Webs in the Woods

I awoke in the cool, quiet woods and watched the sun start at the tops of the trees and work its way down. It took a while for the sun's rays to reach the ground, but when they did, they did so dramatically, filling the woods with long, slim shafts of light that cut right through the darkness.

Eventually, we started getting up and out of our tents for the day, my husband in his tent and me in mine. He was out and about first. Me, I like to lollygag a while, as the "playing house" part of waking up in a tent is one of my favorite parts of camping out.

But after a while, even I needed to go outside. Nature calls, and even in the woods, one must answer. As I was walking back to our campsite, I saw a huge, gorgeous spider web backlit perfectly by the coming light. I mentally marked the spot and decided to come back with my camera and take the picture. Of course, when I came back, I couldn't find it again! This was the conversation we had:

Husband: Did you find it? The same web you were looking for?

Me: No, of course not. I should have just taken my camera along. But who takes a camera along to go to the bathroom?

Husband: YOU do.

Me, shaking head: No, not even me. But I will NEXT time!

And then, not unlike the cat worrying over a cat treat that it missed on the front steps, I combed the woods for webs, and boy did I find some nice ones! No, I never came across that original one, but I found plenty more.

The image above is a picture of the woods shot through a spider web. It turned out rather strange, which made me happy. Somehow my little spidey has turned into a pointillist representation of a spider, its legs tiny orange jewels strung together. The woods look a combination of dark and deep and green.

And let me toss in a bit of advice here. If you are walking in the woods these days, you might want to carry a stick, and hold it in front of you so that you might break any webs you walk into rather than wear them on your person. I have seen (and done) the spider dance plenty of times; take my word on this, the stick is a good idea. Know this: the webs are there, whether you see them or not. (Random thought: Gee, I'm glad spiders don't fly!)

I came back from my web adventures to find my husband reading his book quietly at the campsite. Of course, he had completely taken his tent down while I was away chasing webs. An earlier conversation:

Me: Are you taking your tent down?

Husband, clearly removing tent poles, lying through his teeth: No, no, of course not!

So he was already done taking down his tent and had been starting to pack his backpack, when he stopped to take a break and do some reading. When I looked to the left, I saw another wonderful web, and realized I could capture the shot with both backpacker and web in it. And so I did, and that one ended up sort of weird too. You may find that photo (backpacker with web) in the extras.

I had been up as late as I ever am the night before, singing and dancing to Springsteen and Crew in the wilderness, in the moonlight. My husband had been falling asleep in his chair and I teased him about that:

Me: I was the one up late last night dancing in the moonlight while you were snoozing in your chair.

Husband: I wasn't sleeping; I was just trying to get the moonlight out of my eyes.

I didn't really expect to find much to take pictures of in the woods on this trip, as the campsite is comfortable, but a bit on the plain side. However, the light both days we were there was just spectacular. (As were the webs, of course.)

And so I had lots of fun taking photos. The evening before, as the light faded, I'd been smiling to myself, happily reviewing all of the pictures by playing them back one by one on the big screen on the back of my camera. And this was the conversation we had:

Me: Look at this! The magic is in the camera.

Husband: No, hon, the magic is in YOU. It's in your eyes.

The soundtrack: Peter Gabriel, with In Your Eyes. I'm including two versions: an awesome 10-minute live version from the Secret World Live tour, and a version that uses clips from the film Say Anything (and yes, featuring the Cusack-holding-up-the-boombox scene where this song is famously playing).