TRAVEL AND INDEPENDENCE

 

                         We walked a paved path at Grayson County Recreation Park in Independence

     We took a little trip recently to Claytor Lake, and then wanted to go to Rural Retreat (VA), but the driver (my spouse) didn't "know the way to San Jose" or the Rural Retreat lake and park, so we got lost-- winding up in the small town of Independence.  I understand the town came about in 1850 because two communities were arguing about where to put the county seat, so someone asserted some "independence" in the matter. Our being here, a ways from home during this pandemic, was a bit of a declaration in itself. 

    As we entered the town I noted a faded caboose to the left, part of a small town park near some water. The caboose used to be very important in train travel. It was an office for the conductor and had to do with signalling a brakeman to, well, put on the brakes to stop the darn thing. In the 1980s they found an electronic way to do the latter and the caboose didn't seem needed any longer. I know that my sons have utilized a caboose-- as a place of entertainment, for birthday parties, which seems kind of silly.  And they're housed at parks so families can go and see, well, this was part of a train!

     We couldn't find the part we were looking for, but after a meal at Aunt Bee's -- my spouse says the Aunt Bee's in Hillsville is more like a restaurant than the fast food place we visited, booths marked off and people wearing masks-- we asked directions of a woman and "found" a park to go to!

     The Grayson County Rec Park didn't look too big, and had a nice, mostly level trail a short ways from the pool that had kids yelling and rock music blaring. I guess they were having fun (though maybe it wasn't all that safe with the coronavirus still around). Our trail was pleasant, partly shaded, with various wildflowers along the banks, such as ferns, vervain, goldenrod,  maybe also lobelia?

     We passed a lot of barns, wingstem wildflowers, some political signs, small homes,  and church steeples. My spouse "swears" that this Rural Retreat park could be found at an intersection or crossing where there was a white church.  We probably passed three or four churches, and no intersection. So much for finding "that" park. We got a bit of exercise and got out of the house for three or four hours, so that was an accomplishment, right? 

Nature, Travel gets you out of whack, People,Writing

    Emerson said travel was a "fool's paradise" and that people are basically the same as you go from place to place. My travel in June has me tired. I slept fitfully during half of it. And your system gets 'out of whack' by not eating your regular diet at a regular time --- I admit their had great desserts (choc. cake, cheese cake, choc. cream pie, etc.) at the writers' conference. And I wrenched an arm and wrist a bit falling down (being attacked by) an escalator getting off Amtrak's train in New York City. I was helped up, ironically, by a black woman behind me with a cane, and a uniformed Amtrak employee.
    Hamilton (N.Y.) was a neat looking little old town with a very scenic campus with a good variety of tree types, some of them labeled. You actually drive onto Colgate University's campus, not far from town, surrounded by these big, shading oaks (on Oak Drive). The college must be three times the area of the college where I work (Radford U.), which is part of the "main drag" in town. There is little room to expand and they keep swallowing up the green spaces and parking lots for bigger and better (?) buildings. I can see that whoever had the fortitude to have a writers' conference at Colgate saw there was room for visitors and students alike,with a nice pond (they call it Taylor Lake) to sit by and contemplate. Or see a sunfish shaped fish whose mouth area was an iridescent light blue! And the swans left their (crappy) calling card on the grass near my wooden bench, encouraging me to write a little poem about it.