As winter nears its end I’m thinking about spring, especially after seeing this beautiful little tree start to blossom near my office. What is best to do in springtime after being generally cooped up in winter? Saunter:

“Hiking—I don’t like either the word or the thing. People ought to saunter in the mountains—not hike! Do you know the origin of that word, ‘saunter’? It’s a beautiful word. Away back in the Middle Ages people used to go on pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and when people in the villages through which they passed asked where they were going, they would reply, “A la sainte terre,” ‘To the Holy Land.’ And so they became known as sainte-terre-ers or saunterers. Now these mountains are our Holy Land, and we ought to saunter through them reverently, not ‘hike’ through them.” —John Muir, as quoted in The Mountain Trail and Its Message, 1911