When the weather is exquisite, most any walking path will do. I put this philosophy to the test a few days ago and did not find it wanting.

I started from a Target parking lot, a paved path around a containment pond where there was immediate gratification in the form of a trilling mockingbird. The bird perched on the lower limb of a small, low tree, which gave me a chance to stand and watch (as well as listen to) his performance. I almost clapped when he was done.

The path led to a new concrete sidewalk along a two-lane road. It was the kind of area we have many of in the suburbs, the kind you drive past on your way to somewhere else, the kind filled with self-storage units and auto body shops.

A sad little road if you were traversing it on a gloomy March afternoon. But on a sparkling May morning, the water spurting up in the sterile office park pond could have been the Trevi Fountain. That’s how intoxicating it was to be alive and walking on this late spring day.

(Photo by DAVID ILIFF. License: CC-BY-SA 3.0)