Back to the River! Back to the Forest!

(Invisible brownie points for you if you can name what movie that quote is from.)

Yesterday, following our slight mishap Thursday, I was eager to get back out and immerse myself in the forest once again. This time, I was determined to keep my head and not panic should we take a wrong turn. Louie came with us, too, which made me feel much better. He is definitely not as panic prone as I am.

We originally started out on the Green Trail, which was the path that played tricks on us last time. However, I wasn't really comfortable going through that trail again, and since we had just attempted it two days ago, didn't feel like seeing the same things again so soon. We walked on it a little bit, and then headed back to go somewhere else.

The three of us - my sister, Louie and I - settled on taking the Blue Trail down to Walker Pond, a place my sister and I had been before, but not in a while. The Blue Trail is a long trail, but one that is fairly easy to follow because it is not particularly overgrown and the blue markers stick out on the brown-grey bark quite well.


We reached the pond and wandered off the trail just a bit to investigate it. Frogs shrieked and hopped into the water with our arrival. I tried to coax Marge into the water, but because the pond was surrounded by a thick layer of mud, she didn't want to go more than just a foot or so beyond the shore. The Greenbelt's bodies of water are not particularly ideal for Marge, unlike the streams and ponds at Wolfe's Pond Park or Clove Lakes Park, where it is relatively easy to bribe Marge into the water up to at least her elbows.


I had Marge pose in a delicate bed of wild flowers, but the flowers didn't show up as well as I would have liked in the picture.

We walked on on the Blue Trail until we reached the border of the park. The trail continues, but not before crossing residential streets. Deciding it was pointless to leave the forest, we headed back to the entrance of the park for a break and to decide where to go next.


Because it was relatively hot and humid and we had already walked a considerable amount, we opted to take the Lavender Trail, which simply loops around a large swamp inside the park. We've walked this trail very many times, but there are lots of sights to see on it so we figured it was worth our while.

There is a small, cleared, mossy patch of land just off the trail that we always like to go exploring on. Last time, we saw several different kinds of mushrooms due to all the rain we had. This time, there wasn't much there, but the spot was still nice for a break.


Marge plopped down on the ground and found something interesting to sniff.

We completed the Lavender Trail quite quickly, barely having to stop to look for the trail markers because it is so incredibly straightforward.

The last leg of our journey was traveling on the Yellow Trail, which got us back to our car safe on Thursday after getting so disoriented. Now that we'd already discovered the quirky parts of the trail, I felt more comfortable and knew exactly where we were.

We took the trail all the way up to the road this time. We could've continued on to climb Moses Mountain (which is more like a hill, but it is the highest point in the Greenbelt), but after having been there so long, decided this would be a good place to stop.

We headed back, this time without incident, climbed into the car and headed home after yet another nice day in the middle of nowhere.