My wife is taking the lead on the walk. I always thought family would slow me down in my travels; boy, was I right. My load isn't too bad--maybe 20 lbs on my back, and 13.5 in front--but she marches unencumbered down the gravel trail. I labor behind, trying to keep pace, eventually noticing a trail darting into the woods. It's wide enough for a four-wheeler, but muddy and unkempt; most likely ignored since the last hunt months ago. The hole it carves in the treeline makes it seem like a cave, an entrance to a dark, unknown place.

"Ya wanna go this way?" I call ahead.

"Sure," she turns back. Besides, the road ends at a private driveway.

There's a smell of floral genocide that permeates the air once we're inside the cave. The leaves are not making a grand exit this year, choosing instead to die quick, undignified deaths that take them from green to a mottled yellow in little more than a day. The dying plants team up with yesterday morning's cold rain produce a smell that I love, that I've missed. Mammals sure as hell don't smell this good when they rot. I feel like I'm consuming the very essence of autumn with every breath; becoming more Wisconsin again.

At first the trail is steep, but it eventually levels off. No spectacular views, despite our elevation. Neither birds sing nor animals creep as we clamor down this dark trail which comes from nowhere, and seems to lead to the same. Without direction or purpose, we continue onward. The wind provides our only conversation. Dare we ask it any questions?

We eventually tire of drifting in nothingness and decide to simply turn back. The same trail faces us, now from a different direction. We do not tire of the view, because it looks different from this angle. I notice downed logs--beautiful in their advanced state of decay--that have become a haven for a variety of fungi.

"Do you think they're edible?" My wife asks. I chuckle.

The sun, so benign and omnipresent on the drive here, becomes a thousand orange glimmers as it cuts its way through the darkness and scatters itself at random intervals throughout our path. Its scarcity here makes it a beautiful commodity, filtering lazily through the rapidly diminshing leaf cover above. I sure as hell didn't have beautiful metaphors for the sun when it was burning my eyes on the way here.

The exit to the path, once a entrance to a dark cavern, has become an exit to a world of light. The painful grade coming up has now turned to a hand-in-hand downward descent. As we exit, I feel almost as if I've been under water, breaking the surface and gasping for lungfuls of sunlight.

As we walk down the path, my darling wife takes my hand, "This was a great walk."

The load on my front begins to stir, her eyes opening and lazily staring at the treeline to her left. Lily focuses for a long time, neither confused nor amazed, simply content. After a while she looks up at me and smiles. I only wish I could see the world from her angle--how incredible it must seem.

Yes, family has slowed me down. Once upon a time, from a different angle, I thought this to be a bad thing.