Welcome to Breadcrumb Crater

Welcome to Breadcrumb Crater, established in 1999, the wooden sign said. It was placed right between the two largest oak trees of the forest in such a perfectly symmetrical way that you wouldn't be surprised if someone were to tell you the trees were planted right next to the sign. But then again, the sign said 1999 and these trees looked like they had been there for ages already. For all we know, they could've been planted hundreds of years ago by two native American love birds as a token of their never ending, undying and unconditional love. At least that's what I liked to believe when I first put my backpack down against the trunk of the largest oak tree. Wouldn't it be nice in an ironic kind of way if this had been the one the girl had planted, I wondered. Quite typical of me actually, to start dwelling in my own auto-generated thoughts and swing a boomerang right into the usual stream of consciousness which should have been directed at the goal of my journey, but at this particular moment it obviously wasn't. Maybe it was because I had already walked such a long way, with my eyes and feet pointing towards this sign, the next intermediary stop. I had reached that stop now, overwhelmed with joy, relief and most of all a strange kind of exhilarating tiredness. The kind that keeps you up at night to talk and talk because you know before dawn you will kiss her, and you know that this talking only builds up the tension even more. Sure, you're tired. Sure, she's tired. But you're both immersed in this great energy streaming passed your every vain, like a non-stop rollercoaster after closing hours with the lights out. That's how I felt. The air was fresh & healthy in a non-hippie kind of way: straight in your face unbreakable. My eyes meandered along the contours of the tree crowns until they reached the circle's starting point again. My dizzy head needed a cigarette. I tried to blow the smoke through the imaginary circle I had just drawn with my eyes, but gave up quickly and threw myself against my heavy backpack.

(to be continued)