The Labyrinth

Late yesterday morning I set off to see and walk the Labyrinth at Olbrich Park, made out of donated Christmas trees after the holidays.  There's a short video about it here.  A peaceful, meditative walk sounded like something I could really use and I hoped to visit before there were too many people since it was a weekend.  There weren't so many people when I got there, but it was anything but peaceful.  I guess no one read the sign at the entrance.  Or, more likely, they just didn't care.

There was an entrance area by the parking lot made of old Christmas trees, then along the right side of the path to the labyrinth they had several different types of trees used as Christmas trees displayed and labelled, more kinds than I thought there were, actually.  Then at the labyrinth I noticed small children making noise and running around as kids do.  Parents stood around in the labyrinth talking, blocking the walkways, or else walking in pairs being anything but contemplative.  And a dog walker taking several minutes to dig her phone out of her backpack while it continued to ring or more likely an alarm.

I managed to get halfway through, well, not quite due to people gathered in the middle, then stepped over the tree branches lining the paths to leave.  There was simply no way to use the labyrinth as it was meant at this time.  On the way back to the car I really noticed how cold it was.  I had never checked the temperature before I left, but it was only 6ºF when I got home.  If I realized that I might not have gone in the first place.  Maybe I'll try again after work some warmer day this week, but this visit was not the experience I hoped it would be.