Idle Minutes

I took a drive today up into the North Georgia mountains. I usually try to explore some roads I’ve never traveled. I just follow my nose.

Twisting through a lovely, rural, mountain valley community called Suches, I saw a fire tower on top of a mountain in front of me. I looked to the right…there was a road…Cooper Gap Road I think. I thought it might wind it’s way up to the fire tower if I was lucky.

“Hang a right” I said to myself.

Forest Service Roads…Adventure!

The road rambled past some farms, stables and pastures for a mile or so. Then the pavement ended, gravel began, and I saw a Forest Service Road sign, “F.S. 42″.

I decided to continue and see where F.S. 42 ended up. These Forest Service roads go on for miles. I think they’re fun. You get really, really far away from anything except trees, streams, nature and silence. Miles away. No houses, no traffic, nothin’.

They even have intersections out there. In the middle of nowhere, on the side of some mountain, deep in the forest, you’ll round a bend and hey, looky there, a four-way intersection. What an adventure!

Now…which way to go?
What would you do?

What Any Man Would Do, Ask For Directions

Simple. Just ask the fat lady sitting on a log in the middle of the dense forest, twenty yards off F.S 42, on the side of some mountain in the middle of nowhere, all by herself at the four-way, gravel road intersection.

That’s what I did.

“Excuse me? Which way to Blue Ridge?” I hollered.
“Huh?”
“I said, which way to Blue Ridge?”
“Um…I don’t know. Sorry.” she said, hands out, shrugging her shoulders.

Hmmmm…for a second I was terrified. I mean would I end up sitting on a log in the dense forest, on the side of some mountain, in the middle of nowhere, all by myself, simply because I didn’t know which turn went to Blue Ridge? And would I get really fat as a result? Was it some sort of curse bestowed upon lost forest travelers by some smart-ass forest gnome?

I hastily turned left, expressing my “oh, I think I remember now” face to the fat lady, and made my way back to civilization. After about seven miles, I popped out of the woods in Dahlonega, safe and sound and not a pound heavier…albeit forty miles or so from Blue Ridge.

That’s OK. At least I was out of gnome range and pointed towards home. No smart-ass gnome was going to curse me to a log in the forest for the rest of my life.

Somewhere on “F.S.42″ I saw the tree.

I know what you’re thinking.
“So what’s with the tree roots there Mr. Sketchy Man?”

I saw it in the deep forest. Seeing the tree clinging on a steep, eroded, mountainside bank above the road, roots exposed, I realized how nature defines tenacity.

She sees it as a game. She tenaciously erodes the bank, whips the winds, freezes the roots, then turns up the heat and holds back the rains in summer.

It’s up to the tree to hang in there…to be likewise tenacious. To dig in a little deeper for more strength. To toughen the skin on those exposed roots.

And why?

To once again set new buds, make new leaves…and live.

Be the tree.