Another tramp through the woods...

The Road Not Taken

.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

.

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same, 

.

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back. 
.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

.

~ Robert Frost

Michelle and I went for a hike in the mountains and woods west of Sedalia, Colorado, on Sunday afternoon.  It's a long story, but the plan was to find a fire watch tower we'd read about.  We started out on the wrong path to begin with, though, and then we came to a fork in the trail. We took the one less traveled, and this is what we found:

Rocks, rocks everywhere.  Boulders, big and small -- of all shapes and sizes and man-size boulders, like this one, balancing on the edge of mountain-size boulders.

Lots of funny mushroom shaped rocks like this one (above).

Can you see the face in this one? 

( There were definitely trolls in these woods.)

 

Lots of fun, relatively safe boulders to climb.

These boulders arranged like Stonehenge reminded us of what happened to Bilbo's Trolls in The Hobbit.

After a bit, we hiked our way around a large stone outcropping...

....

.... and found the coolest cave!

Then we climbed onto some boulders near the cave and looked out across the ravine to the craggy mountainside -- the path more traveled where we were originally going to go.

And we looked down around our feet and found some first signs of fall.

On turning back, we saw the back of the large rock formation, over the cave.

Do you see what we saw?

We thought he looked like an Easter Island fellow (the guy from Night at the Museum, Dumdum, who likes gumgum), a Henson Muppet, or just another rock troll that lives in these enchanted woods.

The views, grand and tiny, were spectacular.  We had a wonderful time, and were grateful we'd taken the trail less traveled.  It was a glorious, slow, meandering day.  I'm thankful for all the chances God provides for me to slow down, and to enjoy His beautiful  creations -- particularly the wonderful gift of my first-born daughter.