Golden Glory! Views Along the Lower Trail

It was another beautiful autumn day, and my husband and I had planned a day of local adventures for ourselves. It had been a while since we'd had a nice breakfast out, so we drove to Altoona's Eat'n Park for two super senior griddle smiles, which put great big smiles on our faces. We order the grilled stickies as our special extra, and take them along home: more smiles for later!

And then we drove over to the Lower Trail, which is a rails-to-trails effort, parking our car at the flea market at Water Street, and accessing the trail that runs behind the buildings, along the Frankstown Branch of the Juniata River.

The trail is wide and flat and covered in leaves, and it is a popular spot for bicyclists, horse riders, hikers, and joggers. As it was a week day, it was not overly crowded. Sometimes on the weekends this time of year, it can get pretty busy.

The trail is lined with pretty little wooden benches, and not only do they make for great photos, with all of this foliage, but they are also lovely to sit on and take a gander at that beautiful river!

The water surface was flat and placid, perfect for reflections, with leaves on top, floating merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily along, reminding us that life is but a dream. But a pretty golden one, for sure!

I was thinking to myself about John Muir's quote, about walking like those age-old travelers to the holy land: going "a la sainte terre," or sauntering. He says that we ought to saunter along, and that these mountains are our holy land. I wish to amend his words: this holy land is made of woods AND waters. And so we saunter along this river, among these trees and mountains, into this golden holy land.

Now, I need a soundtrack song for this day and this image, and so here is the song that came on the car radio as soon as we turned it on after our several-hour visit to the river: Sia, with Unstoppable. I instantly loved it and its lyrics of positivity. It may not speak to who we ARE, but to who we WISH we could be. I'm including the chorus below so you can sing along!

I put my armor on, show you how strong how I am
I put my armor on, I'll show you that I am
I'm unstoppable
I'm a Porsche with no brakes
I'm invincible
Yeah, I win every single game
I'm so powerful
I don't need batteries to play
I'm so confident
Yeah, I'm unstoppable today
Unstoppable today
Unstoppable today
Unstoppable today
I'm unstoppable today