The water is a blue glass reflecting the splendid October Sunday. The lake could be called calm, or only slightly rippled, as is my serenity.
Every now and then the wind dances by and gives a gentle tweak to the tallest of trees lakeside.
We are four: my daughter, her husband, their 5-year-old and me. We have come to see Loch Raven Reservoir in its autumn finery.
We have also come to see if Maxie can ride his first two-wheeler without the training wheels on the road that hugs the shore for a few miles.
The freshness of October hangs about us and lifts our spirits as we park the car and prepare to walk a bit.
It has been about 15 years since I've been to Loch Raven, I don't know why I waited so long. Too lazy to drive that far, probably. It is six miles north of Towson, 30 minutes from my house.
I'd been too absorbed in daily tasks, yet I had missed the Baltimore landmark that gives the city dweller a "reservoir" of tangible loveliness and another reason to guard our natural resources.
No gasoline motors are allowed on Loch Raven's waters. You can rent boats by getting a permit and you can fish. The watershed is one of Baltimore's oldest with 8,000 acres, of which 2,400 are the lake itself.
This day it was like a reunion with an old friend. One reason I wanted to go there was to head off my pre-paranoia about the coming of winter. Face it, it will come, and frankly last winter left some scars.
When the leaves start to fall I get my angst in gear. And a lake is a good place to find solace because it will always be there as the season slides downhill toward another winter.
Loch Raven is a curvaceous mass of coves and caves. We pause to watch the geese, ducks and birds of all kinds gather on the reservoir's "Feather Island," so aptly named. Elsewhere an occasional fish jumps out of the water in acrobatic greeting.
The tall loblolly pines, the red oaks, the dogwood and the locust were making a fine tapestry of colors. The tulip poplar trees were more yellow than I had remembered, and even the poison ivy was showing off its crimson banner in the afternoon sun.
Everyone was in high spirits. You could hear laughter mingled with the cawing of those giant crows. It may have been the colors, it may have been the bright sunlight, or it may be that we were all enjoying some tribal rite -- marking the end of a season.
In the years since I'd been to Loch Raven, the only visible changes were more cars and in-line skates.
Oh, please, not the intrusion of people, rude and pushy, on high-tech skates, as in Southern California! But I was wrong. Across the concrete bridge the skates made a kind of soothing hum.
We sit on a small beach. A stroke victim attended by his son is in a wheelchair and turns his face to the sun with a smile. A 2-year-old throws sticks in the water and giggles.
Here and there couples are stretched out sunbathing, kissing while families are picnicking by the water's edge.
One flaw -- nearby you can hear the sounds of a skeet-shooting range. But you can ignore the macho touch on a fine, happy day. We did.
Best of all, Maxie's training wheels came off. He can now ride alone. He has mastered his small bike.
And by the time you read this, the leaves that gave us such joy will be on the ground, but our own almost-Walden Pond will remain, and hopefully this special body of water will always be clear.