My Favorite Time of Year

http://www.gribblenation.com/ncpics/brp/cascades.html





Today we got out reasonably early and took to the road. Our destination unknown, we were headed northward and westward to enjoy the changing season and the crisp fall air, a walk in the woods.



I drove. For the first time in a couple months I chose to resume the role of pilot and navigator, taking full charge of the outcome, for better or for worse. I chose well.



From Statesville I drove north to Elkin where I left the interstate highway for the winding state road highway 21, the old Sparta road. Cresting the first mountain at Roaring Gap I felt connected again. The mountains and the day were mine.



At the entrance to the Parkway I offered the choice- to the north or the south. "The leaves are further along to the south", she said, "that's what the forecast said." Decision made.



A section of the linear park loomed, intimately familiar, as the immediate seven- mile climb from 21 to the crest was our training turf in preparation for our 120 mile cycling trek around Tahoe to Telluride and back in 2004. Wow, that was four years ago already. We rode that section of the park twice- returning the second time to add more miles, out and back, mountain miles- 31 each way.



The sightseers were in abundance today but the traffic wasn't excessive. Perhaps the gasoline or the recession was to blame. Or Nascar, possibly.



Reaching a section of the Parkway we had not navigated in about 10 years, we enjoyed the changed scenery. The leaves were not quite at their peak, but many places along the drive were splendid with color.



E.B. Jeffress would be pleased with the area set aside in his remembrance. It was a lovely piece of nature, gently managed to accomodate the traveler willing to take the slower pace and enjoy the natural beauty of the mountains. The interpretive trail assisted the rusty arborist in recollecting the varieties of trees and vegetation along the path leading along and down a ridgeline into a lush fairyland of rhododendron, witch hazel, scarlet oaks, hemlock, spruce, laurel, dogwood, ferns and- well, you get the impression. The payoff is the cascades- a lovely woodland stream flows over submerged rock strata and tumbles over boulders until the waters thin over the faces of ancient rocks into a series of lace cascades, reaching a steep drop over the face of yet another strata of stone and then another, making its way into the gorge below.



The return hike through the woods on the opposite side of the stream was a gentle climb up and out of the forest and eventually back into the light on the ridge.



My childhood returned as I recalled my mom and dad taking us motoring in the mountains for afternoons picnicking on the Parkway. And, for a few hours each fall, the circle comes 'round again.