We started our walk last weekend from the parking lot at Riley’s Lock. Instead of walking beside the river and canal on the towpath, we decided to head out on the Seneca Creek Greenway trail this time. This trail parallels Seneca Creek, and ends at the towpath next to the Potomac river – beside the pond just beyond the aqueduct (just north of Rileys Lock).
It felt nice to be in a somewhat different space from the wide and well paved towpath that we usually walk on. The trail was narrow, wending its way through the woods, now green with the coming of Spring.
The sunshine felt good on the shoulders. There were also very few people on the trail.
There was the occasional creek to be crossed,
and a few rolling hillsides of Montgomery County to be traversed. This particular hill provided us with a good view of Seneca Creek flowing below us.
The flowers of Spring, some that I have yet to identify, were in abundance around us. The white flowers on the dogwood trees were notable. Butterflies were also beginning to make their appearance.
Our progress on the trail was finally halted in the neighborhood of Berryville Road by the presence of a stream that needed to be crossed. We could not figure out how to get across without getting our feet wet.
I had, unwisely it turned out, decided that we did not need trekking poles for this walk. (I was so unprepared that I was actually also wearing my trail running shoes instead of hiking boots for this walk.)
I had the opportunity to take a couple of closeup pictures during the tail end of our walk. The first time was on Tschiffely Road, the section of the Greenway trail that runs between the Potomac river and River Road. This turtle was sitting in the middle of the gravel road.
Fortunately for the turtle, there is usually no traffic on this particular road. It terminates at a dead end close to the ruins of an old mill next to the pond I mentioned earlier in this blog.
I was able to bring my camera quite close to the turtle in order to take its picture. It did not flinch. It did not blink, neither did it withdraw into its shell.
The other close encounter we had was with a frog (I think it is a frog and not a toad!) that had parked itself in the middle of the trail on a stretch of the towpath just north of Rileys Lock.
Once again, the frog did not seem to mind the camera being this close to it!
We had found the frog enjoying the sunshine at a location that was particularly dangerous for it. The trail was quite busy on a Sunday morning, and there was no shortage of bikers who were speeding along, many of them lost in their own mental space. They could easily run over the frog without even realizing it. I tried to encourage the frog to the side of the trail but it refused to move. It merely raised itself on its haunches as if it were deciding whether it really should jump forward, but it never followed through. We continued our walk thinking that there was a chance we could find the frog completely squashed on the trail during our return. We were happy to see it alive and well, sitting at the edge of the trail. We pointed out the frog to a little child passing by with his parents. He was sitting in a stroller. The child promptly fell out of his stroller when leaning over to look at the frog, then started crying, and eventually lost interest completely. At least we tried….
Splattered Brains 