Kenyen Road is one of my favorite places on the face of the earth. It is a place of rural isolation, where the lens of my camera attempts to focus in on an image. It is a place to walk, explore and try to clear my mind. It is one of great color, with the leaves changing in the fall.

I see so much of myself as I walk along this road. It brings out an inner peace. And in the half mile that isn't developed I am alone. I just don't see how all this beauty can continue to exist if you decide to move to here. A man who pulls up in his SUV shatters my world, and rolls down his window asking, "hey are you looking for some property". I quickly shrug him off in shell shock.

I know this proposition is not unreasonable. I look young, adventurous, rural, and free. But I don't want to contribute to this kind of sprawl that is rapidly eating up the wilderness. I look around and I see new houses are being built along this road. They are slowly but surely eating up the beautiful landscape. The world of yesteryear is quickly receding into the past. The world of natural beauty is being destroyed by contemporary rationalism. It is the desire to build, to bring out, and to experience nature as an essential part of our lives.

Certainly these houses mean a lot to their owners. They can experience this beauty everyday, at a depth far deeper then my occasional visits to Renselearville State Forest and Kenyen Roads. I have photographs, and they look out their window to see beauty. I'm most impressed by the one house and barns neatly built that run a small cattle farm. At least this person is using the land as it once was originally used, even though his farm is taking away from the wilds.

The area that makes up Renselearville State Forest will never be developed. It is forever wild. Yet it is limited, and it's beauty can not be compared to neighboring areas with their former farm fields growing up and leaving sweeping vistas of the Catskills and other mountains around me. I fear that such land will be gone in the future.