This was my first time visiting Brown’s Bog, and, I must admit, it was much more pleasant than my last encounter with a bog, when I found myself waist-deep in the muck, having to be pulled out by my classmates when I was in middle school. This visit was much more tame, and I was able to appreciate the specific, barren beauty that accompanies winter. The trees were bare and spindly, and the pitcher plants, red and delicate, were a striking bit of color among the shades of brown.
Over our last fall break, I accompanied the WOODs club at Wooster to Red River Gorge, Kentucky. It was my first time camping, and one day I decided to partake in a more challenging hike. On the trip that our class took to the bog, a part of me was immediately transported back to that hike in Kentucky, particularly when we decided to take the short hike that looped back to the bus at the end of our excursion. The somewhat bare expanses of land, the trail itself, and even the rain seemed, in that moment, almost identical to that hike in Kentucky. I was experiencing nostalgia in a place where I had never been before. I think it is interesting to consider the universality of beauty, and how there can be such similar beauty in two entirely different places. I think that, in this way, as well as many other ways, nature can be unifying.