Today dawned sunny with a bright blue sky. A perfect day to travel the trail with Marita.

We wondered what we’d see and didn’t go far before spying a bear hiding behind a tree. Marita was happy to pose beside it in hopes of coaxing the critter to join her in smiling for the camera. Actually, it was the largest burl either of us could remember encountering.

After the bear burl, we discovered a rock castle that made us think of kids for we knew that when ours were youngsters they would have loved climbing the towers and hiding in secret cubbies.

But one of our favorite finds on this particular trail was the wetland.

A thin layer of ice reflected the changing sky above . . .

until both were completely gray–but still rich in offerings from color to texture, and we imagined, wildlife.

Beside the water, a red maple offered its own point of interest–and truly, I suspected the fairies lived within.

And then, in another place we found another work of art. While Marita saw a fish, I saw a feather.

From any point of view, we stood in awe.

Such a design of bubbles all because a rock interrupted the flow.

Red squirrel caches and . . .

dining tables also caught our attention. We heard a few chit and chat at us, but never saw them. Our only wildlife sightings were about a dozen turkeys and a hawk that surprised us.

We tramped miles and miles, but only found one spot of truly bright colors as we admired red winterberries juxtaposed behind bent over cattails.

And in all our travels, we only found one foundation, where we admired the paper birch that represented the family tree.

At the end of the day, we’d walked miles along a variety of trails on a day that began with  blue skies, but ended with gray. Our favorite sight of all remained the first wetland.

In the end, it was a beautiful day in Gray, Maine.