The Road Less Traveled

Now the bonds are broken, but they can be re-tied

One more journey to the woods, the holes where spirits hide

~Bob Dylan

I've been trying to lead a less sedentary life. The transition to a desk job at my advanced age has caused me to pack on a few extra pounds. I've managed to get out and go on a walk several days the last couple of weeks. The constant rains ha been making it hard to do so.

At the beginning of the week, I went out to go on a walk. The first portion nearly always starts out the same, with a climb to the top of my street. It gets your heart rate up to start with. There's a little wall up there, and I'll usually take a little rest and catch my breath when I get there. That's how I started off. Just as I'm getting ready to head on, here comes another guy, heading the same way I'd been planning on going. I head on just a little behind, and when he gets to the end, he makes a left, the same way I'd been planning on going again!!! I don't like feeling like I'm trailing after someone, so I decided to go the other direction.

Going that way, you can do a loop on the streets behind our house, but at the end, there's a little short-cut trail to the next street down, and you can head down and across to the next major street over from there, after taking a little stairway down. I've gone that way before, but it feels like it's been a while. It climbs from there, sometimes gradually, sometimes steeply, until it dead ends into a park in a canyon, that I often get to going the other way, but on the downhill end. It has a dirt path through it, with a very steep climb at the end.

The foliage has really liked all the rain!!! The park is fairly overgrown, as are several areas around here. The path had been badly eroded, with a deep groove nearly a foot deep in several areas.

Just before the part where it starts climbing steeply, I came upon this wood nymph!!! Or whatever she was. She had a girl there taking the pictures, and a guy manning the light.

She was up on probably a six foot step ladder, and it was getting to be the part of the evening when it starts getting cool out. All that overgrowth no doubt makes for a great backdrop!!!

Momentous Occasion!!!

Here it is, the 500th blog post!!! It might have come sooner, but you know how I get distracted. I had been hoping to have something moderately cool for this post, and here it is!!! The younger boy lost his front tooth, and looks pretty adorable without it!!! Not his first lost tooth, but it does seem like it's been a while. He quite literally lost it, it fell out in his sleep and he couldn't find it. He was worried that he'd get no tooth fairy money because of that, but this morning he found a piece of paper with his name on it folded up around cash money. Inside was the message, "You owe me a tooth. Signed, the tooth fairy". He told me, "I know it was you!!!"

The Tooth Fairy Cometh

Friday was a momentous day. They youngest lost his first tooth!!! He was wiggling it and it came right out!!! It hadn't been loose for that long, either.