Calvin and Hobbes was the comic strip that I felt a special connection to as I grew up. I'm a cat person myself, so there was always a love for Hobbes, and I think the many sides of Calvin are quite reflective of the complex human psyche. My favorite strips, however, occurred in the woods that Calvin wandered, and in which he made his existential ruminations. I envied him for existing in a world where wilderness was so close to his home, as in the Salt Lake valley we usually have a distinction between our wilderness, our foothills, and our residential areas.
On my last trip to Chicagoland (really, they call it that), I stayed in an area that reminded me of Calvin's world. Here small lanes divide up the woods, and houses appear almost randomly throughout the forests. I took the afternoon to drive around and experience autumn here, and I even saw a large owl.
At the home where I grew up, we had our own bits of wilderness. We had a stack of oak trees in the back yard in which my dad made a platform tree fort; there was an old mountain road that cut into the hill above our neighborhood that provided a place for us to get great views and spot wildlife; and there was the mouth of a canyon with all that comes with it: the creek, a reservoir, and an old mill. I suppose that's not a bad start to imaginative childhood wilderness, but when I look at this picture, it reminds me that there's something special to actually living right in the woods.
