Nick, Duncan & Emma

Walking along a little used path, I noticed a rock up on the right.  There hadn't been any other rocks of this size anywhere along the trail, so it caught my attention.

When I got closer, I realized that this rock had gotten other people's attention too, over the years.

A fellow named Nick noticed it on November. 25, 2001.  How do I know? Because he left his mark, carved deeply into the stone.  That was the Sunday after Thanksgiving that year.  (I looked it up.)

Duncan also walked this trail, in what appears to have been 2009.  His printing in this sandstone is even better than most people's writing on paper.  Just look at that lowercase "n".  It's perfect!  Of course when one embeds their name on such a surface, perhaps they take more care, knowing it will be permanent.

And then Emma came along, on an interesting date.  It was November 11, 2011, which was a Friday.  Seems propitious, somehow:  11-11-11.  Or maybe ominous, depending on how you take it.  Based on the appearance of her handiwork, she seems to have been a bold, bright, happy sort of person.

While I would cringe to see such graffiti in one of our national parks, I could not help but wonder about these three, and the other signatories on this rock.  Were they young people from the nearby neighborhood, out rambling with friends through the autumn woods?  Could they be members of the same family who led succeeding generations to mark the rock on purpose?  I'll probably never know.