Everyone needs room to run.

Last weekend, we discovered a new park. It is over 200 acres of woods, meadows and water, which equals in my mind, room to run.

Everyone needs room to run, whether they realize it or not. We spend so much time cooped up in cars or houses or offices...we need the freedom of no walls and endless skies, the magic of nature and discovery.

First, however, we had to find the park. It was a little drive down a bunch of country roads that looked like this:

Isn't that delightful? I would love to go down roads like this every day! Beautiful country lanes.
And, we passed a lot of these hay bales in fields along the way.

Then we found the park...and set out to explore. First we had to go into the woods, where we followed a trail...
and then we ended up in a field.
And, we let Annie off leash here to run wild...so she was very much feeling like Miss Adventure Doggy.
We kept going and going and going....
Except when I made them stop for pictures.

and, then, oh, boy, we discovered water...
and we discovered Annie could swim! (Thank goodness, because I don't think I could drag 80 lbs of wet labrador out of the deep water!)

She would swim out, then swim back, and then shake off...over and over and over again.

And, she started bringing back sticks the boys threw...and even sticks they didn't throw... you'll see...

The first few sticks were small...
Then she started diving for bigger ones!

and bigger ones...
and bigger ones...

Holy cow.
I'm at a loss for words.
Then we made her run around in a field (with the kids, of course) to dry off some before we headed back.

And, I reckon we only explored a few acres of this place. a few acres out of over 200. Guess where we're going next weekend?