The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Mike and I were discussing this poem today. Then, because it’s what I do, I researched it and we laughed about how to us it meant one thing, to many something else and Robert Frost had written it as a joke.

What started this conversation was that he and I will rarely choose the straight and obvious path. Our plans changed yesterday when it was decided that our crossing with Bruce on Mambo just couldn’t happen this week. So, we started planning how to get home earlier. Plane ticket charges are astronomical to change plans. We could get a bus and ride for 2 days for cheaper, then forfeit our flights. We could leave it as is and figure out how to get to Wilmington, NC where we had planned to fly out of, or just get altogether new tickets. Every course would cost more money than we wanted to spend. In the end, after more than an hour on the phone with Delta, we were finally able to reschedule out of West Palm, but not until Saturday. We will still miss Matthew’s track meet, but be home for Mothers Day. This is consoling to this mama’s heart.

So, now we have a somewhat forced vacation and will be spending money we hadn’t planned on. Right. We booked an airbnb south of Miami and headed out.

Our first stop was Oleta River State Park north of Miami. We love state parks, wildlife preserves and any nature trails. We rented a canoe, got a brief run down of terrain and routes and expected wildlife then took off paddling.

Point #1: if Mike or I are given a “you could go that way, but we don’t recommend it” you can sure bet that’s the way we are going. We made two “not recommended” portages with our rented canoe and made a loop that took us about an hour to paddle. We had our discussion about the Frost poem and how we always choose the road less travelled and sometimes just make things darn hard on ourselves.

Point #2: We repeat this process over and over. We ate super expensive salads for lunch then bought fried chicken for our supper. Now we are loading up a few drinks and snacks and headed out for another trail and place to watch the sunset.

Our lesson from the Road Not Taken is that is where we will see what others won’t, where we will have our adventures and make our memories and write our story.