Yesterday, I hiked at Kennesaw Mountain. Lately, I've been hiking out of the area covered by my year long hiking project; I camped and hiked with Livy and my mom at Cheaha State Park in Alabama, and I did a piece of the Appalachian Trail because I wanted to see the fall leaves. But yesterday, I was back into my regular life hiking, so after I took Livy to her classes, I went the Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park.
The Kolb Farm loop is 6 miles (I did a little more) and runs from the Illinois Monument at Cheatam Hill down to Kolb Farm and back. It's flatter than the part that goes over the mountain and less wooded. I really like the open fields and meadows, especially in fall when the native grasses are so beautiful. One of my favorite views is from the top of a hill, looking down over a meadow partially gone to pines. The trees at the end of the meadow were aflame with beautiful color, and the path at the top of the hill sweeps around the highest part of the meadow in a lovely curve. Whenever I walk it, I imagine I am one of the Dashwoods, and we stop here to discuss the picturesque view, and perhaps Elinor draws it.
When Edward says,"I call it a very fine country -- the hills are steep, the woods seem full of fine timber, and the valley looks comfortable and snug -- with rich meadows and several neat farm houses scattered here and there. It exactly answers my idea of a fine country, because it unites beauty with utility," I think of the Kolb Farm Loop and the Shenandoah Valley part of the Appalachian Trail and Skyline Drive. I think I agree with Edward. I love the look of beautiful settings, but touched by human hands, made sacred by love and work and people living their beautiful lives. My broodings of human interaction with Kennesaw Mountain, though, are sometimes less lovely. I can also imagine the death and misery that happened here during the Civil War, and as I've gotten older, the death seems worse because I imagine how many of them were practically children. A hike here is always sobering to me, as well as lovely.
My hiking yesterday was broody, but not over long ago wars. I was hiking myself into a state of calmness. When my mind is unsettled, nothing is so necessary to me as walking. The farther I walk, the more resigned to the reality of things I get and the more peaceful I become and the more sure I am of being reasonable. Walking seems to push me, not just over miles of actual terrain, but over miles of feelings and thoughts. I walk right through my strong feelings; I feel them completely but with the support of the trees and the path under my feet. I walk out the other side of them into a clearer mind where I can consider facts and ideas carefully and in a measured way. Feeling my feet on the ground and the air in my lungs prevents me from floating away from the real concrete things that are a part of mental disquiet: my feelings, the things in the world that have happened, my actions and their consequences.
But the movement, the walking, the expansive outdoors prevents the opposite as well; I cannot get stuck in the same old details or in myself when I am walking. It is too clear on a path that most of the thngs in the world aren't about me. The woods were here long ago. The meadows weren't cleared for me. The path is well-worn by other feet, and if I never walked it again, it would continue to the place it goes. The sky and the birds and the dirt and the horses that pass do not know me. My concerns are important to me, but they aren't universally important. I can rest in the calm knowledge that, though decisions are hard and understanding things is difficult, my decisions are not SO important. They are only important to me. Hiking makes me understand my place in the world more clearly.
I walked out of the woods more reasonable, calmer, and therefore more capable of real love and real thinking than when I walked in.
Showing posts with label hiking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hiking. Show all posts
Friday, October 30, 2015
Saturday, October 3, 2015
Hike 6: Kennesaw Mountain Summit Loop
On Oct 1, I did the Summit Loop from the Visitor Center at Kennesaw Mountain. It was cloudy and misty, and landmarks in the distance were obscured. This was perfect, as I wished to be obscured as well. I went to be completely alone, not just to forget, but to be forgotten. I didn't take pictures, and I won't write details. I'll let this hike remain hidden in the mists.
Monday, September 28, 2015
Hikes 4 and 5: Sweetwater Creek State Park
Yesterday, Aaron had to work all day on a Sunday, so after a late breakfast with him, I took myself off to Sweetwater Creek State Park (near I-20 and Thornton Rd.) to hike several of the trails in my Hiking Atlanta's Hidden Forests list. It was so beautiful and the day was so perfectly cool and overcast and foresty, that I ended up extending both the hikes quite a bit.
Miles hiked: about 10
Hours walking: 5
Ounces of water consumed: 175
Deer seen: 4
Bears seen that turned out to be logs: 1
The first trail I hiked was the red trail, and it was beautiful! It follows the banks of Sweetwater Creek in a place with gorgeous rapids. I had to clamber over lots of rocks. The only downside was that it was fairly crowded. Then, I joined the white trail, which led me beside the still waters of the creek and then looped back though beds of ferns, up into dry forests, and out into meadows that used to be a farming community. This trail was much less crowded.
The yellow trail was difficult, much more elevation gain than the others, but almost empty of people and completely forested and dark and cool. I was the only person on the orange trail, as far as I could see, and it was not difficult. Some lovely old trees with mossy trunks were highlights of this part.
The best thing about the hike was the distance. It's a lot of fun to hike short distances, but when I hike long, the walking is like sandpaper on my mind. It's abrasive and not always pleasant, but at the end, my internal landscape is silk and without splinters.
Miles hiked: about 10
Hours walking: 5
Ounces of water consumed: 175
Deer seen: 4
Bears seen that turned out to be logs: 1
The first trail I hiked was the red trail, and it was beautiful! It follows the banks of Sweetwater Creek in a place with gorgeous rapids. I had to clamber over lots of rocks. The only downside was that it was fairly crowded. Then, I joined the white trail, which led me beside the still waters of the creek and then looped back though beds of ferns, up into dry forests, and out into meadows that used to be a farming community. This trail was much less crowded.
The yellow trail was difficult, much more elevation gain than the others, but almost empty of people and completely forested and dark and cool. I was the only person on the orange trail, as far as I could see, and it was not difficult. Some lovely old trees with mossy trunks were highlights of this part.
The best thing about the hike was the distance. It's a lot of fun to hike short distances, but when I hike long, the walking is like sandpaper on my mind. It's abrasive and not always pleasant, but at the end, my internal landscape is silk and without splinters.
 |
| This old mill sits just off the red trail. |
 |
| This mixed bouquet was growing right out of a tree! |
 |
| In my hiking so far, I've seen a lot of sycamores beside water. The small sycamores look like the embodiment of youth. |
Wednesday, September 23, 2015
A Walk in the Woods: Hike 3 in the style of Bill Bryson
(from the series Hiking Atlanta's Hidden Forests in a Year)
On Tuesday, I woke up melancholy. Only the idle rich and the academic can afford to be really and truly melancholic. Other people have to suck it up and go to work. But writing can be postponed, and grading can be abandoned.
I made a few half-hearted attempts to get over myself and work. John Winthrop would have been ashamed of my work ethic (and my lack of Puritanism). I would never have made it though the winter in the Ciy on the Hill, and I couldn't make it through a stack of summaries either. I gave in and went hiking.
Not the John Winthrop, hike into the wilderness in search of food and Indians to oppress kind of hike, but the kind of leisurely hiking favored by the idle rich and the melancholic academic.
Because my ennui made me too lazy to drive very far, I chose Vickery Creek, a familiar system of trails in the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area, though it doesn't actually include the Chattahoochee River, but a tributary, Vickery Creek or Big Creek. I had walked the trails near the Roswell Mill, but this section, which I entered from Riverside Rd, was new to me.
I walked about 5 miles and saw many exciting sights, including a very comely bridge, an Easter Island head (which turned out to be a log), a bear (which turned out to be a log), and a turtle (which was real and alive and not a log. I texted Aaron and Livy to let them know everything I saw, including the things that turned out to be logs.
The turtle let me get very close and photograph him (phone screen broken, so no photos in this post), and he didn't even pull his head into his shell. He just looked at me, not the least concerned. It was like he knew that I was no John Winthrop, and I was much to lazy and filled with melancholy to bother turning him into soup. Eventually, he broke our eye contact and wandered away.
On my hike, I listened to a Planet Money podcast, which was not so incongrous with a nature hike as you might imagine because it was about cookies, and when I am hiking, I always wish I had cookies in my backpack. Then I listened to a Buddhist Geeks podcast and a bit of a Pema Chodron lecture about how to notice when we are about to act on a negative habit and stop that chain reaction before it gets going. I do actually find Buddhist ideas appropriate on a hike because they make me focused on my surroundings (lovely and teeming with life), on my feelings (My melancholy was still there, but hiking is a delight even when, maybe especially when, one is melancholy.), and on the sensations of moving my body (my chest rising and falling chest, my feet raised and then planted again). Hiking makes it easy to put Buddhist ideas immediately into action.
As I walked, I fell into a rhythm, a breathing, arm-swinging, foot planting rhythm, and myself as metronome is much less melancholy than myself as academic. My feeling never went away, but I was no longer a person who felt, only a person who moved and looked and breathed. I completely forgot about wanting a cookie. Puritans probably knew this: you walk, you hunt, you mend, you read the Bible, you weave, you cook, you pray. And the rhythm of a life of doing leaves little room for the melancholy of the idle rich or the academic.
On Tuesday, I woke up melancholy. Only the idle rich and the academic can afford to be really and truly melancholic. Other people have to suck it up and go to work. But writing can be postponed, and grading can be abandoned.
I made a few half-hearted attempts to get over myself and work. John Winthrop would have been ashamed of my work ethic (and my lack of Puritanism). I would never have made it though the winter in the Ciy on the Hill, and I couldn't make it through a stack of summaries either. I gave in and went hiking.
Not the John Winthrop, hike into the wilderness in search of food and Indians to oppress kind of hike, but the kind of leisurely hiking favored by the idle rich and the melancholic academic.
Because my ennui made me too lazy to drive very far, I chose Vickery Creek, a familiar system of trails in the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area, though it doesn't actually include the Chattahoochee River, but a tributary, Vickery Creek or Big Creek. I had walked the trails near the Roswell Mill, but this section, which I entered from Riverside Rd, was new to me.
I walked about 5 miles and saw many exciting sights, including a very comely bridge, an Easter Island head (which turned out to be a log), a bear (which turned out to be a log), and a turtle (which was real and alive and not a log. I texted Aaron and Livy to let them know everything I saw, including the things that turned out to be logs.
The turtle let me get very close and photograph him (phone screen broken, so no photos in this post), and he didn't even pull his head into his shell. He just looked at me, not the least concerned. It was like he knew that I was no John Winthrop, and I was much to lazy and filled with melancholy to bother turning him into soup. Eventually, he broke our eye contact and wandered away.
On my hike, I listened to a Planet Money podcast, which was not so incongrous with a nature hike as you might imagine because it was about cookies, and when I am hiking, I always wish I had cookies in my backpack. Then I listened to a Buddhist Geeks podcast and a bit of a Pema Chodron lecture about how to notice when we are about to act on a negative habit and stop that chain reaction before it gets going. I do actually find Buddhist ideas appropriate on a hike because they make me focused on my surroundings (lovely and teeming with life), on my feelings (My melancholy was still there, but hiking is a delight even when, maybe especially when, one is melancholy.), and on the sensations of moving my body (my chest rising and falling chest, my feet raised and then planted again). Hiking makes it easy to put Buddhist ideas immediately into action.
As I walked, I fell into a rhythm, a breathing, arm-swinging, foot planting rhythm, and myself as metronome is much less melancholy than myself as academic. My feeling never went away, but I was no longer a person who felt, only a person who moved and looked and breathed. I completely forgot about wanting a cookie. Puritans probably knew this: you walk, you hunt, you mend, you read the Bible, you weave, you cook, you pray. And the rhythm of a life of doing leaves little room for the melancholy of the idle rich or the academic.
Friday, September 18, 2015
Hiking Atlanta in a Year: Hikes 1 and 2 and lots of pictures
Aaron and I will not be traveling quite as much as we normally do this year. It's not a bad thing; in fact, our long-term plan will have us on the road more often. But I need more adventuring this year.
I bought this book: Hiking Atlanta's Hidden Forests: Intown and Out. I like it because the hikes are so geographically focused; all 60 hikes are within 30 miles of Atlanta. Many of them are new to me, though I've hiked the Chattahoochee and Kennesaw Mountain trails pretty thoroughly.
And so my adventure was born. I love themed trips where you collect all of something in your adventure. Aaron and I want to visit every Grand Canyon of X state. We want to drive all of Highway 1 from Key West to Fort Kent, ME. And now I want to hike all the hikes in my new book this year.
I hiked Leita Thompson Memorial Park on Sept. 10. It was a familiar hike; in fact, it was where we hiked for my birthday in January of 2015 with Zahra and the Caseys and Josh in his bow tie. :) It was where Cynthia, Jenn, and I hiked and talked and talked and talked very recently. But on the l0th, I hiked it alone. It was overcast, I listened to my QM lectures, I ran a little, and I avoided, pretty unsuccessfully, an annoying leaf-blowing tractor.
I posted all this on Facebook, but SCREW THAT.
The real new info is this: I hiked a new trail yesterday. I did the Historic Hill Trail and the Trestle Rock Multi-Use Trail at Old Rope Mill Park off exit 9 of 575. It seemed to be focused on mountain bikers (the two short trails I did were walking only), so it makes me a little nervous to contemplate walking the other two. However, checking them off the list in my book and completing this year-long, put-all-the-trails-in-a-virtual-bucket project is worth getting run down by a speeding mountain bike, so I'll go back and do those two as well.
The hiking was very pleasant on this cloudy, cool, Thursday morning. I walked alone, listening to a Freakanomics podcast, then a Buddhist Geeks podcast, then a lecture by Pema Chodron about getting hooked by shenpa and how to get unhooked. I walked very slowly, as I've been sick, and I looked at all the things. Here are some cool ones I saw:
Some of the most fun and cheerfully colorful graffiti I've ever seen:
Under this old railroad bridge:
SO MANY WILDFLOWERS! The dry ones that come in fall and will last, slowly losing all their color and becoming texture alone, in fall and winter.
Beautiful views of the creek:
And the happy, happy dogs in the creek:
The place was full of sycamore trees, which are jumping I did in my childhood into piles of their leaves. The light on the leaves on the sycamores was the most lovely thing I saw, but alas, I couldn't quite catch it with my camera.
A pair of young people let me take a picture of their hammock set-up, and they complimented me on my TARDIS phone case, so I know they were the best kind of people.
The bridge over the creek:
Proof that fall is coming to GA. I usually see fall drop on us like an anvil; I get up one morning and the leaves are all red, or we skip that and trees go from green to bare. But I caught these leaves in the middle of changing color, and I was so pleased to imagine the last little packets of chlorophyll hanging on to dear life.
Monday, May 7, 2012
Decoration This Weekend
Since Decoration generally kicks off summer for me, I thought I would blog about it and maybe try to actually keep you updated on all my summer adventures.
Here's a list of stuff we did:
1. On the drive to MS and back, Livy and I listened to Amelia Peabody books, while she worked on multiplication, read Dr. Seuss, and drew both imaginary scenes (for instance a dragon fighting a zombie T-Rex) or sketched things we found (like a big leaf and a dead butterfly).
2. My mom and I found the oldest grave in Egger Cemetery, a lady named Anne Egger, who was born in 1763. We talked to her great, great, great, great granddaughter, who told us that they probably came to Caledonia by way We also found a set of Kirkpatrick graves nearly that old and were excited by the name. Probably early Scots-Irish immigrants to the area. The name Caledonia certainly suggest Scotland.
3. We decorated all our people, and the graves looked lovely.
4. Livy and I went with my mom and Mimi to the little cemetery chapel service on Sunday morning, which I haven't done since I was a child. The piano was out of tune, just the way I remember it, and that made the singing even better. We sang old hymns that I knew well, and it wasn't so terribly hot as usual.
5. I got a great idea for a book. The first book I have ever really thought about writing.
6. On the way home, Livy and I drove highway 278 all the way across northern Alabama instead of taking the interstate.
7. We slammed on the brakes and turned into a road labeled Natural Bridge and ended up hiking around the longest natural bridge east of the Rockies. It was beautiful and we saw a snake. A motorcycle lady is supposed to facebook a picture to me for identification.
8. We found a monastary in Cullman, AL. We walked the Stations of the Cross, culminating at the abbey cemetery and a pretty little chapel with those brightly colored statues that Catholics seem to be fond of. Really cool find.
Now we are home. Livy has gone to her dad's house, and I am headed to Savannah this morning. More posts from there, I hope.
Here's a list of stuff we did:
1. On the drive to MS and back, Livy and I listened to Amelia Peabody books, while she worked on multiplication, read Dr. Seuss, and drew both imaginary scenes (for instance a dragon fighting a zombie T-Rex) or sketched things we found (like a big leaf and a dead butterfly).
2. My mom and I found the oldest grave in Egger Cemetery, a lady named Anne Egger, who was born in 1763. We talked to her great, great, great, great granddaughter, who told us that they probably came to Caledonia by way We also found a set of Kirkpatrick graves nearly that old and were excited by the name. Probably early Scots-Irish immigrants to the area. The name Caledonia certainly suggest Scotland.
3. We decorated all our people, and the graves looked lovely.
4. Livy and I went with my mom and Mimi to the little cemetery chapel service on Sunday morning, which I haven't done since I was a child. The piano was out of tune, just the way I remember it, and that made the singing even better. We sang old hymns that I knew well, and it wasn't so terribly hot as usual.
5. I got a great idea for a book. The first book I have ever really thought about writing.
6. On the way home, Livy and I drove highway 278 all the way across northern Alabama instead of taking the interstate.
7. We slammed on the brakes and turned into a road labeled Natural Bridge and ended up hiking around the longest natural bridge east of the Rockies. It was beautiful and we saw a snake. A motorcycle lady is supposed to facebook a picture to me for identification.
8. We found a monastary in Cullman, AL. We walked the Stations of the Cross, culminating at the abbey cemetery and a pretty little chapel with those brightly colored statues that Catholics seem to be fond of. Really cool find.
Now we are home. Livy has gone to her dad's house, and I am headed to Savannah this morning. More posts from there, I hope.
Monday, February 27, 2012
A long drive for a pretty hike
I never got around to blogging about our Savannah trip, so since I am on another trip now (posts coming on that), I thought I'd catch up.
We wanted to get out of town. Well, I wanted to get out of town, and Livy and Aaron were their usual "up-for-my-adventures selves. We talked about going north to Clingman's Dome in TN, but there was a snowstorm, so we decided to drive south. We didn't know where we wanted to go, but we packed our stuff and starting driving south on I-75.
Finally, we decided on Savannah. We left in the mid-afternoon on a Saturday and arrive in Savannah about 5 hours later, after dark. We drove through the downtown just to see it, and then we got a hotel, ate our picnic supper on the floor, and went to bed. The drive down was nice. Aaron and I took turns driving and reading Anne of Green Gables out loud, and Livy read a book to us as well.
The next morning, we got up kind of early and headed to Skidaway Island State Park. It was very cold, but we took an awesome hike. A lot of the ground was sandy, and there were tons of palm trees and saw palmetto on the path. We saw beautiful marshes, and there was even an observation tower to climb and look down over all the grasses and marshland. Livy loved playing on all the twisty coastal trees, and she liked the live oaks with Spanish moss in them enough that on the way home she drew a picture of one for her nature journal.
After our hike, we went to the Visitor Center to see the reptile feeding. We were the only people there, so the park ranger talked to us the whole time. We learned a lot about their animals. We saw 2 different snakes swallow mice, a baby alligator under a heat lamp, and tons of turtles and frogs and lizards.
The visitor center also had an amazing bird viewing room with big glass windows that looked out onto a patio with lots of bird feeders. We sat with binoculars and a bird book and identified cardinals, a blue jay, tufted titmice, and Carolina chickadees. There were so many birds swooping this way and that, and we could have stayed there a long time. Except that we were HUNGRY!
So we drove into Savannah for lunch. I wanted seafood, but we wandered up and down the street a while and ended up in a non-so great brunch kind of place. It was overpriced and not fantastic, but I did have an amazing bowl of she-crab soup.
After lunch, we headed home. It was really nice mini-trip!
We wanted to get out of town. Well, I wanted to get out of town, and Livy and Aaron were their usual "up-for-my-adventures selves. We talked about going north to Clingman's Dome in TN, but there was a snowstorm, so we decided to drive south. We didn't know where we wanted to go, but we packed our stuff and starting driving south on I-75.
Finally, we decided on Savannah. We left in the mid-afternoon on a Saturday and arrive in Savannah about 5 hours later, after dark. We drove through the downtown just to see it, and then we got a hotel, ate our picnic supper on the floor, and went to bed. The drive down was nice. Aaron and I took turns driving and reading Anne of Green Gables out loud, and Livy read a book to us as well.
The next morning, we got up kind of early and headed to Skidaway Island State Park. It was very cold, but we took an awesome hike. A lot of the ground was sandy, and there were tons of palm trees and saw palmetto on the path. We saw beautiful marshes, and there was even an observation tower to climb and look down over all the grasses and marshland. Livy loved playing on all the twisty coastal trees, and she liked the live oaks with Spanish moss in them enough that on the way home she drew a picture of one for her nature journal.
After our hike, we went to the Visitor Center to see the reptile feeding. We were the only people there, so the park ranger talked to us the whole time. We learned a lot about their animals. We saw 2 different snakes swallow mice, a baby alligator under a heat lamp, and tons of turtles and frogs and lizards.
The visitor center also had an amazing bird viewing room with big glass windows that looked out onto a patio with lots of bird feeders. We sat with binoculars and a bird book and identified cardinals, a blue jay, tufted titmice, and Carolina chickadees. There were so many birds swooping this way and that, and we could have stayed there a long time. Except that we were HUNGRY!
So we drove into Savannah for lunch. I wanted seafood, but we wandered up and down the street a while and ended up in a non-so great brunch kind of place. It was overpriced and not fantastic, but I did have an amazing bowl of she-crab soup.
After lunch, we headed home. It was really nice mini-trip!
Saturday, December 31, 2011
My Second-Best Goose Chase Ever: Days 17 and 18
Yesterday, Aaron and I embarked on a crazy wild goose chase, destined for failure. We saw Holy Island on the map, an island just south of Scotland in the North Sea, where Lindisfarne Priory was (and its ruins still are). That priory is where the gorgeously illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels were made. Besides that huge draw (at least for me), the island can only be reached by a causeway that is underwater at high tide. We wanted to drive up on a whim and see if we could find a B&B to spend the night in on the island.
Sounds lovely, right? Well, the reason it was a crazy goose chase was that I knew for a fact that the Priory would be closed to visitors (for the winter season) and there was a good chance that all the guest houses would be as well. If we hunted one up for too long, we could get stuck on the island for 6 hours until the tide went back out with a place to stay. If the guest houses weren't open, chances are that the pubs and cafes wouldn't be either. And, we don't have a phone or any reliable internet access away from whatever hotel we are staying in.
However, we went. Why not? This trip is for adventures, and this island certainly qualified. It turned out BEAUTIFULLY.
We drove up from Penrick mostly in the rain, but not a hard rain. Seeing the causeway was even neater than we thought. We drove out to the island at nearly dark and marveled at the escape towers out on the sand, at the grasses and seaweed that lives both in dry and wet land (depending on the tide), and at the small part of the island itself that floods twice a day. It was pouring rain, but we managed to find out that the entire island closes down after Christmas until April. No hotels, no restaurants, no priory, no nothing but amazing views. We were expecting that there would be barriers preventing cars from entering the causeway at the high tide times, but all there was was a sign with tide times and a picture of a submerged car as a warning to follow them.
We drove off the island at dark, just as the tides were about to come back in and cut it off from the mainland. Luckily, we found a hotel one mile from the causeway with a restaurant and pub attached, and the rate was very reasonable because apparently we are the only people crazy enough to come to Holy Island in the winter.
We weren't ready to eat, so we drove into Scotland. Just to the tip of it, just to say we did. Scotland looked much like the part of England that was 5 feet away.
We had dinner in the pub, including a few pints of cider for Aaron and way too much wine for me, read "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" until we were sleepy, and konked out early.
We got up early to go to the causeway at sunrise. We timed it so there would be light and the water would still be out over the road. We were able to walk out onto the road as far as the water and watch it recede in front of us. We saw an animal poke its head up above the water again and again, swimming in a sleek graceful way across the water. We couldn't decide what it was at first--too graceful for a turtle, too big for snake. We saw later that this part of the North Sea has a huge seal colony, and it must have been a seal! There were also millions of birds, flying against the orange sunrise and purple clouds. It was amazingly beautiful and one of the highlights of our trip.
We had breakfast after and headed south along a coastal highway, back toward Newcastle where we had to return our rental car. The ocean was stunning! I had never seen an ocean that didn't meet the land at a beach, and we saw cliffs dropping away into the waves, beaches, and fields full of cows sloping down to the water.
We drove right up to a beautiful castle in Bamburgh (picture); it was closed for the season, but I walked down along a path that ran at the bottom of the walls where they were built right out of the stone. From the top of the hill, we could look out over the North Sea to the Farne Islands, tiny islands (only some of which are visible when the tide is high) and see a lighthouse and a tiny chapel.
On the drive south, we also passed through Alnwick, which was my favorite of the northern towns we saw. It had an old beautiful downtown, like Newcastle and Berwick-upon-Tweed, but it was also thriving and clean and busy. I wish we had had time to go to the Gardens, but we did stop and walk on a path through a sheep pasture beside the river Aln. When I say through a sheep pasture, I mean it, too. We went right up beside the flock. We have seen a lot of sheep on this trip, enough to make me cynical about their existence (kind of like armadillos), but I thought it was neat to be so close to them. On the other side of the Aln was Alnwick Castle (our view of the castle), more beautiful, I thought, than Bamburgh Castle, though Aaron disagrees. Alnwick Castle was used in the filming of Harry Potter, and you can see it here in a still from the movie.
If we have a chance to return to Great Britain (probably on a trip to Scotland and Ireland), we would definitely return to the Northumberland Coast. I would love to visit the Holy Island in the summer, when the hiking would be pleasant, and I would like to spend a day or two in Alnwick, exploring the castle, the Abbey, the footpaths around the town, and the lovely city center.
Now, we are on a train headed back to London. It's the crazy train, for sure. So far, here are the nutty people I've seen (while Aaron sleeps, oblivious to the crazy):
Sounds lovely, right? Well, the reason it was a crazy goose chase was that I knew for a fact that the Priory would be closed to visitors (for the winter season) and there was a good chance that all the guest houses would be as well. If we hunted one up for too long, we could get stuck on the island for 6 hours until the tide went back out with a place to stay. If the guest houses weren't open, chances are that the pubs and cafes wouldn't be either. And, we don't have a phone or any reliable internet access away from whatever hotel we are staying in.
However, we went. Why not? This trip is for adventures, and this island certainly qualified. It turned out BEAUTIFULLY.
We drove up from Penrick mostly in the rain, but not a hard rain. Seeing the causeway was even neater than we thought. We drove out to the island at nearly dark and marveled at the escape towers out on the sand, at the grasses and seaweed that lives both in dry and wet land (depending on the tide), and at the small part of the island itself that floods twice a day. It was pouring rain, but we managed to find out that the entire island closes down after Christmas until April. No hotels, no restaurants, no priory, no nothing but amazing views. We were expecting that there would be barriers preventing cars from entering the causeway at the high tide times, but all there was was a sign with tide times and a picture of a submerged car as a warning to follow them.
We drove off the island at dark, just as the tides were about to come back in and cut it off from the mainland. Luckily, we found a hotel one mile from the causeway with a restaurant and pub attached, and the rate was very reasonable because apparently we are the only people crazy enough to come to Holy Island in the winter.
We weren't ready to eat, so we drove into Scotland. Just to the tip of it, just to say we did. Scotland looked much like the part of England that was 5 feet away.
We had dinner in the pub, including a few pints of cider for Aaron and way too much wine for me, read "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" until we were sleepy, and konked out early.
We got up early to go to the causeway at sunrise. We timed it so there would be light and the water would still be out over the road. We were able to walk out onto the road as far as the water and watch it recede in front of us. We saw an animal poke its head up above the water again and again, swimming in a sleek graceful way across the water. We couldn't decide what it was at first--too graceful for a turtle, too big for snake. We saw later that this part of the North Sea has a huge seal colony, and it must have been a seal! There were also millions of birds, flying against the orange sunrise and purple clouds. It was amazingly beautiful and one of the highlights of our trip.
We had breakfast after and headed south along a coastal highway, back toward Newcastle where we had to return our rental car. The ocean was stunning! I had never seen an ocean that didn't meet the land at a beach, and we saw cliffs dropping away into the waves, beaches, and fields full of cows sloping down to the water.
We drove right up to a beautiful castle in Bamburgh (picture); it was closed for the season, but I walked down along a path that ran at the bottom of the walls where they were built right out of the stone. From the top of the hill, we could look out over the North Sea to the Farne Islands, tiny islands (only some of which are visible when the tide is high) and see a lighthouse and a tiny chapel.
On the drive south, we also passed through Alnwick, which was my favorite of the northern towns we saw. It had an old beautiful downtown, like Newcastle and Berwick-upon-Tweed, but it was also thriving and clean and busy. I wish we had had time to go to the Gardens, but we did stop and walk on a path through a sheep pasture beside the river Aln. When I say through a sheep pasture, I mean it, too. We went right up beside the flock. We have seen a lot of sheep on this trip, enough to make me cynical about their existence (kind of like armadillos), but I thought it was neat to be so close to them. On the other side of the Aln was Alnwick Castle (our view of the castle), more beautiful, I thought, than Bamburgh Castle, though Aaron disagrees. Alnwick Castle was used in the filming of Harry Potter, and you can see it here in a still from the movie.
If we have a chance to return to Great Britain (probably on a trip to Scotland and Ireland), we would definitely return to the Northumberland Coast. I would love to visit the Holy Island in the summer, when the hiking would be pleasant, and I would like to spend a day or two in Alnwick, exploring the castle, the Abbey, the footpaths around the town, and the lovely city center.
Now, we are on a train headed back to London. It's the crazy train, for sure. So far, here are the nutty people I've seen (while Aaron sleeps, oblivious to the crazy):
- A lady with a dog who starting hysterically shrieking and running down the aisle when she missed her stop, causing the dog to hysterically bark
- A family with possibly the worst behaved children I have ever encountered, even in Walmart, who made me wish to be nearer the barking dog
- A little boy who got himself locked into the bathroom and banged on the door until someone let him out, the only person on the list I felt sorry for
We are spending the night tonight at a hotel near Heathrow (to be away from crazy New Year's Eve partiers), and then tomorrow we are back to our dear Mayflower Hotel near Earl's Court (the site of the beginning of my love of Chicken Balti).We have a few more days in London before we go home on the 4th of January. I will return home, now aged 33, satiated on adventure for a little while, and glad to see Livy again.
Friday, November 25, 2011
Day 4 of Great Trace Chase and What I am Thankful For
Today, we left my mom's house and headed back to Jackson to start our final leg of the Trace where we left off before Thanksgiving. It was a full day, and some of our favorite things of the trip happened today.
The highlights:
1. We finished Matilda and started Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Livy likes Roald Dahl A LOT! She says he is tied with J.K. Rowling. I love these books too; they are like Narnia mixed with Jonathan Swift. Sharply satirical and heroic/fantastical at the same time. (Not that C.S. Lewis wasn't satirical, but this is acrid satire, very Swiftian.)
2. We hiked under a waterfall. It was a tiny waterfall, but it was so neat to climb underneath its overhang and put our hands in it from the back.
3. Livy climbed on everythings. She climbed the Sunken Trace (where the Old Trace is sunk way down below the treeline with lots of exposed roots), down into a ravine where she crossed a creek on a big log, and up several Indian mounds.
4. We walked through the remains of an old town and through its cemetery. We found the oldest grave, a lady who was born in 1778 and died in 1859.
5. We explored Mt. Locust, the only remaining inn from the hayday of the Natchez Trace. We did a scavenger hunt all over the grounds and inside the building, hunting up slave graves, magnolia trees, and furniture to hold chamber pots, among other things. Livy turned in the Junior Ranger book that she had been working on the whole trip here and got her badge. She and I agreed that this was one of the highlights of the trip. I liked the Pharr Mounds from Day 2 better, but Mt. Locust was a close second. The scavenger hunt made exploring really fun.
6. We climbed up (and Livy rolled down) the second biggest Mississippian Indian Mound in the counrtry, Emerald Mound. The sun was starting to set, and it was beautiful to look down over all the surrounding forests.
7. We reached the end of the Trace in Natchez at twilight and drove across the Mississippi River into Louisiana and back. I love the river; I always have. It's so fun seeing how wide it is, and I love the moment when half of the car is in Mississippi and half in Louisiana. Afterwards, we drove through downtown Natchez to look at their Christmas decorations, which are AWESOME
.
A little Mexican food and several pages in our phonics reader later, Livy and I are settled into our motel, watching Phineas and Ferb.
This has been the most amazing trip. I just love traveling alone with Livy. She and I really get reconnected, and we do the most spontaneous, fun things. I would never do some of the things she pushes me to do, like jumping from hay bale to hay bale or climbing under a waterfall, even though it is off the path. It's awesome to listen to some many great books as we drive, and when we are together for long periods of time, she talks more than she does at home. Traveling together makes me feel so close; there are none of the distractions of home, just hanging out.
So this Thanksgiving, I am thankful for how cool Livy is, for her being the kind of kid who enjoys my wandering ways and who makes a good companion. I'm thankful for Aaron, too, who understands my need to be on the move when I start to feel like a cud-chewing cow. I love that he doesn't feel left out when Livy and I take off. (The truth is that he really likes the alone time, as much as I like the wandering.) And I am thankful for the big world full of wonders and marvels to experience.
Monday, November 21, 2011
Great Trace Chase: Day 3
Today, we set out early for another full day on the Trace. We made it as far as Jackson before heading east to my mom's house for Thanksgiving. We got to her house tonight, and I am so tired that I am only going to make a list of things we did, though I will try to include entertaining details.
1. We started out at the Visitor Center in Tupelo, where we saw some exhibits, touch deer skulls with antlers, and picked up a hitchhiker - an armadillo puppet named Sparkles who especially enjoys Native American historical sites and whom Livy taught to read a map all day long.
2. We hiked two sections of the Old Trace, the actual trail that the Kaintucks (that's Ohio Valley farmers who came down the river and hiked the trace home) walked along. We pretended we were Kaintucks, Chickasaw Indians, and even robbers (of which the Trace had its fair share). We wished we had horses so we could pretend to be mail riders.
3. We visited a Chickasaw Indain village, two more sets of mounds, and a house and barns circa 1840. We were excited to see a plow just like the one Almanzo would have used, harrow and all!
4. We did a nature trail through a cypress swamp, which was beautiful. I really wanted to see an alligator, but Livy was slightly terrified the whole time and was glad that we didn't. We didn't even see a turtle, but at different parts of the day, we saw cranes, hawks, and lots of horses.
5. We picnicked at a pretty overlook. It wasn't historical or interesting at all in that way, but we laid back on our blanket on the hill and had a delightful lunch of ham, cheese, veggies, hummus, and yogurt. Livy also ran up and down the hill about 48 times.
6. We watched the sun set over Ross Barnett Reservoir (very beautiful), and Livy threw about 600 sticks into the water.
7. We finished James and the Giant Peach and started Matilda (also by Roald Dahl).
I probably won't post until we are on the road again. We are going to spend 3 days here in Meridian and then head out again to do the rest of the Trace from Jackson to Natchez. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Mississippi's the place, by way of the Trace:Day 1
Two observations:
1. This blog has become a travel blog. Partly because we travel ALL THE TIME, and partly because when we travel I have time to write on it.
2. As road trip names go, this one is not our best. But we must have a name, and this is all we've got: "Mississippi's the place, by way of the Trace." I reserve the right to change it if one of us comes up with something brilliant.
Anyway, Livy and I set out after a lunch with Aaron for Nashville. Why did we go in that direction to get to Mississippi, you may ask. Because we are going to drive ALL THE WAY down the Natchez Trace if we can fit it all in. The Natchez Trace is a paved highway running down an old trail called the Natchez Trace. See, people in the West (Kentucky, Pennsylvania, etc) used to travel down the MS River and then walk back up the Trace. There were also apparently tons of Indians, outlaws, and mail riders. The road has tons of hiking (some of it along sections of the Old Trace), pretty overlooks and picnic spots, and historic sites of all kinds.
I used to drive it with my parents all the time when I was little. ALL THE TIME. Finally, as a teenager, I put my foot down. My MS history and government teacher father would have driven that damn road every holiday and read every placard along its 440 miles. But now, more than a decade later, it seems really fun to me again. Did it just take some time to stop being sick of it? Am I just old? Whatever the reason, that's the trip I chose this time.
Livy is a really good road-tripper, and this one is even better because she can follow our progress on the map of the Trace and get out all the time to run about. I am not sick yet of "Look, there was mile marker 423! Look, there was mile marker 422!" So far, it's just adorable. And I have learned that she will read ANYTHING if it is on a map. :)
So, we drove to Nashville today and started down the Trace almost at the very top. We started at mile marker 436, instead of 444, because of where our highway spit us out onto the Trace. We saw (and drove across) an awesome bridge (the Double Arch Bridge); we hiked a 1 mile round trip up to an amazing overlook where we saw patchwork fields and horses below us; we drove into an beautiful sunset; and we listened to almost all of The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis.
Tonight, we got dinner, grocery shopped to fill our cooler for tomorrow, checked into a hotel, and now we are working on Livy's Junior Ranger book for tomorrow. She is matching up footprints to animals and making coded messages in Choctaw.
1. This blog has become a travel blog. Partly because we travel ALL THE TIME, and partly because when we travel I have time to write on it.
2. As road trip names go, this one is not our best. But we must have a name, and this is all we've got: "Mississippi's the place, by way of the Trace." I reserve the right to change it if one of us comes up with something brilliant.
Anyway, Livy and I set out after a lunch with Aaron for Nashville. Why did we go in that direction to get to Mississippi, you may ask. Because we are going to drive ALL THE WAY down the Natchez Trace if we can fit it all in. The Natchez Trace is a paved highway running down an old trail called the Natchez Trace. See, people in the West (Kentucky, Pennsylvania, etc) used to travel down the MS River and then walk back up the Trace. There were also apparently tons of Indians, outlaws, and mail riders. The road has tons of hiking (some of it along sections of the Old Trace), pretty overlooks and picnic spots, and historic sites of all kinds.
I used to drive it with my parents all the time when I was little. ALL THE TIME. Finally, as a teenager, I put my foot down. My MS history and government teacher father would have driven that damn road every holiday and read every placard along its 440 miles. But now, more than a decade later, it seems really fun to me again. Did it just take some time to stop being sick of it? Am I just old? Whatever the reason, that's the trip I chose this time.
Livy is a really good road-tripper, and this one is even better because she can follow our progress on the map of the Trace and get out all the time to run about. I am not sick yet of "Look, there was mile marker 423! Look, there was mile marker 422!" So far, it's just adorable. And I have learned that she will read ANYTHING if it is on a map. :)
So, we drove to Nashville today and started down the Trace almost at the very top. We started at mile marker 436, instead of 444, because of where our highway spit us out onto the Trace. We saw (and drove across) an awesome bridge (the Double Arch Bridge); we hiked a 1 mile round trip up to an amazing overlook where we saw patchwork fields and horses below us; we drove into an beautiful sunset; and we listened to almost all of The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis.
Tonight, we got dinner, grocery shopped to fill our cooler for tomorrow, checked into a hotel, and now we are working on Livy's Junior Ranger book for tomorrow. She is matching up footprints to animals and making coded messages in Choctaw.
More tomorrow!
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Embracing the Weeds
Inspired by Jenn's Facebook post:
Today, though there were nearly knee high weeds in my garden and it looks pretty awful, I did not pull them or lay down the cardboard I've been saving and mulch over them. I did not mow the backyard. I did not do the laundry. Instead, I reminded myself how unimportant those things are, and I did something super important: what I really, actually wanted to do. I went hiking.
In 20 years, I will be glad that I saw a neat-o ruin of an old mill. I will be glad that I got exercise. I will be glad that I got caught in a sudden rain storm. I will be glad that I hopped from rock to rock over a lovely little creek. I will be glad that I worked on my running form around a pond and saw people fishing from the bank. I will not give a rat's you-know-what that I did not pull those weeds.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)