I Was Almost Killed!

How do I describe what just happened to me? The photo you see above is of the same exact fallen tree that is being offered by Rob as free wallpaper over at Nature Center Magazine right now (Shameless plug. Yeah!!). I took this one to illustrate what I'm about to tell you. I took a similar picture earlier in the day for the comparison I mentioned. But then something bigger than any one human happened!

I was coming back out of Woodland Hills Nature Park, where I had a winter fall that I reminded you about a few days ago. It was a slightly windy day, but it also happened to be the first day of the year that I could go out without a jacket. I had been hearing the trees slightly creaking from the wind all day long, but I thought nothing of it.

I was finishing up from a wonderful day. I was daydreaming about the wonderful sights and sounds that I will show you in the days to come. There are two trails going through this park, and I purposely chose the very trail where I had fallen last winter. It turns out that I might have been very lucky that I did this.

I was about 3/4 of the way out of the park, and at a point where the two trails are closest to each other. I was listening to the trees creak in the wind when all of a sudden off towards the other trail one of those creaking sounds began to grow into a groaning sound! The groaning turned into a mighty tearing, crashing sound!

I turned towards the sound as it was all happening. I saw a huge tree falling down in my direction through all of the other trees. It was as loud as standing next to a freight train! As the tree fell, I saw it break in two more places on the trunk! Splinters were flying everywhere! It looked for all the world as if the tree had exploded!

I stood there staring in awe. All I could do was stupidly utter, "Wow..." I wasn't close enough to be in any danger, but if I had chosen the other trail it was right where I would have been. I came within one choice of possibly being killed by a falling tree. Even though I witnessed this from the other trail, I actually felt the ground shake from the tree crashing down!

My first thought was to cross over to the other trail to see the results of the devastation. But very soon I heard more crashes as if they were aftershocks like in an earthquake. That made the decision for me. I was going to leave the park, staying on the trail all the way! Checking out the fallen tree could wait.

This all happened in maybe only a few seconds. I always thought if a tree was falling that I might be able to simply step out of the way. Now that I've seen it happen, I know I would never have that chance. It's just too fast. I also realize now that I've witnessed an event that only a few people in the entire world have seen. I'm guessing most of those few people commonly see things like that. Most others have never seen this outside of TV.

I did end up going and looking for the tree later on as the paths crossed. I couldn't find which tree it was. It apparently didn't fall across the trail. But take a look at these photos. This forest looks like it has been torn apart by a giant. There is something very wrong here, and it started a few years ago. Many of the trees are dying.

I thought it was just the wind at first. This is not the only time I've had a close call in this forest. A year and a half ago I told of a similar story where I had to climb over a tree that had fallen across my path here. It was a very windy day that day. The forest looked fine until then. In another week the forest had lost maybe one in five trees. Apparently it's still happening.

The tree in the above photo is what remains of the tree that fell across my path that year. As you can see by the other pictures, there are too many fallen trees for me to find the one that I just watched come down. Besides, my search wasn't very detailed for obvious reasons. I wanted out of there.

I'll tell you now that I will definitely be back there. It didn't scare me that much, or maybe even enough to have sense enough to get the hell out of there then. The one thing I want to tell you to wrap this story up is this: If you are in the forest and you hear the trees creaking, pay close attention! ...If it's not already too late.

Nothing On The Moon

One night ago I took this picture of the Moon. It looks like a full Moon, but I actually took it one night before the full Moon. I'm not sure I could tell the difference if the two were in front of me. I just thought it would be fun to practice taking Moon pictures again.

The last time I took pictures of the Moon was November 4th of last year. It was the first time I was able to get anything but a white blur in the sky. This one is even better than those. I think my last story might have had more good information than this one though. I include a link on how to do this in that post.

The thing I really thought was interesting this time though was the odd little dot that was moving around on the surface of the Moon. I keep wondering what it might be. I guess it was nothing...

No, really! It was nothing! I'm just kidding. There was nothing moving around on the Moon. Do you hear that, government people!! I saw nothing! Nothing at all!