I was walking to Rivendell yesterday, and I took a route that I usually do not go. It was very strange. If I looked back, I could see the road, with its nasssty cars and tricksy traffic lights, but if I just looked right around where I was, I felt like I'd stepped right into Ithilien, just before the WotR.

I was walking in a dry creekbed because that was the easiest on my poor exhausted feet. There were grasses and a few trees, but it almost looked like there had been a garden there once. The soil was dry and sandy, and the creek had eroded the sides so that they resembled small cliffs. I almost expected to see Gollum and the hobbits coming along behind me.

My Middle earth is all aroud me because I live in the farmlands of Virginia. as I am driving by the huge feiald I would almost expect to see some hobbits or some elves or en epic battle between humans and orcs it is really cool.

Near the house where I used to live about 6 years ago, there is another Middle Earth-like place. It is a forested area with a creek running through it and at one point there is a high rocky ledge on one side of it. It seems a lot like Ithilien to me, and I sitll go there when I visit my relatives who live nearby.

[ August 13, 2003: Message edited by: Meneltarmacil ]

Wisconsin? My best friend is moving there. [img]smilies/frown.gif[/img] The only friend I have that likes LOTR as much as me.

We have woods behind our house, but it's literally like a 90 degree slope with lots of pricker bushes and tall branchless trees. The soil is so loose that you can go up there and push a tree and it will fall down. There is evil there that does not sleep. The very air you breathe is a poisonous fume. Okay, those last two things are lies, but I like never go up there because my parents think a tree will fall on me. [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] That's about as close as it gets to Middle-earth at my house. [img]smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img]

My middle-earth is in the cemetery across the road from me.

There is an old burial mound (I dont know how old but it would probably date to bronze/iron age im guessing.) in a corner of the cemetery with a solitary tree on the top and it reminds me of one of the barrows on the barrow-downs.

When i'm there I half expect fog to engulf me and a phantom figure to appear.. [img]smilies/eek.gif[/img]

I live in a small town right by the sea, but unfortunately, it doesn't remind me of ME at all. It is a very touristic place, and there used to be a lot of greenery, but the last years, everyting has changed, houses and appartements are popping up everywhere... it is really sad [img]smilies/frown.gif[/img]

Last year, I went to Switzerland and Austria, and there I felt like I was in ME. It is so unspoiled, and I really love the mountains.

I'm still looking for the perfect place though, a really big dark forest, like Mirkwood. Now that would be ME to me... [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]