Smoke follows Beauty -- and Beauty was a horse.

Here I am in the Western suburbs of Chicago, doing my work thing. Bad news on one front, we will not get a chunk of business we recently quoted. Win some lose some, but I sure wanted this piece of business. I guess I will drown my sorrow in a beer with dinner.

I had the strangest dreams last night, all of them had to do with camping, hiking or being in the woods. The last one I was walking the trails of Camp Cullom, an old Boy Scout camp of my youth. I have not been there in 20 years, at least. Now it is some bullshit nature preserve or such. They planted trees on the athletic fields and on the parade ground. They tore out the dam and made the waterfront into some kind of wetlands. I do not think they even allow camping any more. Almost all of the old Boy Scout camping areas I frequented as a snot-nose punk kid are not used any more. If you are from Central Indiana you will remember Camp K, Redwing, Rotary, Bear Creek, Cullom -- I camped at all of them.

In my dream, I could remember each trail in perfect detail, even the rarely used one over on the third ridge. Dreams are so strange. I was just walking. Do any of you Freudians out there know what this dream might mean?

I remember one time at Cullom sitting on the trail and I saw three does walk by within twenty yards of me. That same afternoon I watched a box turtle walk down the path pst my feet. I must have sat there motionless for hours. Probably I was supposed to be off doing some Boy Scout thing, but I preferred to run off to the woods.

It has been a long time since I camped or hiked in the woods.