Courtney Pauls- Noland Tail

The other day the class took a trip out to the Noland Trail. After a few minutes of walking around and Dr. Redick pointing out a few things to the class, we split up. Honestly, for a good ten minutes I had no idea what to do out there. What was I looking for? What is this trip even about? Why am I out here being eaten by insects? Would something amazing just happen already so I could write my assignment? Over the next half hour out there, I answered a few of those questions. The first question I was able to answer was about the bugs that were biting. Prior to going out on the Noland Trail, it had thunder stormed and the environment was hot and humid. In addition to the storm that had just passed, there is water all over the Noland Trail that can act as breeding pools for mosquitoes. After I realized that the bug issue was not going away, I turned my attention to the assignment. I really was not sure what to look for, so I stood on the bridge for a long while. While standing there, watching intently for something miraculous to happen, I answered another one of my questions. I realized that if I kept looking for something amazing to happen, it was not going to happen. When I thought of this, it reminded me of Lane’s first axiom “sacred place is not chosen, it chooses”. I was trying to make that spot on the trail sacred and that was completely wrong. After realizing this, I decided to just stand on the bridge and watch the turtles. It was interesting to look down in the water and see bubbles coming up to the surface. I did not know what those bubbles were from, but I am guessing a turtle. While contemplating the origin of those bubbles, I realized that it related to Rudolph Otto’s mysterium tremendum et fascinans. I had no idea what was in the water and that was definitely the unknown. There was also a bit of fear for a second when my mind contemplated what the creature could be. Was it a huge fish capable of swallowing me whole? Did I need to call Jeremy Wade to come catch this river monster? In all likelihood, it was just a turtle, but there was still a tiny bit of fear. After looking at the bubbles for a while, I decided to walk up the hill a bit and onto a small peninsula. As I reached the edge, I heard sounds of scattering. Come to find out, there where about thirty turtles sunbathing on logs right by the edge of the land. These turtles were just content to be relaxing on a log in the sun on a beautiful day. It made me wish that I was more content just relaxing sometimes. Even when I was out on the trail, I was still thinking about how I needed to practice for a lesson that night and all of the homework I needed to do. I wish I was more like a turtle and spend my days relaxing near the water. After I accidentally scared some turtles away, I walked back to the bridge to look at the turtles again. To my surprise, I saw more than just turtles. There were about one hundred little fish swimming around the turtles. I spent my childhood fishing in the waters right out of Poquoson and on first sight I thought the fish were baby Spot. I went home and looked this up to realize that they were actually Blue Gill. I spent a little bit of time watching the fish follow the turtles around. After a while, along came a baby turtle. I could tell he was a baby because he was smaller and did not have the motor skills of the other turtles. Instead of swimming with both of his front arms, he would only use one at a time. The other turtles would swim in a fairly straight path while this turtle took more of a zig-zag route. On my way out of the trail, I passes back by the spot where the class had previously stopped and talked about the water that smelt like a dirty fish tank. I saw the plant pot that had washed up from someone not disposing of it properly. This reminded me a little about my paper and how pollution can take desacralize a site. Besides that area smelling, it could have been a pretty cool sight, but to me the flower pot just made it look horrible. The pot turned what should have been just a smelly pond into a polluted area with a disgusting vibe. In the end, I answered all of my questions about the Noland Trail trip. I probably would have gotten more out of the trip if  I had followed Lanes first axiom from the start.