The Rutland Trail - Part 1

It was full on Indian Summer in the north country, much too beautiful for me to just stay home and do chores. So I put the dogs in the car and drove a mere five miles to the Rutland Nature Trail. We'd been here before but had never gone very far. Maybe today we'd do better:

Seamus and Jack, his little buddy, peed together on the trees along the way:

And all the dogs sniffed and explored. The trail, the site of a former railroad bed, was looking exceptionally lovely that day:

We met a man on an ATV and chatted awhile. Then he took off ahead of us and we continued on our slow, plodding walk:

We came to the former railroad bridge over Allen Brook and the dogs ran back and forth across it:

I stopped in the middle of the bridge to photograph Allen Brook down below:

And then we continued walking. Much of the scenery on this trail looked like a tunnel through the forest, an almost enchanted landscape and the stuff of which children's books could be written:

Most of the land on both sides of the trail was posted, but I saw some which wasn't, and took the dogs exploring a short way into the forest:

But then we got back on the trail and continued our journey:

Most of the leaves had fallen and there wasn't much color left anywhere, but the autumn air seemed to have a kind of orange glow all its own. Indeed, I felt like we were in a magical forest. I'll post Part 2 tomorrow: