Beautiful overcast fall day today for my commute home from work. I wanted to head up to Bluff Park instead of my normal commute through Vestavia Hills. A little more than an hour into my ride, I found myself exploring the Lover’s Leap rocks up in Bluff Park with the cool inscription shown below (and narrated in the video above):
Lover’s Leap inscription. Scroll to the bottom of this post to see my best guess at what it says.
Here’s the rest of the pics from the day, plus one more video — the somewhat crazy descent from Crest Lane all the way down through the Green Valley roller coaster. I’ve put some bookmarks into the description on youtube so you can jump to specific spots of the video if you watch it on you tube and then click the timestamps in the description.
-
- Orange tree on one of the routes climbing up to Bluff Park from Green Valley
-
- Lover’s Leap informational sign
-
- Lover’s Leap inscription
-
- Landscape view of the trees off the edge of lover’s leap
-
- View looking into the trees next to the inscription
-
- View looking back up to the overlook at the tip top restaurant
-
- Looking down into the Oxmoor Valley and across to the Red Mountain ridge line
-
- Another view looking down into the Oxmoor Valley and across to the Red Mountain ridge line
-
- Large rock, oxmoor valley, red mountain ridge line
-
- Looking back up towards the Verdure mini-peak extending out from the leading ridge line … the upper higher ridge line is hidden
-
- View looking down South Cove at the ridges … gradient is above 20% shortly past the speed limit sign
-
- A view of the beautiful orange and yellow trees at the top of the Laurel View mini-monster (18% climb)
-
- Josiah and Ellen show off leaves they collected on their walk home from school through the woods
Tho W. Farrar Seraphine F. Farrar ------------------- To sit on rock ... head and fell To slowly trace the forest's shady scene Where things that own not in one dominion dwell And mortal feet ... rarely been August 20th 1827
“…” means I have no clue what that part of the poem says.
Cycling Adventures with Brian Toone 
Brian – that’s Byron, “Solitude.”
To sit on rocks, to muse o’er flood and fell,
To slowly trace the forest’s shady scene,
Where things that own not man’s dominion dwell,
And mortal foot hath ne’er or rarely been;
To climb the trackless mountain all unseen,
With the wild flock that never needs a fold;
Alone o’er steeps and foaming falls to lean;
This is not solitude, ’tis but to hold
Converse with Nature’s charms, and view her stores unrolled.
But midst the crowd, the hurry, the shock of men,
To hear, to see, to feel and to possess,
And roam alone, the world’s tired denizen,
With none who bless us, none whom we can bless;
Minions of splendour shrinking from distress!
None that, with kindred consciousness endued,
If we were not, would seem to smile the less
Of all the flattered, followed, sought and sued;
This is to be alone; this, this is solitude!
Great post — looking forward to doing some riding if you’re around during the holidays.
W
Thanks Warren, very cool that this was part of a larger poem. I can see why they didn’t carve the whole thing into the rock. I like what the larger one is saying, too. I can definitely relate to the full poem … never feel alone while riding but stick me in a crowd of people and I’d happily rather be back out riding. Definitely let’s ride when you get back in town!