1 Bike Ride + 2 Hikes to No Where and (Almost) No Pictures to Show, Either

Fly Away Home Jigsaw Puzzle

. . . Or we could just title this entry "If I only had a brain." Today was one of those bonus, serendipitous, last little bursts of Indian Summer. My friend, Barbara, called up and asked if I wanted to go for a walk with her. Of course, there being nothing more important to do (like finish editing the final, last, yippee-yi-o folder of a wedding to upload, or write that proposal for another job, or pay bills, or balance the checking account after 8 months, or work on my 2006 taxes, or finish the score study and making assignments for the rest of the music for my handbell groups, or practicing Rejoice music, or start cleaning house for Thanksgiving) I said, "Why OF COURSE! I would love to go for a hike. In fact, it's so warm and beautiful, why don't we just go for a bike ride instead? I'll pick up your bike and meet you at Kroger."

My body proceeded to load my bike in the van, pick up the cameras (I need something fresh for the blog, you know, or I might see some good bushes for Johnny's project) and a water bottle, and head down the road, but my brain was not on board! It was still on the unfinished business. I drove halfway to Kroger when I remembered that I forgot to stop and pick up Barbara's bike! So now I'm distracted AND late. We arrive at the trail, I unload the bikes, put my camera on the back of my bike and we take off up the road to the trail. I realized right away, that I was not the last person to ride my bike because the seat was down too low. I had to stop and fix that when we reached the trail, and what a God thing that turned out to be, because I discovered that I had forgotten to bungee the camera case to the rack on my bike!!!

How incredibly lovely the afternoon light was! We stopped at a big bend in the river where there is a sweeping view both upstream and downstream of Double Shoals, a magnificent rock garden (and my favorite tubing adventure ride spot) so I could take the perfect blog-worthy picture. ACK!! Camera won't work!!! No CF card! DUH . . . I resign myself to the fact that I will just have to write about the big one that got away again.

Barbara was pointing out her brother's property and saying what a fabulous view he had from the crest of the ridge overlooking the river, and that there was a path from his cabin down to the river. We decided to hike up to the cabin, but we realized we had already passed the trail, so we backtracked to what, she thought, might be his trail. We pushed the bikes a short way up this trail, hid them in the brush, and set out climbing to the top of the ridge, which is a pretty stiff climb. (Note to my offspring who might be reading this: Remember the path we used to take carrying our tubes up from the end of Double Shoals to where we parked the van on Sweeny Hollow Road? Same hill: That kind of steep!) Barbara pretty quickly realized that this is NOT the right trail, but I prevailed upon her to continue anyway, just to see where that trail would take us. It led to an abandoned cottage nestled up to a substantial apple tree alone in a field. I sampled the apples and deemed them worthy of presenting to the apple-eating machine, Dr. David. (I believe they are Yorks judging by their rhomboid shape.) It was under the apple tree that I experienced the third revelation of my brain-lessness today. I had left my $1300 camera with $1100 lens strapped to my bike all the way back at the bottom of the mountain! While it was certainly unlikely that anyone would have discovered it, I was nontheless, greatly relieved to see it upon our return.

Since that wasn't the right path to the cabin, we figured that we had not gone far enough along the Trail, so we set out again, looking downstream for the right path. At the next trestle we came to, sure enough, there was a path right along the stream. This must be the right way! I keep asking Barbara if this looks familiar. Yes, she thinks so . . .maybe . . . um. . . I don't know . . .but it has to be . . . Then, "Do you want to kill me now? I just remembered that the cabin is AFTER the house, not before!" So no, this isn't the right trail, either! Another hike to nowhere, but hey, it's still daylight and it's still warm, so bless GOD!

We have a good laugh all the way back to the van about our two hikes to nowhere and no pictures to show for it. When we got back, I found that the other camera had a card in it, so I quickly ran back across the street to get a picture of the cows and geese contentedly grazing together in a field beside the river. I was getting ready to shoot when it became overwhelmingly obvious that I could not put off any longer taking a leak at the nearest toilet-tree. SO I put the camera down, dropped my drawers, and then my cell phone popped off my waistband directly onto ground zero. I managed to snatch it up out of the way a split second before the deluge. Good thing because it would have had to lay there until David retrieved it, and then I doubt that I would ever be able to use it again!

While I am relieving myself, all those geese started honking like crazy and a big flock of them took flight. RATS! I can't reach the camera and I can't stop peeing!! But thankfully, they didn't all leave, and I managed to get dressed, get the camera, and was ready when the second wave of them took off. So, the pictures are not the best composition, but, as I have written before on this blog, it doesn't take a perfect picture to hold the perfect memory. I will remember the humor shared with a good friend, the goodness of God to take care of me in spite of my vacant head, and the gift of a pleasant day in what is otherwise, a pretty bleak month around here, every time I see these pictures of those geese taking flight.

Oh well, since I haven't figured out how to resize this show to fit on the blog, here is a link straight to the show: "Fly Away Home"