Part 3
Someone had carved their proclamation of love in this
sidewalk section just four months ago.
This kind of thing used to be almost a rite of passage for the
rebellious teen, lauded in movies and books to the point of being cliché. But here, this stand-alone town often
overlooked in the shadow of Louisville, I find it terribly endearing.
Looks like business isn’t too good at this old school board
building, with just two offices advertising locations here. The building is an old school board building
built in 1925; as there’s no doubt a school board office elsewhere now, what with school still existing and all, I’m curious
what the impetus was for them leaving the building purpose built for them. It’s also possible that, instead of a school
board building, it was itself a school, christened by the board, more or less.
How’d I know it was built in 1925? I’m psychic, you see.
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
This is typical of Christmas decoration trends in the
suburban places in Louisville and throughout Kentucky. Turns out a half-mile of westerly flowing
water doesn’t wash away the trend here in Hoosierland. Unless you have a swath of disposable income
you’re willing to spend on string lights, plastic figurines and utility bills,
most people have a smattering of Christmas decorations accrued in years past
from family, friends, yard sales, trash piles, and yes, intentional
purchase.
Our own collection of seasonal décor is largely inherited;
reconciling what works together and what we’ve just bought is a challenge for
every home decorator. But some, with
good reason, believe that all themed items, regardless of age, working order,
or matching patterns, are appropriate for Christmas. In the end, we’re all just celebrating a
season, right?
After two hours of walking (and two weeks of reading,) we’re
finally at the Falls! While I’m sure I’d
been here in years past, potentially multiple times, this unceremonious
entrance to the state park was not familiar at all. The road ended, and this cordoned path began.
I’m sure I’ll say this many times across these journeys, but
telephone poles and the wires that cross them will be a quintessentially
American fixture in my mind. No
neighborhood, back alley, or street corner is complete, in my mind, without them. Comically included in many popular artistic
depictions of these mundane infrastructural components, a pair of shoes was
dangling from the lines, tied and chucked by a loving friend or stranger of the
victim.
In this case, it appears there were two victims, or one
particularly unlucky single victim, as there are two different kinds of shoes
suspended from the line: a right-footed boot and a left-footed sneaker. We’ll just hope they were old and worn
out. Heaven knows my mother would have
just as quick done this with an old pair of shoes I’d be flapping around in if
she’d had the chance.
After climbing a pair of chicanes, I emerged on the top of
an open ridge flanked on both sides by grassy green space. Not a moment after mounting the ridge, a
church’s distant bells began to chime 3:00.
I checked my phone to confirm the time, and after the Westminster chime
had played, a hymn began. It was “How
Great Thou Art,” a traditional hymn sung within Methodist and Baptist congregations
written by the long deceased. As I
caught my breath, a sung a couple bars of the song to myself, marching north
along the road until, several moments later, the hymn’s last notes dissolved
like a sugar cube in the atmosphere.
Certainly added as an additional way to release pressure
when the rivers and creeks overflowed, this would delay the output of water
when floods threatened the area, these particular pipes have long been sealed
and most likely act as markers for runners and joggers, noting their place
along the park’s length.
As I swung northwest as far as my time would let me, I
followed the path, assuming I’d eventually end up in New Albany given enough
steps. Despite looking at a map while
planning the walk, I wasn’t too familiar with my relative positioning based on
the towns and landmarks around the park.
For all I knew, I was going to stumble upon downtown New Albany just
around the corner.
The slope was gentle and wide; whenever I see a hill that
fits such a profile, I just think about snow sledding. This hill fits three out of the four criteria
for good sledding: gentle, long, and free of obstructions. The fourth criteria, rollout space at the
bottom, however, was severely lacking.
You’d have to jam the brakes pretty hard to not end up careening into
the spiky, dry forest at 25 miles an hour.
Down in the trough, a lone walker was making his or her way
along the rough track cut by vehicles or manually to allow a safe, level walk
free of precipitous missteps.
When originally turning back to follow the path through the
park with the boys and the dad and the Hunger Games, this was the cross street
I passed. Arlington was my northernmost
point of travel today, and it would mark my turnaround point. The path continued around the corner farther,
but with the day aging and no idea when I’d need to be back at home, I
about-faced, deciding I’d have enough time to still explore if the opportunity
arose, hugging the park until I arrived at the Clark Memorial Bridge.
Turns out, the opportunity was happening right now. I turned around and realized that the slope’s
strength had declined significantly enough for me to descend and approach the
shore without serious risk of faceplanting.
I ambled down the incline to an almost prescribed clearning and made my
way through the dry, dormant trees to the shore.
With hardly any trouble, the river was in sight. While it was easy to get a glimpse, getting
down to the water might be a trick. As
it was, the flat area that contained the forest was elevated by probably twelve
or fifteen feet from shore level quite drastically by a glaring, unforgiving cliff. Obviously, there were no stairs; I’d wandered
off the path, and they couldn’t anticipate my need. I wanted to get to the rocky shore itself,
though. I’d come so far. There were three options.
Option 1: Jump. DO NOT
ATTEMPT THIS OPTION.
The subtitle of that option was my left brain. It’s the smart half.
Option 2: Turn around.
Yeah, that sounds
like fun.
Option 3: Find a way to climb down and hope there’s a way
back up.
Now that’s more like it.
As I faced my quandary, a passerby who had chosen either the
first or third option strolled by. He
waved and greeted me, and I returned the same.
The man was at a distance, but he appeared to be in his early fifties, a
local, and ready to talk. He asked if it
was mine, gesturing down to below where I was standing.
Studying my current footing, I realized I was standing on
the roof of a makeshift domicile, complete with tent, campfire, and personal
effects. The roof was made of a
combination of plywood sheets and the rootball of a large tree whose birthing
earth had been eroded by high water levels for dozens of years, perhaps most
powerfully seventeen years ago. All that
was left of the roots was the ball-shaped mass that anchored itself against the
cliffside.
Regardless, the home was
surprisingly effective.
I told the man it was not mine; he said he’ come down here
since he was a kid and he frequently saw squatters set up camp here, especially
runaways. He’d admitted to doing it
himself many years ago. We maintained a
long distance conversation about the area and the weather for upwards of a
minute, and after a relative lull, he bid me a good day. He turned around and returned from whence he
came, and a moment later, I was alone in the quiet breeze, dilemma still
unsolved.
I had to get to shore.
I wasn’t just going to turn around.
But how? If these two photos
provide any scale, that ground was too far to jump down, so I’d need to lower
myself enough to not break an ankle when I finally let go. For some insane reason, I stepped out ever so
carefully onto the ramshackle roof, twisted, dry branches and all.
With every step, I felt something that my wife described to
me perfectly several weeks later; my age.
In attempting to cross a log for a geocache, she realized her balance
was not what it once was. For me, this
situation amplified my already poor balance and coordination by an order of
magnitude. My whole body was low to the
roof, but I tried to remain as silent as possible. I mean, what if there were someone home down
there? Maybe they had a gun? Was I dead?
Is it too late to go back?
Now, I don’t know if you used to climb trees and jump from
large heights as a kid like I did. I
would be known to take two or three stairs at a time when dismounting, with my
personal record being eight steps with the help of a railing, and six
without. When practicing the ancient art
of jumping down from a height, there is a microscopic moment in the fall when
you expect to hit the ground and, when you don’t, you mentally freak the geek out. I crossed that threshold about a tenth of a
second before contacting the uneven ground, I feel forward, grunted and
stumbled to a knee, sliding along the fallen leaves. I swiveled around to catch the eye of what I
would assume to have been a very angry squatter, .22 in hand and evil in his
clouded eye.
Truly, though, the river was the only noise I heard besides
my own heavy breathing. My hand hurt a
lot, as I had used it to break my fall and it had sustained several minor
cuts. My ankle felt rubbery, but I could
stand on it. Walking back up to the
point of jumping, it was a bit higher than I thought, but still not high enough
to complain about. I was just getting
older; the last time I had done that, I had a decade less years and fifty less
pounds to carry. Things change, but it’s
still fun to do it.
Elated with my successful descent, I hustled to the
smoothed, rocky shore of the Ohio and peered upstream at the city in the
distance.
I took an honest seat, and I stared out at the river,
listening to the splashing and undulating of our city’s livelihood.
I sat there for probably ten minutes before moving, watching
a boat coast by and listening to the sound of the locks in the distance open
and close. As I was attempting to reach
nirvana, a 737 came roaring overhead.
Less than a minute later, another one came rushing in, then two more
jets, all within the span of two minutes.
A sky filled with four low-flying jets, all bound for SDF, perhaps six
or seven miles away. Two Southwest jets,
the 737s, were flying in from Phoenix and Chicago, my FlightAware app told
me. The other two, an American Eagle
Embraer and a Delta MD-series jet, were coming from Dallas and Minneapolis,
respectively. I watched them for a
minute as they lined up over downtown for their respective runways and
disappeared from sight.
As I stood to leave, I noticed the rocks and pebbles
scattered on the ground behind me. Now,
I love to skip rocks. It’s not really
something I did as a kid. As I kid, I
just threw them; no, the art of
skipping didn’t come to me until my college years, and it’s such a simple, fun
way to enjoy a body of water. Most of
the time when you’re by a riverbed, there’s a handful of small, roughly spherical
pebbles lying around. Occasionally
you’ll find a fairly smooth long one, and that’s often the best you get. For skipping rocks, you want lots of flat
surface area, you want smoothness, and you want enough weight for it to carry
the energy you put into it.
The shore was littered
with rocks that perfectly fit this description.
I scooped up a handful gleefully and began skipping them like a
pro. Some were so aerodynamic that
they’d actually turn before striking the water at an odd angle. Others sailed like a dream, granting several
excellent hops before running out of momentum fifty or sixty feet from
shore. Sadly, some were too slippery, or
my pitching mound was too slippery, to be effective tosses.
On my right, a brilliantly-colored pool of what I presume
was algae bubbled and flowed along the rockface. In no way do these photos accurately capture
the vivid, coppery color of the rock. It’s
one of my favorite colors; I’d love to drive a car or own a statement piece of
furniture blazoned with that mighty hue.
It was a color you rarely find outside of a lab, but here it was, right
in the middle of a state park.
It was almost four.
Time to head home.
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Although I missed last Wednesday, you can expect an update every Wednesday. Next week I'll share the final installment of this trip and tell you what's on tap for 2015! Merry Christmas!
Keep going -
Matt
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