Road Trip

If you ask me what are my top ten favorite things to do I will probably list, near the top, riding around in a car. Sitting there in the front, passenger seat of a car, I have very few concerns. There is little that I can do besides relax and enjoy myself.  you may remind me that I could be working on my laptop computer or making some necessary phone calls and yes I sometimes do those things, but not for long. Usually I give in to the moment and enjoy my view of the world flashing past my window.
There are some necessary preconditions to this joy, one being the presence of two-lane roads.  Appalachia is the perfect place for this.  With its tree-covered hills and  hollows, it is perfectly suited to two-lane roads which give easy access to the small farms and land plots that dot the narrow valleys and creek bottoms.

Looking out the window I see not only the present, but also the past. In my mind's eye I see the early settlers who were among the first to appreciate the beauty of these aged, worn mountains that are anything but gentle. This is an area were the future comes slowly and the past is hard forgotten.

I see buildings that remain from the past, still put to good use. Buildings such as a church originally built by the ambitious Presbyterians who first settled an area then changed to a Methodist place of worship and now home to an independent denomination still keeping up God's house. 

Or a corn crib built from logs hewn by hand from local trees, patiently waiting to be filled as soon as the nearby field of corn is picked.

Hard-working people from all over the world came here and built homes where their families still work the land.

though in many cases children have found the land to no longer be fertile or not suited to farming with modern machinery, or perhaps they just don't have a knack for living off the land.  Modern times have pulled people to towns and cities where life doesn't so closely depend upon the amount of rainfall.

Sometimes the family home is deserted so that a family can move into a home less expensive to heat, with new plumbing and electrical work.

From my car seat I see these places and I imagine dreams and fears of the people who live in the homes that pass by my window, thinking of my own hopes and dreams.

When I see a road, I imagine where it leads, my mind traveling with it around a bend, across a creek into my own past and future.  

Together with him driving, Jeff and I see these things and make plans in response to a building that inspires us or we remember trips we have made in the past. Were we here before or was it merely a place that looked the same?

Sometimes I see a crow gently flying over a ridge and my gut wrenches wishing I could be up there alongside it as it passes over the next hill, into the next valley, above the trees, seeing the tops of  maples,  oaks, ash and pine.

I realize I have let my mind escape too far. I take a breath and bring myself back to earth, back to the passenger seat where, for now, I am content.

My house still needs cleaned, there are still calls to make, but not now . . .later

Now, I have places to see.

Gully

Birds sang me awake amid morning sun that exploded through our bedroom window. It wasn't long before I was out fulfilling a promise I made to myself last week.  I promised to head into the gully as soon as the weather invited me. 

I already knew the planned trip was a good idea, but it was an one my body rebels against even as my soul aches to explore the gully's treasures. 
Gully's, by definition, are steep hillsides.  My gully is no exception.  Spring is when the gully pulls me the hardest.  Spring, when the trees are bare of leaves, leaving the land exposed. Spring, when morning's first light touches the hillside.

 The gully is beside our road so all winter I peer down the hill searching for whatever it is that hides behind verdant leaves all summer long.

Just what is the problem with hiking into the gully?  

Lets just say that I am a "mature" woman with what Mma Precious Ramatswe of Alexander McCall Smith's novel, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, would call "a traditional build." At this point in my life, I don't want to fall and going into the gully will result in at least one fall.  
Damp, decaying leaves are the focus of a battle between decay and gravity.  The earth desperately works to claim the leaves as bugs, damp and fungus decay them, turning leaves into soil.  But, just as fervently gravity pulls at the leaves trying to convince them to slide on down to the creek at the bottom of the hill.  It is a delicate balance between these two powerful forces.  One misplaced human step will loosen the earth's hold allowing the leaves to propel downward accompanied by the foot that set them in motion.  A "traditionally built" woman will follow closely behind the foot.

A spring trip into the gully is well worth a few bruises and sore knees.  This is where I saw my first lady's slipper orchid. The pale blossom squeezed itself out from under a tree trunk lying prone and rotting on the forest floor.  The wood anemones now growing in my garden came from this plot of land.  Our side of the gully is a unique ecosystem. In spring, the gap in the hill lays just right to receive the rising sun, warming it earlier than many other woodland plots.  Once the trees are clothed in their summer leaves, the thick canope protects the steep floor below.  Because of its isolation, very few people travel across this hillside. There once was a time that my two children spent many hours playing in the creek below. building dams, digging up turtles and cooling their toes in the cool mud. Now I am perhaps its only human visitor. 

The creek that runs through the gully is seasonal.  While there is always some mud and damp leaves, running water only lasts until the spring rains cease.  A few summer rains will temporarily fill its bed, but the heat of summer means the water is quickly absorbed by the ground.  Its seasonal existence does not lessen the creek's power.  It doesn't take much looking to see how the creek is taking part in the gradual wearing away of the aged Appalachian mountains.  Exposed tree roots attest to the undermining work of the water as it heads downhill toward the Gulf of Mexico.

There are a few places where the stream travels almost flatly across the ground. providing easy access to deer and small animals needing a quick drink.

Today I am glad that I took the risk of toppling head first through the trees.  The gully is just as I remembered it from last spring.  A place of wonder and delight.  The perfect place to search for Spring.