Pisgah Forest: Old Favorites

Last Friday, with the morning entirely to myself, I headed up through Pisgah Forest to visit some familiar spots.  I wanted to get there early and have the place to myself, but I hadn't taken into account how long it takes for the sun to make its way over the mountains and trees.  The forest wakes up slowly:

My first stop was Looking Glass Falls, which is just off the highway and a few hours later would be packed with tourists.  I have such good memories of lazy afternoons spent here, sunning on the rocks while our children played in the creek and swam in the pool under the falls:

Then I went a little further, to Sliding Rock, which a little later would also will be covered with excited kids, bold teenagers, and somewhat hesitant parents, all flying down the surface into the shockingly cold water at the bottom.  In the silence of the early morning, the remains of yesterday's adventures were apparent in the two dozen or more abandoned t-shirts, towels, sandals and, even, swimsuits -- hmmmm:

When I was a camper in North Carolina 40 years ago (yep -- same camp where my children now work), trips to Sliding Rock were highlights of our summers.  We put great effort into passing the prerequisite swimming test, and great care into choosing the shorts sturdy enough to keep our swimsuits from being ripped to shreds.  I hear that insurance concerns now prevent the camp from taking young children there, but it was an exciting rite of passage back in the dark ages:

Walked: 3 miles.

Milepost 418.8

One of my favorite hikes on the planet is the trail system at Graveyard Fields, located at Milepost 418.8 on the Blue Ridge Parkway on North Carolina.  (The spooky name originates with either the gravestone-like grass-and-vine covered humps of fallen trees in the spruce forrest that covered the area 100 years ago, or with the graveyard-feel created by the charred stumps of those trees when they fell victim to arson in the 1920s, depending on which source you want to believe.)  We hiked there as a family several years ago, I went back once with my son, and last Thursday I used the lure of the hike to get me through the seven-hour drive down to western North Carolina.

When I arrived, I was surprised to discover the parking lot jammed with cars.  Not so unusual, I read later.  While the vista spread before me -- 

-- looks mostly like a hiker's paradise, people in the know are aware of the sun-laden rocks and small pool located at the bottom of the path, less than a half-mile away.  Thursday was almost toasty for the mountains and, as I reached the trail divide, I could see people baking in the warmth and hear them sqealing in the icy mountain water. 

After a few minutes of observation, I turned and headed away from Second Falls and out on the longer trail toward Upper Falls.  The first portion of the hike is probably my favorite; I love to wade in the wide and shallow river:

As the trail moves up toward the falls, the smooth path gives way to roots and rocks:

I had forgotten how treacherous it could become -- eventually, the path is nothing but a pile of small boulders and large, twisted roots, moving up something of an incline.  I have noticed that one of the websites says that the hike is 200 feet up (and you have to go up, down, and up again once you get started, so it's really 200 feet times two) -- and that, combinedwith the terrain, would explain why it took me more than two hours to complete my daily three miles.

Time spent at Upper Falls is worth the trek, though:

I love to just sit and relax at the bottom (which is really the middle).  The rocks are slick, so care is required, especially if you have to drive another 700 miles in the next two days and can't afford a sprained ankle or worse, but few people make it all the way up, so it's a good spot to enjoy the wilderness in isolation.

I made it back without mishap and, since I had to back track a bit on the Parkway to reach my exit, I spent some time looking at another favorite site, Looking Glass Rock:

One of my sons has told me that he climbed a portion of the face during summer camp when he was in middle school; if that's true, I'm glad I didn't know about it until the end of the summer.  Apparently there's a trail that you can hike to the top, and I'd be willing to take that on that some year.  Hanging from bare cliffs by a series of ropes is not my idea of a fun time in the out-of-doors.

Eventually I dragged myself away and drove down and off the Pisgah Ridge to the small town of Brevard, where a hot bath and and a nice meal awaited me.  I had more plans for hiking the next morning, and then I would finally get to pick my daughter up from her camp job and -- I hoped -- see my son.

Walked: 3 miles.

Family Matters

The House That My Great-Grandfather Built

As I have done and will do several times this summer, I passed through my hometown this past week, staying with my brother and his new wife and visiting with my father and his new wife.  I grew up just outside a very small midwestern town.  In the pre-mall era of my youth, it was populated by family businesses that had thrived for three generations -- a sleepy town during a time in which an hour's drive made a major city a destination for only the most special of occasions.  My childhood memories are probably shared by thousands of midwesterners: two-mile bike rides into town to stop by the drugstore soda fountain, autumn streets lined with trucks of corn and soy beans headed for one of the four grain dealers found within a few blocks of each other, the annual Fall Festival featuring a ferris wheel and flying swings in the main intersection, a town Christmas tree which in December was permitted to replace the tank displayed outside the the small brick armoury.

My great-grandfather started one of those four grain-dealerships, and built his home about 100 years ago.  He walked the couple of blocks to his office every day into his 80s, until the afternoon he came home, announced that he was a little tired, sat down and died.  My great-grandmother lived about a decade longer and their home, with its astonishing nooks and crannies, bay windows and enormous porch, secret storage rooms and bedrooms mysteriously inaccessible except through other bedrooms, continued as the site of our family Christmas Eve gatherings. 

I suppose I was in middle school when my great-grandmother died and the house was cleaned out and sold.  As the town's businesses, including all four grain dealers, began to close, the older homes fell into disrepair and decay.  Hers passed through several owners, was turned into apartments of sorts, and showed signs of imminent collapse.  My brother and I could only hope that if it were ever demolished, someone would salvage the beautiful woodwork surrounding the fireplaces and marking the front stairs and entry to the parlor in which we had celebrated so many holidays.

Happily, someone purchased and began to restore the house a couple of years ago.  The exterior painting isn't quite finished, but new windows are in, the front porch looks inviting, and the future seems promising. I'm hoping that an opportunity to walk through the inside will present itself soon.  It would be a real pleasure to see that house brought back to life and turned into a family home again.

Walked: 3 miles.

Yesterday (Saturday 7/17): Day Off!

Friday 7/16: Walked 2 miles on the Art Loeb Trail in the Pisgah Forest.

Thursday 7/15: Walked 3 miles on the Graveyard Fields Trail off the Blue Ridge Parkway -- took me 2.5 hours!

 

Happy Bastille Day!

 

          

I just talked to my son in France!  He said that most of the Bastille Day celebrating -- fireworks and dinner at outdoor cafes -- was last night.  They don't have class today, but they do tomorrow -- and this month his group has class until 5:30 on Fridays.  Their schedule is effectively squelching their myriad plans for European travel on the Eurailpasses that they all purchased here (as required) before leaving last month.  They are hoping for better luck in August.

He is still learning to navigate: the city, the groceries, the cafes, the schoolwork.  The professors are French and teach in the traditional French fashion: marking off every tiny error, giving no indication of how to correct the mistakes, switching from topic to topic, and grading on a scale of 1-20 with 10 being a good grade and 14/15 being truly outstanding (and rare).

He says that the main thing he has learned so far is that EVERYTHING in France is different than its counterpart in the U.S.  Well, that's the point of living abroad -- to adapt to life with people who see and do everything differently than we do.  What an experience for a young person!

Back to Camp

Before the Campers Arrive

I'm off later today on the first leg of my trip down to North Carolina to pick my daughter up from her summer job and, I hope (but don't count on), seeing my son The Counselor.  I'd love to go tubing with them on the French Broad River, something we haven't had a chance to do for a few years, but I won't be surprised if he's enjoying a day off in Asheville.  I'd also like to take my daughter to see a college or two, but I'm pretty sure that's not high on her list of priorities.

She's been a Staff-in-Training, which means she's been living in a cabin with a group of little girls and their counselors, but her days have been filled with kitchen and dining room duty, leading horses around the ring for very young riders, and helping out with the crafts activities.  From the few bits of communication that I've had, this first attempt at employment beyond babysitting has been a happy success for her.

I can hardly wait to see her.  I love her sense of adventure, but I'm always lonely when she's off pursuing it.

Walked: 2.5 miles.

More on Reading, and Writing, and Walking

Sunrise Over the Atlantic

In reverse order: my favorite thing about walking is the time that it provides me to mull over the events of my life, plans, ideas, memories, whatever.  Sometimes it provides a space in which to just "be" -- today's photo, from our last morning in Florida, is an example of that.  This morning, here in the humid and sticky and hazy midwest, is something of an example of the opposite.  When I stand at the edge of the ocean watching the sunrise, I am in awe and want to embrace the moment for as long as possible.  When I stand on the edge of a small suburban lake that even the birds have abandoned for cooler locales, I just want to go home and lie down.

One of my favorite things about writing is the opportunity it provides for clarifying my thoughts.  I've been thinking since last night about what I had to say yesterday about reading.  Had I experienced a moment of temporary insanity? I wondered.  A blackout?  What was I thinking?  Does it really not bother me that people don't read for pleasure?  I would be devastated if my children didn't love to read.  I am aggravated that my students choose video games over reading.  OK, so I just lost it for awhile, right?

I've decided that I really can't decide.  As I said, I have lots of friends who aren't big readers.  One of them used to ask me, when our kids were little, how I ever found the time to read so many books to mine.  (At least an hour's worth a day; two or three if it were raining or snowing.)  Well, all you had to do was look at the difference between her housekeeping and mine to figure that one out.  But I love her dearly, and if she doesn't like to read -- well, then she doesn't.

But the unvarnished truth is that conversation among people who read is exciting and stimulating.  Multilayered conversations and, therefore, understandings, are more likely to occur when the participants have a wide-ranging repetoire on which to draw.  If I tell you that Judas, Brutus and Cassius are in the Ninth Circle, we can talk about the relative merits of sexual misdemeanors and treachery as sin, but the conversation will be a lot more meaningful if we've both read the Gospels, Julius Caesar, and The Inferno.

Years ago, E.D. Hirsch wrote a little book entitled Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know.  A lot of teachers hated that book, insisting that the list of references that took up the second half of the book amounted to little more than a springboard for multiple choice tests on obscure facts connected to the history of western civilization.  But I found his argument legitimate and, in fact, moving.  The tidbit that I remember best had to do with the Civil Rights Movement. Hirsch argues that the claims made by African-Americans for their right to full participation in American life resonated so strongly across the country because both blacks and whites were steeped in the American Revolution's language of "equality for all".  Without that "cultural literacy," developed among all Americans by reading, it would have been much harder for black leaders to communicate their case.

So, now that I've had a chance to give it some more thought, I guess I'd say that, while it doesn't particularly bother me that many people chose other forms of recreation over reading, it does bother me that a lot of people don't attempt even the basic literacy of our culture.  And lest I sound too much like an utterly obnoxious intellectual snob, let me hasten to add that I am dismayed daily by my own scientific illiteracy, which is just as important as the literary kind.  There's no way that I could explain, or understand someone else's technical explanation of, that sunrise at the top of the page, and I think that's pathetic.

So what I am reading these days?  The local paper and The New York Times every day.  Newsweek every week, unless I like the cover of Time better.  Tons of stuff online, endlessly.  And this week: The Lexus and the Olive Tree by Thomas Friedman (but I have to read that for work), Constantine's Sword by James Carroll,  Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder (just finished), The Outermost House by Henry Beston, and the Fiske Guide to Colleges.  No fiction this week, unless you count Presidential campaign ads.

Walked: 3 miles.

Your Vote Really Might Count for Something

As some other bloggers, such as Jamey of This Sublime Dance, have noted, our Senate is now debating the proposed Federal Marriage Amednment.

I don't know why this proposal affects me so powerfully, but it does.  My feelings about it go far beyond my usual perplexity as to why any of us should have any interest in or views on the sexual orientations of others, far beyond my general "live and let live" philosophy, far beyond my enjoyment of life in a diverse and (on the whole) welcoming city.  I don't have a vast network of gay friends and acquantances, and I'm not a particularly political person.  But this proposed amendment strikes me as a downright twisted attempt to manipulate our Constitution in a way designed to create pain and foster bigotry and discrimination.

So last Friday night I sent off emails to my Senators, something I have never done before, to tell them that "I am 100% opposed to such a mean-spirited, unnecessary, and appalling attempt to alter our Constitution."

I added that the proposal "violates my principles as a mother, a neighbor, a member of the community, and a Christian." 

I knew it was a pointless effort.  Both my senators are Republicans, and I doubt that we've ever agreed on much.

But tonight I have discovered, thanks to The Hestia Academy for Young Wild Women, that both of my senators are undecided!  So you never know.  They will recognize my zip code as a bastion of wild-eyed liberals, but perhaps it will give them pause to know that someone who identifies herself as a mother and a Christian finds the whole exercise heinous.