There is more in you of good than you know, child of the kindly West. Some courage and some wisdom, blended in measure. If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world. But sad or merry, I must leave it now. Farewell!"
 J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit
“Then something Tookish woke up inside him, and he wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walking-stick.” 
 J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit
“Where did you go to, if I may ask?' said Thorin to Gandalf as they rode along.
To look ahead,' said he.
And what brought you back in the nick of time?'
Looking behind,' said he.” 
 J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit
"As all things come to an end, even this story, a day came at last when they were in sight of the country where Bilbo had been born and bred, where the shapes of the land and of the trees were as well known to him as his hands and toes."
 J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit
Todd Fink-Heron Pond Trail, Cache RIver Natural Wildlife Area, Belknap, Illinois

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Botany Bay Plantation, Edisto Island, Charleston County, South Carolina
Fisher's Renaissance Fair, Fishers, Indianapolis, Indiana
"The entrance to the [forest-]path was like a sort of arch leading in to a gloomy tunnel made by two great trees that leant together, too old and strangled with ivy to bear more than a few blackened leaves. The path itself was narrow and wound in and out among the trunks. Soon the light at the gate was like a little bright hole far behind, and the quiet was so deep that their feet seemed to thump along while all the trees leaned over them and listened. 
    As their eyes became used to the dimness they could see a little way to either side in a sort of darkened green glimmer. Occasionally a slender beam of sun that had the luck to slip in through some opening in the leaves far above, and still more luck in not being caught in the tangled boughs and matted twigs beneath, stabbed down thin and bright before them. But this was seldom, and it soon ceased altogether. [...] 
    But they had to go on and on, long after they were sick for the sight of the sun and of the sky, and longed for the feel of wind on their faces. There was no movement of air down under the forest-roof, and it was everlastingly still and dark and stuffy." J.R.R. Tolkien, "The Hobbit"
"The Lonely Mountain! Bilbo had come far and through many adventures to see it, and now he did not like the look of it in the least." J.R.R. Tolkien, "The Hobbit"
There is more in you of good than you know, child of the kindly West. Some courage and some wisdom, blended in measure. If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world. But sad or merry, I must leave it now. Farewell!"
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit
There is more in you of good than you know, child of the kindly West. Some courage and some wisdom, blended in measure. If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world. But sad or merry, I must leave it now. Farewell!"
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit
See photo in original gallery.

Copyright 2012 Todd Atteberry, www.historytrekkershoppe.com

Copyright 2012 Todd Atteberry, www.historytrekkershoppe.com