1 A trail you've never noticed before appears. It connects to a trail you're familiar with and it's old, made of cracked concrete partially covered with washed-out dirt and gravel instead of the mulched woodchips the other trails use. You don't know where it goes.
2 The 'trail closed' barriers are up. They usually only close that section of the park off in the winter. What's happening back there to make them barricade those trails in the middle of summer?
3 A wooden foot bridge across the river that's been swept from its moorings and pulled several feet downstream. It's stable, embedded in the stream bank now, but noticeably skewed.
4 A secluded section of trail looks down from a bluff over the river. On the far bank someone's built a conical lean-to around the base of a tree. There's a clear path down to the river bank and a fallen log you could use as a bridge if you wanted to look closer.
5 The trails you walked and the park maps don't match. The map says there's a single mile-long loop trail in the area you were and doesn't show any hint of the switchbacks, connectors, and forks you found. It took you almost an hour to get back to trails you recognized. Whatever's on the map, it's not where you were.
6 That deer was too calm. The others in the herd ran off when they heard you coming and all you saw were tails and glimpses through the trees. That one though, it just stood there watching you. Or watching behind you? What was it looking at?
7 An overgrown footpath off the official trail leads into a secluded clearing that's too perfect. Just enough shade, no bugs, and a circle of stones all exactly the right size and shape to sit comfortably on arranged around a pile of mushroom-covered logs. It's dead silent.
8 The park's property used to belong to a family. Along one of the trails is a small private graveyard with six stone markers. Each is engraved with the names, dates, and kind epitaphs for the family's departed dogs.
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