How Way Leads On To Way

We planned on going to see the archaeological dig site at Weedon Island get closed up, so off we went...Summer in her rain boots, Nicholas Indy with his hopes high, and me as the photographer/bug swatter.

Nicholas was in charge of the map and blazed the trail.  I had highlighted the route from when we were there two weeks ago and he remembered the way!  

Arriving before they opened the dig site, we were careful not to disturb anything.

Once Bob (the archeologist) arrived with his supplies and team, they took down the caution tape and removed the tarp to reveal the 80+ cm. deep hole.  Two skinks, a frog, and a cockroach had taken up residence during the work week and were carefully removed.

Skinks are very different than our usual Anole lizards.

Nicholas was right in the thick of it.

Last week they found these chirt pieces and a small chard of pottery.

An interesting lady came by.  She had very obviously dyed jet black fuzzy hair, no bra, and a very handsome walking stick.  As she approached the site, she looked up at the old oak tree and greeted it warmly.  She and Bob spoke to each other and then she hovered her hand above the unearthed chirt, feeling the energy from long ago people...thousands of years.  (Summer and I did the same, but didn't feel anything.)  The Lorax like woman reminded Bob to be careful with the roots, said good bye to the tree, steadied herself with the aid of her walking stick and hobbled back down the path out of sight.

And then it was our time to go.  

Although I don't have a single tree that I greet and speak for, I do have a "secret spot" (see The Education of Little Tree to fully understand the meaning of that phrase).  This is my spot.  Although the path  is warn down by many other visitors, it's MINE.  This is one of my favorite places in the world.  You can spin around in a full circle and not see any trace of man made structures...no buildings, no trees felled by chain saw, and usually no evidence of trash.  Although the air smells of low tide, I love it.  It's like a drug.  

On this trip I added to my collection of washed up shoe photos.  I love finding shoes!  I imagine the person who was wearing the shoe, the circumstances in which the shoe was lost, the travels that shoe has made with and without the person who once owned it, the lovely mixed meanings of the words:  sole/soul (only one, shoe/foot, the soul who wore it), wander and lost ("Not all who wander are lost"), pair and mix matched pair, sneaker (as in the type of shoe and as in who I am:  a sneaker in the woods) and on and on...    

And finally, my perfunctory:  "Two roads diverged in a wood...and I, I took the one less traveled by."