The truck is loaded, the food is packed, the rifle is cleaned and I am ready to point the ford north and get out of town... Its that time of year again and the annual snow shoe trip is about to begin...

Back in the woods of upstate NY there is a little cabin, shack may be a better term, that is waiting for us... We make it a habit to get together every year and snow shoe in for a weekend. The food is loaded on sleds and we hike the 4 miles through the woods. Bringing a few friends with me this year. It will be a first for them... These guys have never been to "Nowhere land" located smack in the middle of 100,000 acres of nothing... It always interesting bring folks up there too experience what lots of folks have never seen...Absolutely nothing.... There is no sound except the wind and the occational pop of a tree as the ice works its magic... There are no lights to be seen... When the sun drops its is black, no glow of a city on the horizon, no yard lights... The stillness that surrounds the place in the winter is staggering. There are very few critters about. Its a tough place to live in February... They have either left dodge for easier pickings or slumber the winter months away waiting for the first signs of warmth in the spring...

The last friend I brought in with me had an uneasy look on his face for the first hour of the trip...After a bit out of the clear blue he announced " I know what it is!"..... "you know what what is?" .... "I know whats been buggin me"... He had just figured out that he had never been anywhere where there was absolutely no noise... He had never been far enough away from mankind to not hear some trace of it, however faint it might have been... He seemed more at ease after his revelation...

So we will hike in, the six of us. We will have a supper of venison steaks cooked over an open fire. We will draw our water to wash the dishes from an old hand pump we took from a burned down barn. We will sit around a wood stove that has been in one family member or anothers house or camp for at least 80 years. We will shoot rifles at beer cans hung on the low branches. We will play cribbage on a board made by my father when he was 12 years old, we will crap in an out house we stole from behind a neighbors house in the dark of night (that another story for another time).... We will live, like folks ought to live every once and awhile... No phones, no electricity, no alarm clocks, no schedules....... No worries...

I can't wait...