There was one particular place we had in mind to go. We had seen a beautiful arch while driving past the Arboretum, just sitting out a ways in the woods. It wasn't until we started going to the Arboretum that we actually realized it was in the park and you were able to hike to it. As much as my husband and I are fans of science fiction, fantasy, and generally anything not normal reality we certainly couldn't turn up a chance to walk through a mysterious arch in the woods!
My husband and son standing under the arch to provide some scale. That arch is HUGE!
Some details of the arch. It has amazing plaster work on the facade over the brick. It is a beautiful piece of art.
I was very excited to find YELLOW violets on our hike. I had never seen a yellow violet and was thrilled to see them. I am hoping to find some outside the arboretum to transplant into my garden since they are a native wildflower and I am hoping to start a wildflower garden.
Later on our hike we found numerous other wildflowers. Some of which I could identify and others I could not. Some of the flowers were found growing on the trunk of a fallen American Beech tree. I had to climb through brush for the picture, but it was worth it!
We had been told by the owner of the arboretum that trilliums were in bloom along the yellow trail. We wanted to see the arch which was along the auto trail so that was where we went first and we didn't know if the little guy would be up for the walk along the auto trail and another trail as well. We hiked the auto trail to see the arch, snapped pictures of a few wildflowers and then decided it was time for a break. We broke out our picnic lunch and picked a flat dry area of trail to set up our picnic blanket. The trail was not busy enough that we were in anyone's way. We sat eating our lunch and listening to the sounds of the forest, enjoying the scenery around us. As we finished our lunch I looked up the trail we were on to see hundreds of white flowers. TRILLIUMS!! The trail we had so blithely taken our lunch on was the yellow trail and the hill we had chosen for our picnic was the Trillium Hill that the owner had told us about. Such a happy accident!
What looks sort of like dappled sunshine in the middle photo is actually hundreds of white trilliums. I had seen a white trillium before but I had never seen so many. Deep burgundy trilliums, nicknamed Stinking Benjamins, are much more common in Maine where I am from than the white ones are. I warned my husband about smelling a trillium. He, of course, had to test whether what I said was true or not and I discovered that white trilliums don't smell nearly as bad as the red ones I am more familiar with. Either way, nice smell or rotten smell, trilliums are a gorgeous flower. They made me think of our plans to someday hold a re-commitment ceremony since we never had much of a wedding to begin with. I was thinking that a wedding in the woods would be lovely so we decided to continue along the yellow trail to have a look at the woodland chapel. After a few misdirections and misreadings of the map we finally found the woodland chapel. It is a lovely little spot and my husband and I are already making plans for an early May ceremony in the woods sometime in the next year or two, hopefully with the trilliums in bloom.
After stopping at the woodland chapel we decided to head back for the trailhead since the little guy was getting exhausted. We accidentally got turned around and went the wrong way on the yellow trail resulting in a longer walk back. However, it wasn't such a bad thing since it brought us past the spring house and salamander stream. Along salamander stream ferns were growing and I managed to find a late fiddlehead. Sean tried it and declared he likes it better than asparagus! It is only confirming my feelings that Maine would be a fantastic place for us to live. He likes fiddleheads and loves lobster! He is a lost Mainer! Hopefully someday we will fulfill that dream of moving back to my home, Maine.
Along the stream we found the May flowers pictured above (the little white multi-petaled flowers growing next to a log in the wildflower pictures above). We also found an unexpected surprise! I found Jack-in-the-Pulpits! There were close to a dozen of them, which is amazing since they are an endangered flower. They are a lovely, beautiful little flower but I still hold mixed memories of them. When I was a child my mother and I found some in the woods. She remembered some lore that they were edible, or at least the root. She dug a root (which I also didn't know was illegal at the time since they are endangered) and brought it back to my grandparent's house where she cooked it....by boiling. Now you may or may not know, but Jack-in-the-Pulpit roots ARE edible...if they are mashed, dried, and ground to be used like flour. They are NOT edible if the only thing you do is boil them and eat them like potatoes. Well edible, but definitely not palatable. My throat burned and prickled as if I had eaten cactus thorns for hours. It was not a pleasant experience. Today the only thing I did was take pictures (which is all any responsible hiker should ever do with rare flowers).
Finally, we found our way our of the trail system and back to the trail head and our car. We took one more visit into the nature center so the little guy could visit the bees. On the way home the little guy surprised both of us by declaring that he wanted to go home and take a nap. He has not voluntarily napped in nearly a year. As soon as we got home he took off his shoes and headed for his room. Not long after he was fast asleep...for THREE hours!! I can't remember the last time he took a nap that long. My husband and I had time for a (much shorter) nap of our own and some afternoon adult fun time. :)
All in all an amazing day and a fun family outing. Perhaps the best part is that the cost of all of this was the cost of less than a gallon of gas to drive to the Arboretum and back home. Sometimes the cheap family outings turn out to be the best ones!
Oh and all the wildflower pictures also gave us an idea. Wildflower Bingo! We plan to give the idea to the Arboretum so maybe they can encourage younger visitors to be more interested in learning about native wildflowers!
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