My Great Escape (Place Paper)

My Great Escape
After a long day, sometimes I need to flee from the chaos; the dam at Lake Tyler is my safe haven, where I go to escape. The dam acts as a wall that keeps out unwanted things.   When I go there, I feel relieved of all the stress and worries in my life. Nothing touches me here, not pain nor hurt.   It is my place, where I go to think about things that hang around on my mind or bothering me.  
When I take the first steps out of my car, I feel the sun beaming down on me. The sky appears as clear as a brand new window, with no clouds in sight. A light breeze comes bringing with it the aromas of my surroundings: a field filled with dying grass and little white flowers growing tall, mounds of dirt where footprints linger from the kids playing, and the skeletons of fireworks from the most recent Fourth of July. In the distance, I hear birds singing their songs of joy and happiness and the crickets playing their legs like violins.
As I walk closer, I see the weathered spray-painted words ‘Skip + Judy = Forever’ and ‘Class of ‘79’, all the history painted there like an easel and they became the artists. The spray-painted history makes the magic of the dam even more fascinating.   Seeing the words make me wonder “What happened to them?” The dam holds so many years on its face. Only if it could talk, the stories it would tell, one can only wonder.   As I walk the ledge of the dam, I see a school of tiny black minnows swim past like NASCAR drivers on the track at Daytona. If I am lucky, I might catch a glimpse of a fish leaping from the water as it gasps from the fresh air from above. I walk past an old man, who dressed in his fishing vest and his safari hat with countless colors lures tied on concentrates for the tiniest jerk from his pole. He sees me approach and nods in my direction and I smile back with a silent hello.
When I reach the edge of the woods, I look down the black asphalt path that seems to go on and on; the yellow brick road from The Wizard...