Behind the Puddle

Well, Behind the Puddle went looking for another puddle today.

Apparently, we underestimated Lake Red Rock.

By quite a bit.

We discovered pretty quickly that finding a simple place near Monroe where Grandma, Hollyn and the wheelchair could wander down and explore near the water wasn’t nearly as easy as I had imagined. We eventually found the state park, but many of the places we discovered weren’t particularly wheelchair friendly.

So our adventure looked a little different than the one I had pictured.

Most of our exploring happened from the car.

We admired rocks and trees, watched for birds, talked about the things we noticed along the way and enjoyed some beautiful Iowa scenery through the windows.

And Grandma got lost.

Technically, I prefer to say we unexpectedly explored additional portions of Iowa.

Apparently watching road signs instead of listening to the GPS is not always the best navigation strategy. Lesson learned. Maybe.

But eventually we found a campsite area where we could stop and explore a little.

And that is where Hollyn found the mushrooms.

Not little mushrooms, either.

Great big, almost-nine-year-old-worthy mushrooms scattered across the grass.

Suddenly it didn’t really matter that we hadn’t found the perfect place beside the lake.

There was something else to notice.

So she got down in the grass among them while Grandma took pictures, and for a few minutes those mushrooms became every bit as worthy of our attention as the enormous puddle we had driven there hoping to see.

I think that might be my favorite part of today.

Because Behind the Puddle has never really been about seeing something spectacular.

It has been about noticing what is already there.

Sometimes you go looking for a lake and find mushrooms.

Sometimes the path you hoped to take isn’t accessible, so you find another way to experience the day.

Sometimes Grandma gets lost.

And sometimes an impromptu Sunday adventure with an almost-nine-year-old reminds you that the destination was never really the important part anyway.

We went looking for another puddle.

We found a memory.

I think that was better.