Everything changes

I've passed this property almost daily for the last ten years. Until the last couple of years, activity. A car in the drive, an old fellow out mowing the lazy acres.

From the road I could see a lake with a dock, some rowboats, those old metal shell chairs watching out over the water.

Nice place for grand kids, I thought.

Then quiet descended. Ah, the old folks are gone, I thought, and they were.

A year or so later a For Sale sign went up. 

I thought it was an old farm and surely had a beautiful old barn on the property. 

I took a picture on the way down the lane,

Then encountered No Trespassing signs posted on the doors, 

so I backed out to the road and left.

Recently the For Sale sign had Sold pasted over it.

Sold, I learned, to a developer who would split the lots and build two homes.There is so much acreage they will be lovely, secluded homes, only a short walk to the National Park. Hop on a bike. Jog on down. The park is just down the road.

I mentioned to one of the policemen I  would like to take pictures before the buildings were gone. Would anyone catch me?

"Oh, the old campground! No one will care."

I went back down the lane, past a fallen down sign.

Reminded me of Woody Guthrie's walking song, encountering a "Keep off the Grass" sign.

"And on the other side, it didn't say nothing...."

A little worse for wear since the last time I was down.

Every building taped off with Condemned tape.

That was not a barn out back, but a good utility building in its day.

Folks could rent little cabins, or tenting spaces,

eat meals out looking over the lake. 

When I was a child we stayed in so many campgrounds like this, vacationing.

Overlooking a lake.

My brothers fishing off the dock.

Some bulbs coming up in the unseasonably warm December weather, nestled in a warm tractor tire.

An old resident of the township once told me, apropos the homes demolished and ninety odd percent of the township eminent domained by the parks,  

"If you drive down any road and see the daffodils blooming in the woods or in a field, there used to be a house there, with a front porch and a door, a tire swing in the maple tree, kids running...."