New to me also. The Urban Dictionary gives several meanings, including “a large quantity of an item”.

Ooh, scratchy devil's club over there on the left.

Oh man. This reminds me of my home in Montana so much.

Scott should have sent a drone up there with some sandwiches and a ripe nectarine for you.

My botany nerd pals don't generally use the word "forb" very much because really, it encompasses the vast majority of plant species. It's not woody, it's a dicot (grasses are monocots), but there you are. You hear "herbaceous" a lot more, but only at the beginning of a far more detailed species description.

Nope. Aspen.

Hi Keith! Yes, I had no idea but in my book it's labeled as "cutie-pie".

A "schwak-load"??? That's a new sighting for me.

They could also be poplars.

Since they are leaning I am leaning aspen too. Were they quaking? Also, birch are usually whiter. Also, these trees are very close together and I believe that aspen do grow closer together because they are all connected via roots. I might be making that up but I think I heard somewhere that a group of aspen can be considered one single organism. No, I'm not going to research it, Bill will know. Also, I do know that birch all over the country have been hit by some sort of disease and are dying off. A terrible situation.

That has overtones of a guillotine, with those saw blades up there. But whew, it’s just a spectacular bridge for hikers.

Not sure. Could be either a common raven or an American crow. In either case though it’s been listed already. Good spotting though!

Good for you! I wondered if you’d be on the road again this fall. Looks like a beautiful spot to be in September. I’d never heard of Hauts-de-France and had to look it up, but we’ve been there. We especially liked Amiens and Beauvais. Where will you end it?

It wouldn't have been tough for me either.

It wasn’t a difficult decision, really.