Friday, July 30, 2010

Ghosts


Tater the terrier.

My husband and I adopted a dog from a local shelter in May and the little guy likes to walk. A lot. So twice a day I traverse the half mile from my home to Druid Hill Park, where we climb the switchback paths through the wooded terrain. What an amazing place. The forest smothers the sounds of the city and suddenly you are surrounded by the hum of nature. The park is 745 acres. It was purchased in 1860 from a landowner named George Buchanan, and developed into this lustrous playground of streams, lakes, playfields, and a zoo. Druid Hill Lake, built in 1863, is the largest earthen damned lake in the country.

Today, many of the features of the original park are overgrown and forgotten. Three Sisters Lane leads you past a deep, sunken section where kudzu and grapevine cover everything, including what once was a section of landscaped park with three manmade ponds. This was where sea lions would play. The effect of all that overgrowth is ethereal, like a house that's been closed up and its possessions shrouded with sheets. I have yet to master taking pictures while controlling a puppy, so I turn to another photographer...Here are some images taken from the Web site Monumental City.



Stairs to nowhere.


Some kind of a well?


A fence surrounds one of the ponds




The "Forgotten Fountain"