Pics now, words later. I'm tired.

Loni and I went hiking at Panther Springs State Park, on the Ore Mine Trail. It's a beautiful trail, with a long upward trend if you take the right fork from the trail head at the parking lot. The left fork is worse uphill, but the uphill trend is shorter. So you pick your poison.

This picture is of Loni standing next to a large tree which had been blown down in the wind. The root ball is very shallow, even though it's taller than her. In the gospel, if we are not solidly rooted in Christ, then when the temptations and "oh yeahs?" of the adversary come at us, we are going to fall, just like this tree did.



















After two failed attempts by me, Loni said, tactfully, "Dad. I think you are shooting too low." So I let her do it. There is a gospel lesson in there somewhere, but I suspect it's embarrassing for me, so I'll leave it alone.
























We live in one of the most active sinkhole areas in the world. Rain picks up acidity from pollution, and when it hits the ground seeps into the limestone bedrock, which is base, and eats away at it. Eventually, it erodes and collapses. Loni is standing above one such sinkhole. In real life, faults, bad habits, and sin will eat away at our spirits until we collapse.
























Some uber cool mushrooms. The kind you do not touch.



















Same shrooms, different view. Hey, I just this second came up with a gospel lesson. What do mushrooms grow on? Dead stuff. What does Satan thrive on? Dead and dying souls.


















Loni said this scene was beautiful and I agreed. My phone does not capture the way the sun filtered into the trees. The large tree near the center is about three feet across near the base of the trunk. Big tree.
























I just liked the way the light shone on these rocks. They had very cool striations in them. I learned that if you just keep your eyes open, you will see beauty in the most unlikely places. Loni observed that we need a very good photography camera. I retorted that we should have brought our camera from home. She said, "No. Dad. A good camera." I said, "Loni. Hundreds of dollars." We went back and forth and arrived at a figure of about $500 for a decent camera. I agreed this might be a good purchase, as I'm actually thinking that I could take pretty good pictures with some practice and it's something you can do into old age, which I am looking for.
























I found this tree. I like looking for the reasons why trees eat it. It first appeared to me that it was struck by lightning. I've actually watched as trees were struck by lightning and split or exploded. But when I got closer it became obvious that this tree was dead already and the black was fungus that was starting to grow. The wind just blew the dying tree over and split the trunk.





















Lovely Loni. She knows how to pose and work the camera. I just lean, huffing and puffing on dying fungus infested trees and try not to look old. Ish.



















Water seeps down into tiny microscopic crevices in rocks and freezes and thaws in a cycle. Eventually over a long period of time, it can crack even mountains. The tiniest flaw, if not cleaned out by Christ, will destroy us over time.



















This tree had fallen across the path and blocked it. It had to be removed to allow progress. Shortly after the Savior had ascended and the apostles martyred, the church fell away from the simple truths He had established and the world rejected the gospel. A general apostasy set in world wide. A tree fell across the path of even believers, whose progress was then halted. It took the Lord removing the tree of the apostasy to open the trail again. He did this through Joseph Smith and the restoration of the original gospel. The Savior cut the tree from the path so we could move forward again.