Bonzai: Thoughts and Expressions

Family Vacation - Day 9

I woke up Saturday morning after a wonderful night’s sleep. Maria made pancakes for breakfast again and Duncan and I hit the trails one more time after the breakfast dishes were cleaned up. We found a cool clearing nestled on a hill surrounded by mountains with very little access – a perfect place to put our future home. We made some mental notes and headed back to the cabin to tell the wife what we found.

We left the cabin after a few minutes and went down to the Altapass Apple Orchard, which is also right of the Blue Ridge Parkway. They had some old dude singing songs and playing a guitar for some church goin’ blue-hair types when we arrived. Duncan and Maria went on a hayride down the mountainside and into the orchard while I went and explored the store and a blacksmith that was pounding away on an anvil not too far away. Other than the hayride, there wasn’t much else to do for Duncan so, after letting him pick a couple of apples from one of the trees, we took off and went back to the cabin for some rest.

After a whole 30 minutes or so of sitting around doing nothing, Duncan and I decide to take Mommy back on the trails and show her where we want to build a house. Of course, she loves the site and we walk around and explore a little bit before we head back. We are on a path that edges the forest and separates the opening we were just exploring. Duncan loves to lead on the trails so he was in front, followed by Maria, with me bringing up the rear. As we cruise by some interesting things, I call out for them to stop where they are and turn around, without coming back at all. They do so, mostly, and I point out that have just walked past a coiled rattlesnake that was no more than 3 or 4 feet to the left side of the path. Obviously, Maria is a little freaked out at this point as they just walked right on by the thing, completely oblivious to its existence. It seemed to be comfortably resting there until I poked my camera lens in its face an ruined his illusion of camouflage. We took off quickly back up the path – away from the snake – wondering just what else we had missed tromping around through the woods all week.

Maria and Duncan needed some rest so I let them stay behind at the cabin and I went out on my own. I cruised down the BRP and stopped at all those little roadside viewing stations, snapping pics all the way. About 30 minutes down the road, I come across this park called Crabtree Falls State Park. Nifty. I like waterfalls. Unfortunately, it is about 5:45pm at this point and the sky is hinting of rain. What the hell. Off down the path I go from the trailhead to see some cool waterfall. The hike was a very arduous 45 minute path down to the falls. I’m glad Duncan wasn’t with me at that time because, though I have no doubt he could make the journey, it would have taken forever and a day for him to pick his way through the trail and across the many creeks required to get to the falls… not to mention the seriously steep inclines and slippery rock formations that had to be climbed over. I was thinking while I’m hiking, here I am, a glow-in-the-dark white city boy armed with a camera, hiking down the side of a craggy mountain in the twilight and nobody has any clue where I am. Duh. I felt like such a tourist at that point. Anyway, I find my way through the woods and eventually come to the falls. Way cool. Lots of pics. Loved it. Now it’s getting dark and I’m in the bottom of a mountain gorge. It took me another 45 minutes to get back up the side of the mountain and back to the trailhead – which I thought was pretty good since I was going up instead of down. Of course, the steady flow of adrenaline that was propelling me up the trail helped, but hey, I made it back to blog about it.
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posted by Bonzai @ 8:31 PM