Hiking near Granite Falls

Hiking through trails,
Walking through forests,
What do you seek?

I seek to experience the nurturing hand of nature,
The hand that shows up as soothing sounds
of gurgling water in a nearby brook,
The hand that shows up as a bird singing it's song,
The hand that shows up as the beauty of mountains, valleys, and lakes, beckoning you forward.

I seek to become aware of the jarring noise of my thoughts
in the deafening silence of nature,
I seek to internalize the peace that I find in the forest trails,
I seek to put things in perspective by realizing
the ignorance of man in living life monotonously,
while nature beckons, as always.

Did a solid 4 hr hike in trails near a place called Granite Falls, around 40 miles from Seattle. I noticed a lot of logging going around this area and also heard a few gunshots. I came across a fence with a few horses idling around inside. I stood at the fence and the horses came around and said hello! As I reached my hand out towards them, they first thoroughly whiffed their noses around my hand before letting me touch them.
Also saw a coyote and a black bunny along the way. I wasn't hiking to any particular destination, just randomly exploring the trails nearby. I guess I walked the half-marathon distance of 21 kms today.. Pretty tiring!

Seward park experience

"Imagine yourself sitting below a tree on pristine green grass with dew drops glistening in the late afternoon sun. Imagine that you are less than a feet away from a lake that is moving rhythmically creating a beautiful sound as the gentle waves splash the shore, with ducks wading along doing some gymanastic upside down flips. Now as you look across, you see the shoreline, dotted with a few tall trees, winding along a curve and your gaze meets the sun that's sending you it's warm rays, providing comfort in the cold weather around. As you close your eyes, you take in all the beauty and sounds and let yourself become more peaceful and content for the moment..."
Now, if you are into meditations, you would say, "this is starting to sound like a nice guided meditation".

Getting back to where I left off..
Now as you become content in the moment, you start hearing some random noises and you recognize them as: A few kids running around with their uncle yelling at them to put on their jackets, two or three 30 something women walking along with their dogs, discussing their ex-boyfriends, and a couple not too far away, who just can't get enough of each other.

Now, this would go down as a Seward Park experience.
I did hike around in the old-growth forest trails in Seward park for around an hour and a half before the above experience happened. One of the trails lead me to an interesting amphi-theatre that reminded me of the open air theatre (OAT) in my undergrad college, back in India.
The Seward park has a very interesting geography as you can see in the map below. It juts out into the lake, almost making it an island. On a clear day, the Mount Rainier is also visible from the East side of the park.

Discovery park again

Felt an impulse to go to the discovery park. It was cloudy when I started, but when I hit the discovery park, it was sunny! The last time I had been to discovery park, it was cloudy to begin with and midway through the hike it started raining!

I decided to explore the South beach and South bluff(or cliff) of the discovery park and this side has some gorgeous views of Mount olympics. At one point (you are standing at the edge of the cliff) you can see the cliff dropping down a few 100 feet into the beach, then there's the puget sound lake, then a few islands, and then the mt. olympics..One of the mountains in the Olympic ranges reminds me of the mountain in the Lord of the rings. Also looking at these mountains in their glory brings out a tune in my mind... 'Will you follow me?' by Rob Dougan (youtube it to listen). Didn't have a camera (gifted it to my family) to capture the scenery. Altogether, a rejuvenating 2 hr hike.