Off the Beaten Track

I walk the rail trail into Manchester, and the border is the approximate beginning of where some homeless try to stay. It is in an inconvenient place for either police department to check up on them frequently, about a half mile in from either side.  It is right along the river, as RT's often are, so there is water. It is lightly wooded, and untamed, so there is underbrush. This type of homeless person usually has tents and lives in a group of 2-4, not near another tent or part of a little village, as we sometimes see elsewhere. They are good at being unobtrusive, though not invisible.  You don't hear them, you don't notice them. They aren't a high priority for law enforcement unless they cause some other problem.  

People are in and out of there on little side trails off the main trail. There's not much point in going down the trails, as they just peter out after a few hundred yards, usually at a place where one can fish, have a fire without being easily noticed, or draw water. You seldom see people, but you see signs of people at the beginnings of those trails - bags of trash, usually. Looking ahead on the trail, you can see small groups suddenly disappear off to the side. There was a sign of some sort barely visible out in the woods.  I figured it was one of those "No camping, no fires..." signs put up by the town. But it had a face, so I wondered if it was a political sign that had been moved. 

 A little further on was another poignant display.

 

Further still was a tent, looked recently abandoned.  It is getting cold at night. There was an upside down shopping carriage, not that near any paved area, also newish. A fenced in area with Danger! signs, but the fences had been bent and cut through.  I know from the geography that no one was staying inside there, it was only a way to cut through to get down to the riverbank below the dam. A small fire circle with a dog's bowl. 

All this a stone's throw from where a few hundred people walk every day, many more on weekends. It's a different and parallel world with more sadness than ours.