A Walk at Lake Minnewashta

This morning I got up, dressed, grabbed my camera and headed to Lake Minnewashta Regional Park. A friend had told me that the trail down by the lake there was pleasant to walk on and I wanted to check out the beach as a possible sunset photography location.

Lake Minnewashta Regional Park

What a beautiful day and a beautiful walk! When I got there the beach was mostly empty but I could see by the time I left that this was going to be a popular spot today. There were people swimming, sunning, kayaking, fishing, and paddle boarding already at a little after 9:00 AM. As I left at a little after 10 AM, I saw families unpacking food for picnics and lots of swimmers arriving at the beach.

I thought I would simply share some of the photos I made as I wandered near the lake and on the trails along with a few favorite quotes today.

I loved seeing the bee flying and the pollen on it’s legs, even though I didn’t get the bee fully in focus. Actually I was focusing on the flower and saw the bee with my peripheral vision. Having it in the shot at all was an accident.

“…The mockingbird took a single step into the air and dropped. His wings were still folded against his sides as though he were singing from a limb and not falling, accelerating thirty-two feet per second, through empty air. Just a breath before he would have been dashed to the ground, he unfurled his wings with exact, deliberate care, revealing the broad bars of white, spread his elegant white-banded tail, and so floated onto the grass. I had just rounded a corner when his insouciant step caught my eye; there was no one else in sight. The fact of his free fall was like the old philosophical conundrum about the tree that falls in the forest. The answer must be, I think, that beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there.”

― Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Half a moon visible above the trees

“Imagine what you’d do if it absolutely didn’t matter what people thought of you. Got it? Good. Never go back.”

― Martha Beck

“relinquishing the delusional hope that we can or must be flawless—allows us to seek happiness in the only place it can be found: our real, messy, imperfect experience.”

― Martha N. Beck, The Martha Beck Collection: Essays for Creating Your Right Life, Volume One

“Make of yourself a light.” — Buddha

“What I want is so simple I almost can’t say it: elementary kindness.”

― Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams

May you walk in beauty.