crest the hill and take the short connection to the road that runs behind our house. This is the first point of known return. We know that it is equal-distant from the firehouse to the house, either way. Although if it is raining hard, we can cut through the back yard of the neighborhood and shave off a ½ mile. We’ve done that in a downpour a couple of times. Dylan’s favorite part of the walk comes after we turn the corner past the firehouse. Then, we walk towards the large Greenway behind our neighborhood. There is one in front of our neighborhood and one behind our neighborhood. We’ve seen deer run across the road there many times.

Dylan would like to invite a deer to the house for dinner.