The rail trail explorer strikes again

I decided to take advantage of another gorgeous day of sunshine and green leaves, and walk a stretch of the Rail Trail I hadn't walked before. This stretch runs from just past the little frame building housing Kennebec Jewelry and Repair...with its sign out front, "Gem panning here," which I do not get at all -- it's not like they have a stream tumbling down from the mother lode at their doorstep...north toward Hallowell. Across the street from the opening in the fence where you access the trail is the big, ugly frame building that houses the KV Health Club (KV stands for Kennebec Valley). Farmingdale has a surfeit of these buildings. They would look pre-fab if they weren't so big, although maybe they make big pre-fabricated buildings. They are incredibly functional looking: plain walls, roof, windows, door, the end. Aesthetics are for sissies.

But the trail. It's lovely. Actually much nicer than the stretch running south from Hallowell that I walked in the early spring (Note of April 19). Admittedly, then it was pre-leaf season, but even so there are many more large trees along the Farmingdale stretch, and they are often on both sides of the trail, and close at hand, which is not the case at the Hallowell end. Indeed, a couple of times I could hear myself thinking, "Lions and tigers and bears, oh no!"

The breeze in the trees made that water-like sound I love so much, though since the leaves are beginning to dry out, the sound wasn't so much soft as brittle, more like a small waterfall than a rushing river. Quite a few birch trees to be seen in amongst the maples, the oaks, their distinctive white bark marking them as special. In one case there were two growing close together, with one contorted somewhat like a stretched out S, the other standing perfectly straight. I could just hear the conversation over the years -- "Please, come away with me. Let's explore over this way." "I'm not going anywhere." "If you won't come with me, I'm going alone." "Suit yourself; I'm staying right here." "Ach! You know I can't live without you."

There were another two farther along, the trunks close together lower down, but then they began to grow apart. In adulthood their upper branches had suddenly reached out to each other, as they realized they needed each other after all.

Yes, I can make up a story about anything. In fact, when my siblings and I were kids I used to keep them and myself entertained on the long hauls between Texas and Indiana where we had moved after my mother married my stepfather, by telling them stories based on whatever they pointed at out the window. (old barn -- "Once upon a time a brother and sister lived in an old barn...")

At one point the rail trail made a right-angle turn and crossed the track. Big excitement. Of course, as I mentioned last spring, trains no longer travel along this track, so there was no danger involved in crossing the track. But why the change? As soon as I was over there I thought I knew: I was now directly above the river, and closer to it than I'd been anywhere else along the trail. It was too bad that the tide was out, so what lay below me were exposed mud flats, rather than flowing water. But the current was moving northward, which meant the tide was coming in. If I'd had a few hours to kill I could have stayed there, and watched the water reassert itself.

Another nice aspect of this stretch of the trail is the absence of traffic noise. It quickly disappeared, once I was on the trail, from a combination of the thick stands of trees on the road side, the gradual descent of the trail to a lower level than the road, with an embankment serving as a noise damper, and a widening distance between the road and the trail. A combination of factors that increased the peacefulness of the walk dramatically. Altogether a perfect way to spend an hour on a perfect day.