The Old River Road - Part 2

So, let's begin where yesterday's post left off.  It appears Blogger is up to speed this evening.

A glorious September day calls for an adventure.

I've always wanted to walk on the old wagon road, known as the Old River Road,

just outside my little town.

However, this sign and rusting gate stand in my way.

There are no signs indicating I should not trespass.

 

 

 

Closer inspection reveals the gate is sorely in need of repair. 

It's really not a very serious gate.

I spy a hole in the wire, through which I can squirm.

And, so I do.

 

 

The sign looks a lot less forbidding from this side.

Once inside, I discover all I had to do was swing open the gate.

It was more fun getting in the hard way.

 

 

As I begin to make my way down the road,

 regularly shaped stones laid in a straight line begin to appear among the gravel and weeds.

This must be part of the Old River Road, 

which long ago served as a road for carriages and wagons. 

 

 

The huge lime green fruits of the osage orange tree (also known as hedge apple)

hang above my head.  The osage orange tree was first planted in Ohio in the 1800s.

It is found in fields and along fencerows.

 

More of the stones become visible. 

I have learned that the stones were cut and laid end to end

to provide a stable roadbed for the wagons it carried.

 

 

The rich purple of ironweed is gorgeous

against the ripening golden field of soybeans.

Two clearly defined parallel lanes of stone, both bearing grooves, appear.

I can imagine horse-drawn wagons clattering across the stone road.

 

 

The grooves made by the wheels and smoothness of the stone amaze me.

I hike onward, anxious to walk the entire length of the road.

 

 

Gravel and weeds begin to overtake the roadbed.

It is now impossible to see the stones. 

This cheerful beauty, blooming alongside The Old River Road,

 is a wild sunflower, also known as helianthus decapetalus.

 

As I make my way deeper along the road, it becomes choked with weeds,

poison ivy being one of them.

I decide to turn back, as I am not dressed to do battle with poison ivy.

 

I am sad not to have trekked the entire length of the road.

The rest of the Old River Road adventure will have to wait

 until a killing frost has had its way with the weeds.

In the meantime,

I take with me images of a beautiful southern Ohio September Sunday

and the thrill of seeing the old stone road.

 

I will return to the Old River Road in the fall.

Leave me a comment if you'd like to go with me.

I'd welcome the company.