Thanksgiving Traditions

I know most of you think of Thanksgiving as a time to get together with family eat everything in sight, but our tradition is a little different. Thanksgiving comes at a time when nature is in her full glory and we like to find someplace where we can enjoy all she has to offer.

I have always been a rock and forest person. I feel a need to be in the woods and climb on rocks or at least be where there are some sizeable ones. I have long since warned my hubby that our summer holidays will include climbing either rocks or a lot of stairs in a natural setting. This year we didn't go on a vacation, but for Thanksgiving weekend, we finally made it to Rock Dunder.

The Rideau Waterway Land Trust preserves special places for the public to enjoy, and this is one of them. The trails at Rock Dunder are meant for the physically fit, and there is no way you could drag along a stroller or wheelchair though I did see several families with children and their dogs.

I have wanted to go there for several years, but I had bad knees, bad hips, the weather was too hot, too cold, too wet or there were just too many mosquitoes. There was always a reason we couldn't go.

This year I had not been feeling well for over a week before it was suggested we go. I knew that at 73 this might be my very last chance. I decided to go and just keep any complaints to myself. The weather could not have been more perfect, nor could the time of year. The leaves were spectacular and it was cold enough that there were no bugs at all, yet warm enough that I removed my jacket partway up the trail and never put it back on. The trail is challenging but fun.

There are interesting things to see along the way, if you keep your eyes open, such as this face in the rock. The problem is you are usually too busy watching where you place your feet to look up and around you very often.

My hubby was keeping an eye on me as he knew I had not been feeling well. Every once in a while he would make me stop to rest, though I must admit I objected most of the time.

There are a few benches along the way at good look off points, and there are a couple of cabins in the woods too.

 Yes, this is part of the trail, and not an unusual part either. Sometimes it would be hard to know which way to go, but there are yellow triangles nailed to the trees and where it's mainly rock, there are blue arrows painted right on the rocks.

The climb is worth it though. The view from the summit is spectacular, especially at this time of year.

I don't know if it's always this popular, but there were lots of people up there when we arrived and all along the trail. The parking lot was full and people were parked along the road for quite a while back on both sides. Some of them parked within the no parking zones, which was not good as the OPP are known to ticket the offenders.

It's a whole new way for me to see autumn leaves from above like this. I would happily have stayed up there for quite a while. The thing is though, that we wanted to be safely down off the rock before the sun went down and we weren't sure how long it would take. We were going down a different way than we came up. The brochure says the hiking time for the summit loop is 2 - 3 hours. Well, I'm sure we managed that easily enough but never having walked this trail before, and already seeing how the leaves and pine needles could hide an obvious path, we decided it was best not to linger too long.

The trail coming down sometimes went up as well.  There were little drizzles of paint on the rocks between the arrows so you stayed on the path.

Just like on the trip up, there were surprises to be found on the way down. These ones were harder to miss. There were several places where people had built lots of Inuktitut. They kind of made me smile whenever I came across them. There was also a beaver pond with a beaver house visible in it.

There were other people on the trail that we ran into fairly frequently. It turns out that one couple just lives about 12 miles from us. We likely saw them more often than any of the others since they were also in our age range and traveling at the same speed as we were. We often stepped off to one side of the path to let others go by in either direction.

I knew I didn't want to try to go down the way we came up. I thought it would be too difficult in that direction. I think I chose correctly as I don't think I'd want to go up in the direction we came down either. There are a few difficult spots going in either direction as it was. I occasionally needed a hand when the step was too big for me to handle unaided. I'm quite proud of myself for managing as well as I did and quite thrilled to discover I have no achy muscles the next day. I'm not so old after all. 

It was a wonderful way to spend Thanksgiving, and I'm so glad I got to go.  I hope you all enjoyed your Thanksgiving as much as I did.