Took a stroll through part of the Shining Rock Wilderness. Started at Big East Fork parking lot off Highway 276 just north of the Blue Ridge Parkway. Shining Creek trail on the way out and Old Butt Knob trail on the return. ~7m total.
The sun was shining bright. The air, cool. The kind of day that makes one want to break into song! …Now it all started two Thanksgivings ago, was on - two years ago on Thanksgiving, when my friend and I went up to visit Alice at the restaurant…
Only a mile or so in I ran across three unsightly characters. The first two were dead ringers as hit-men for John Gotti: grey sweat suits and all! The third was a large black rattle snake. He was sunning himself on the side of the path and scared Brutus and Clide enough to make them turn back. I stopped for a photo op and continued on. Do the Rattlesnake Shake. Make my body ache. Is it wrong to do something crazy? Is it crazy to ignore a potential danger? Is it crazier to ask such questions aloud as if the trees would answer? And the trees are all kept equal by hatchet, axe, and saw. And I saw her standing there.
Many moons ago I used to camp in these woods. I’m sure this is not the first time I have been on this particular trail. Many years since I was here. On these trails I would pass my time away. To the left and to the right, the trees towering to the sky. It's outta sight in the dead of night. It’s only one-o’clock in the afternoon, but the canopy of rhododendron is so thick you almost need a flashlight. Until we came to a side road and off the side of the side road was another 15ft cliff.
The path climbs steadily allowing for many small waterfalls and nice swimming holes. Standin' in the sunlight laughin'. Hidin' behind a rainbow's wall. Slippin' and a slidin' all along the waterfall with you. My brown eyed girl. Tail, fanny, rump rear, brown eye. Umdidlidlidle umdidleye umdidlidlidle umdidleye. Who am I? Who I am? That is the question for the ages. That’s what we are all searching for. To find out who I am. Who’s in there? Who wants to come out and say, hey, I’m hungry. Black is all I feel so this is how it feels to be free. I'm headed for a land that's far away. Beside the crystal fountains. So come with me, we'll go and see The Big Rock Candy Mountains. I don’t think I can pick up the garbage in these hadcuffs. Raspberry. Boysenberry. Strawberry. Das my jams.
Ouch!! Moth Fragments!! Rumblin, fumbling, Stumblin. And he could…fall…all…the…way! Runnin down a dream. Well I’m a rollin and tumbling. Rolling, turning, diving. Going in again. Running, scrambling, flying. Rolling, turning, diving. Rollin', rollin', rollin', man my ass is swollen, Rawhide. Tie me down, tell me lies, pull my hair, smack my thighs with a big wet strap of, Rawhide. Norm! What’s shakin? All four cheeks and a couple of chins. He’s going the distance. He’s going for speed temperatures dropping at the rotten oasis stealing kisses from the leprous faces. Got a devil’ haircut on my mind. Get a haircut and get a real job. Take this job and shove it! I ain’t working here no more. Work! Cantchya see…cantchya see…what this job…is doin to me? Gonna climb a mountain the highest mountain jump off nobody gonna know. Check the damn carabiners!! I can’t let that happen again. I can see for miles and miles I can see for see the dawn arriving I see beyond the road I’m drivin I gotta ramble on I got ta move on I’m stone free it’s time to move on it’s time to get goin.
The canopy is thinning. More pines now. Streams of sunlight have replaced the streams of water. More birds I want to fly like an eagle into the distance a river of black stretched to the point of no turning back if you choose not to decide you still have made a choice and maybe I do not have a choice and maybe that is all I have. Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle Hobbes was fond of his dram Rene Descartes was a drunken fart I drink, therefore I am I’m spunky I’m funky I like my oatmeal lumpy it's bud the spud from the bright red mud rollin' down the highway smiling Oh rockin down the highway I’m on the highway to hell.
Ooo! A shinny rock. In this case the rock is actually called Shinning Rock. That was fun! All together now...with four-part harmony in the feeling...You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant.
