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Cotton candy hills |
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| Wet Forests |
Big Meadows Camp
Skyline Drive, Virginia
10/20/10
5:00 AM
Bless me father for I have sinned. It has been almost 4 days since my last blogfession.
On the road, certainly after a few months, one wakes up in the early morning darkness, as is my habit anyway, slightly disoriented. Where am I ? Where have I been the last few days ? Where am I going today ? I believe morning disorientation is normal after being ensconced in some unknown sleepworld for the past 5-7 hours but on the road that sense of disquiet is even more intensified. Slowly, normalcy comes around, stirring and a quiet mew from Moochi, a twig from the tree above lands on the trailer and other darkness sounds eases one alert by degrees. It seems that awakening at 3 - 4 AM is my lot. I think its a good time for writing. Still its hard most times to get started in the chill of the trailer.
A slight change of plans, lately every other day it seems, contributes to disorientation. Life on the retire man, do what you want when you want. Yea. This is all well and good for the wanderer but complete lack of direction or goals leaves one anxious and listless. Fortunately we have a general plan in mind and perhaps we should be grateful that it gives us some outline within which to explore.
After entering the Blue Ridge Parkway down by North Carolina near Cherokee we headed North as per my last blog. Well we made it as far as Mill Road Campground on th Parkway. Something about this place looked familiar as we drove in. Gads! This is the same place we stayed at on the way down with the bombarding acorns and the ghoulish kudzu vines. Too late to go on up further to the next one. Besides we had decided to go into Roanoke to have the truck’s brakes checked out. Its almost a hundred thousand miles on the original rotors and they need work if we expect to go another ten thousand on this trip. Since Roanoke is only 25 minutes from this camp it sealed the stay. The next morning we decide to change plans again. From Roanoke we will drop West over to 81 and make the run all the way North to Front Royal at the top of the Skyline Drive and work our way back down. Actually this was our first plan, revised twice now gone back to! Are you dizzy yet? Now we are thinking when we get back down to Roanoke, for the third time, we might head West to Nashville and check out the music scene before heading East to Savannah. As I stated at the beginning, “Where am I ?”
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| Big Meadows Morning, Skyline Driveway |
We did make it to Front Royal last night after dropping $1,100.00 bucks at Sears for new rotors and shoes all around a well as an interior tie rod ! Another budget strainer but new brakes feel good on these hills and curves with an 8000 pound load swinging behind. The weather was not great on the drive from Front Royal down here to Big Meadows Camp with overcast skies and haze in the valleys. But the trees were in full color anyway and the evenness of light added to softness of their glow.
We walked up to the Big Meadow’s Lodge for a brew and a sit by the 6’ wide fireplaces. Walking back to the campsite we were ankle deep in drifts of autumn leaves all brown and crunchy. Half a dozen campfires were going with people all bundled up beside the grey tendrils of smoke curling through the branches. It was a fine autumn sight in the greying of the day. The shuffle and crunch of leaves over my feet reminded me of my childhood spent in the forests of Missouri from the fourth to the seventh grade. Then parents chased kids out of the house to go almost anywhere we wanted and they did not worry if we did not come back until dinner time. On the army bases we would take the free shuttle busses to end up miles from home just wandering about. Often from one soldier barracks to another looking for an empty pool table or to some PX or snack shop to buy a bag of popcorn into which we poured mustard and ketchup. If we were dimeless we would dump mint flavored tooth picks into a glass of icewater and stir in some sugar before the cashiers chased us away.
It was a time for gastronomic exploration on the cheap!
But the woods were always a free thrill. As here in the Appalachias, hardwood forests tend to have clear understories. The deciduous canopy lets in light from above so that one can see deeply into the forest through and around the dark vertical trunks. This is unlike the evergreen forests of the North West where its darkness is gothic and understory often impenetrable. Into these open Missouri woods we spent countless hours building leafy shelters to huddle in waiting for Umpqua the Indian to appear out of the mist.
In the 6th and 7th grade I was pretty cashy as a kid from mowing lawns and delivering the St. Louis Post Dispatch. As every boy knows that delivered the paper Sundays were the worst when the thickness of each paper swelled to an inch or even an inch and a half! The weight and volume of the stacks could not be carried on my Schwinn but had to be trailered in a pull behind wagon. A little embarrasing at first. But the money was worth it. That was when I fell into vice. Half way through my Sunday route a buddy and I would head down into the woods by trails unseen to our secret spots with a brand new unopened pack of Salem Menthols! Purchased from the traveling post vendor for 50 cents. We felt like adults taking a break from our backbreaking work a day world and would proceed to smoke three or four in a row. “Would you like another?”, “No thanks, lets save them for later.”, “Yeah OK, cool. Remember, Sail em don’t inhale em.” “Yea cool” Say you want to hide em at your house?” “Na you do it.” “OK” And dizzily we wuld finish the Sunday paper route. During the week we tried 4” long twigs of dried vines for smokes. Pretty harsh, lots of puffing and blowing and grown up gesticulating and furrowed brows but no inhaling! To do so led to paroxyms of bug eyed, purple faced hacking to the point of sweat. I think that experiment lasted about two weeks. Ah the woods. There was even a patch of stone and gravel clearing closer to home where we played baseball! Full grown trees served as infield bases and the outfield was behind the trees. One never knew where grounders were going to carrome off to as they always hit a rock. Most fly balls never got to the outfield bouncing off tree trunks and branches instead. Lots of laughs and bloody knees. Mint toothpick icewaters with sugar! Life was good. Did I ever tell you about the time I almost burned down the chicken coop in the fourth grade with a flaming arrow? It would have too if an old man with a cane hadn’t got off his whittling rocker to hose it down! Caught hell for that one.
In the 6th and 7th grade I was pretty cashy as a kid from mowing lawns and delivering the St. Louis Post Dispatch. As every boy knows that delivered the paper Sundays were the worst when the thickness of each paper swelled to an inch or even an inch and a half! The weight and volume of the stacks could not be carried on my Schwinn but had to be trailered in a pull behind wagon. A little embarrasing at first. But the money was worth it. That was when I fell into vice. Half way through my Sunday route a buddy and I would head down into the woods by trails unseen to our secret spots with a brand new unopened pack of Salem Menthols! Purchased from the traveling post vendor for 50 cents. We felt like adults taking a break from our backbreaking work a day world and would proceed to smoke three or four in a row. “Would you like another?”, “No thanks, lets save them for later.”, “Yeah OK, cool. Remember, Sail em don’t inhale em.” “Yea cool” Say you want to hide em at your house?” “Na you do it.” “OK” And dizzily we wuld finish the Sunday paper route. During the week we tried 4” long twigs of dried vines for smokes. Pretty harsh, lots of puffing and blowing and grown up gesticulating and furrowed brows but no inhaling! To do so led to paroxyms of bug eyed, purple faced hacking to the point of sweat. I think that experiment lasted about two weeks. Ah the woods. There was even a patch of stone and gravel clearing closer to home where we played baseball! Full grown trees served as infield bases and the outfield was behind the trees. One never knew where grounders were going to carrome off to as they always hit a rock. Most fly balls never got to the outfield bouncing off tree trunks and branches instead. Lots of laughs and bloody knees. Mint toothpick icewaters with sugar! Life was good. Did I ever tell you about the time I almost burned down the chicken coop in the fourth grade with a flaming arrow? It would have too if an old man with a cane hadn’t got off his whittling rocker to hose it down! Caught hell for that one.
Time to blow out the candles for now and turn on a light.
5:45 PM
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Rainy mornings southern Parkway |
Well we did not get out of Big Meadows untill 11;30. Pretty shamefull. But the Camp was socked in heavy with fog all morning. The Skyline Drive could not be any better so we just schleped about and had a big breakfast and waited for the antsies to take over. After pulling out it was still overcast but we could at least see colors and the deep woods to either side of the road. Occasionally a glimpse of the valleys could be had. then about an hour later the fog hit the Drive itself. Now we were into real soup. speed dropped down to 20 mph or even slower. On coming vehicles appeared out of the wall of fog 20-30 feet in front of my windshield. It was time to drop down 5 more mph and put on the hazzard flashers. We drove this way for the next two hours. We needed to make more than a hundred miles to our next stop of Otter Creek. It was a shame to miss seeing anything but I was concentrating too hard to think about anything else. Finally in the afternoon about 50 miles from our destination the sun began to break out in two minute spurts. By that time we had left the Skyline Drive and had entered the Blue Ridge Parkway. The colors and valleys were just as beautuiful except for the ominouus kudzu here and there. At last we hit Otter Creek, a very small National Park campground on the parkway with no services but one that we really like as we can set up next to a beautiful splashing creek with the most soothing of sounds. So here we will sit for two days until we can hit the seafood brunch at the lodge at Peaks of Otter on Friday ! I’ve mentioned this place before and the quality of food is excellent. We look forward to a long slow feast. But tonight its stuffed cabbage and squash with fresh green beans, wine and beer. It’s rough out here in the wilderness.
For the sake of variety I think I may be straying a bit from this travelogue and with your forbearance talk of other experiences and places. Perhaps even a little about life’s relationships touchy though it might be. Nothing ventured nothing gained. Hm...
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| Tempted to go in there? |
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| Wet bark |
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