In college I used to hike the woods around campus, looking for wildlife. You could usually catch site of a deer or two, sometimes a mink or a fox. One afternoon in January, I was going a little stir crazy, so I decided to take the camera out on a hike, determined to get a nice photo of a deer.
I took one of my usual routes where I had seen deer before (sans camera, of course), and kept my camera at the ready. Needless to say, the deer did not get the memo, and no deer were to be seen. On the tail leg of my hike, dejected by my failure to see even one deer, sure enough off in the woods I spy a nice buck. The woods were thick enough that I only had an obstructed view. I then made my tragic error: I left the trail.
The deer went deeper in to the woods, as you would expect, and I followed, thinking (thinking?) I could a) keep up, and b) get a better view. I was confident I knew where I was headed, and where I had come from, and that I could find my way back.
Fast forward: I never saw that deer again that day, and I got totally discombobulated as to my whereabouts. As light faded, and winter chill set in, I now faced the realization that I was lost in the woods in the middle of January. I imagined the headline: "College sophomore freezes to death in woods... deer eludes capture."
Trudging on, I emerged out of the woods into a cornfield. I headed toward the road, and made my way back to campus. I never got the picture of the deer, and instead all I got was this picture of the lousy cornfield.
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