Our destination was Carr’s Pond in West Greenwich, a twenty-minute drive from Warwick, for a leisurely Sunday stroll.

As always, for this California transplant, the experience would turn out to be part field trip and part adventure.

Getting directions to the trailhead from a local man and woman on their morning walk on Carr’s Pond Road, we also received a tip on where to park, and a suggestion that we wear something orange. (Read: beware of bows and arrows.) Sure enough, the uppermost sign from Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management on a welcoming tree began with the greeting, “Attention.” From the third Saturday in October through the last day in February, the wearing of the orange is required, but we decided to play it safe on this last Sunday of September.

Orange is really not a good color for my complexion, however, I improvised. I retrieved an emergency flag from the back of the car which my dad presented me with a pair of jumper cables when I learned how to drive. It has traveled with me in each car I’ve owned, and fortunately, have never had the occasion to use. That is, until now. I unfolded it like a map and fashioned a vest out of it for myself. My husband, pointing out that being a foot taller than me, said he’d be more visible, declared he should wear it.

I secured the bright reflective flag around his neck with the elastic band and clipped it together in front. Thankfully, he is trim so it fit. I told him he was not to leave my side under any circumstances. The woman observed, “Taking one for the team, eh?” I nodded, chagrined, and planned to stick close to my husband the entire hike, as he has a habit of wandering off in stores. In the forest there was no public address system to locate him.

As we walked, I inhaled the scent of the warm earth. Yellow leaves, illuminated from behind by the sun, fell gently, silently. Raindrops beat in a lively tempo, as birds and crickets added their accompaniment.

I was dismayed to see graffiti in blue paint splashed on rocks and trees until I figured out the purpose of these markings was to identify the trail. This was advantageous because despite the GPS on my iPhone, I have a poor sense of direction, and often feel like Hansel and Gretel in the witch’s forest after they ran out of breadcrumbs.

Off the leaf lined path, more than once we discovered concrete steps which led to a foundation where someone’s cabin once stood, lately a miniature forest of slender trees. Off to the side, stone fireplaces had tumbled over.

We exchanged “good mornings” with mountain bikers and fellow hikers as we traipsed along over large stones imbedded in the trail.

Like barnacles, minuscule mushrooms attached themselves to the bark of a lichen encrusted tree limb, nestled on a bed of white fern. Moss covered stone walls were all but buried in layers of leaves.

I decided to investigate beyond a long concrete wall for another glimpse of the autumn trees on other side of pond from a tiny patch of sand. More than once I came across pair of shoes and a towel on a rock, awaiting their owner’s return. Here, a tree had grown around a metal doorway, the rusty door still on its hinges. Inside was what appeared to be a stone walled Roman bath, until I approached a clearing and saw yards of pipe resting on concrete pylons, resembling the Roman aqueduct. On the other shore, against a backdrop of multi-colored trees, it appeared as a footbridge that went on for miles.

I was so intrigued I made a mental note to Google the Kent County Water Authority when I got home...if I ever got home.

The trail was described as a three-mile loop around the pond, however, we took every switchback to take in the view, as I snapped photos of crimson leaves, floating lily pads, and golden leaves bathed in sunlight.

Occasionally I glanced at the map on my iPhone and suggested that we had reached the pond’s inlet where we had begun our journey. My husband looked ahead at nothing in particular and said, thoughtfully, “No, I think it’s a little farther.”

Never one to stop and ask for directions at a gas station, he was not interested in my personal GPS on my iPhone. Even in a forest, things started looking very familiar. Landmarks like the old water pumping station and a marsh with dead sun-bleached trees reappeared. We soldiered on.

A lone house key on a key ring rested on top of a flat rock. “What idiot would leave his key in the middle of a forest?” my husband asked aloud, conveying a wry smile, an allusion to our honeymoon in Yosemite in his 1979 Volkswagen hippie van.

Three hours later my water bottle was empty, and my iPhone battery was in the red zone. I recalled family vacations when my siblings and I asked from the back seat, “Are we there yet?” like a common refrain to my husband: “Are we lost?” But by then the blue marked trees and stones seemed more plentiful, and I heard the sound of passing cars as we reentered civilization.