After months of drought, recent rains are restocking Pond Spring, which flows into the Tennessee River. Autumn leaves are hanging on into December.

A pair of white pelicans ply the waters below Wilson Dam, just off the historic Rockpile Trail in Muscle Shoals, Alabama.

​Given a chance, nature will recapture ground lost to human development, as proven on the Tennessee Valley Authority's Muscle Shoals Reservation. The Rockpile Trail begins on an abandoned railroad that transported goods for the construction of Wilson Dam. The path traverses the ruins of an early 1900s coal-fired steam plan, which was built during World War I to support a munitions plant. The Rockpile Trail and several intersecting paths also travel past Civil War earthworks, Civilian Conservation Corps structures from the Great Depression, small wildlife area and an old double-decker bridge that carried automobiles on one level and trains on another level. The reservation features 17 miles of paved and primitive trails.

Rainy day hiking

on Rockpile Trail

Sometimes the rocks seem to be smiling back at you, The veins of a fallen leaf reflect the symmetry of nature.