September 25 - Briefly Off Road

        I find road walking rather less inspiring than off road walking, to say the least. On the road one has to keep very alert for cars and trucks both visually and aurally which detracts from other scenery. That being the case, any time off road is a special bonus and we had such a bonus yesterday on the 25th. I had stepped off the road to make my bladder gladder and what to my wondering eyes did appear but a gift from Saint Nicholas, or someone. It was a path by the Connecticut River. As it appeared to parallel the road, I walked on it for a while until I saw a road and building connecting the path to the road. When I went up I found a woman weeding her flowers. She informed me that the trail went up the river for another quarter mile or more before crossing to go up one on the local mountains. After thanking her, I went quickly up the road to meet Fleur-Ange and Pauline to tell them about my find and on our way back to the car we had nearly a mile of path walking instead of road walking. There is some advantage to walking back and forth from the car.

        In my mind, at least, this was the closest to walking the trail of Fleur-Ange's ancestor and a very enjoyable respite from road walking.