Part of Slice of Life by Two Writing Teachers March Slice a Day Challenge! I’m slicing every day this month. Thanks for stopping by. 🙂

The woods are full of stories. (And Mr. Thought’s Dad jokes, but I”ll spare you most of those…)

We started at the bottom.

and walked up to the top of a waterfall.

I wish I had pictures of Finnegan, the dog who is afraid of all grates, learning how to walk up the metal grated steps. He got the hang of it, spreading his paws out for each step he took. Since we had to walk up like 600 steps, I was glad he figured it out. He was on a mission to make sure we all made it up safely.

Once at the top, we had to figure out how to get back down to our van. We headed down a rocky path, seemingly alone.

When we passed this heart on a cliff, Mr. Thought wondered if maybe they were left from a proposal. I spent the next few minutes just thinking the story of the heart on a cliff.

The rocks made way for a dirt path, and then a fork in the road. We wondered why the path on the left – the one that was clear and flat was closed, forcing us to go on the rugged root-filled path to the right.

“That sign looks like it’s been there for decades!” we said.

I let my imagination run a bit, thinking that down the left path was some sort of fairy circle, or maybe a Stephen King novel. So intriguing, but it’s a story I wanted to know, but also not so much. We hurried down to the right.

Down that path a bit, we found a dragon. She was kind and definitely up for the photoshoot my daughter wanted. I don’t understand how a tree grows like that!

A few times, the kids wondered if we were going in the right direction. The path seemed clear, but it wasn’t blazed. We kept hearing the water to our right though, and we were going down! Even a novice hiker like myself can do that much.

A bear watched us from a distance, just to keep up with the theme of our Spring Break 

Finally, we saw cars and the visitor’s center below. We cheered. “Sucess!”

But Mr. Thought wasn’t done with this Dad jokes…

“We aren’t out of the woods yet!” He said.