Here’s the Thing about the Woods.
The thing about the woods is that they can be quite beautiful and quite terrifying, all at the same time.
Photo taken with iPhone.
The good thing is that when you’re on a designated path in a state park, they’re a lot more beautiful and a lot less terrifying.
Photo taken with iPhone.
Unless you’re me, and you inadvertently lead your party astray from said path and out into the dense wilderness where every shadow is suspect, every rustle sounds menacing, and the legs of your fellow backpackers start resembling those of fried chicken drumsticks.
Extra crispy.
Photo taken with iPhone.
Fortunately, I stumbled back onto the path without even realizing I’d been off of it, and my much more wood-savvy companions were apparently aware that we were leaving the path and didn’t say anything because they, for some inexplicable reason regardless of knowing me, thought that I knew what I was doing.
Pfffft!
The truth is, I never know what I’m doing.
Like, at all.
I’m just stumbling blindly along like the rest of us.
And sometimes I can feel it when I’ve left the path, but other times I can’t.
Photo taken with iPhone
Rarely, as it did yesterday in Raven Rock State Park, does my inadvertent wandering turn into a bonafide short cut.
Photo taken with iPhone
So my lessons from our hike?
1) Sometimes you have to look for even the most obvious paths, but wandering aside every now and again to enjoy the scenery isn’t the worst idea in the world. Unless, of course, we’re speaking in the literal woods-hiking sense, in which case wandering from the path can be extremely dangerous and should be avoided at all costs. (Anyone read The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon?)
2) On my own, trekking through the wilderness, I wouldn’t last a day.
I’m just glad that no fried chickens — or human appendages — were harmed during the hike.
Photo taken with iPhone
(By the way, my comrades saw the path switchback ahead of us, so while they knew it was a shortcut and weren’t just allowing me to blindly lead them astray, I had to expertly cover my shock at stumbling upon a path when I thought we’d already been on the path. This is why you should always bring smart people with you while wandering through the woods.)
Comments
Love Stephen King! That was actually the first King book I handed to my kid to read, since it’s short and not too overly scary.
Personally, I love going off the path. That’s why there are so many pictures of me hanging off cliffs or standing on fallen trees extending out over water. The key of course is to have a backpack full of snacks and water so that you’re not sizing up your comrades digits to see who might lose a couple of sausage fingers or drinking from questionable waters
Beautiful pic! Thanks for sharing.
I really loved that book — I think because it takes more effort to make someone scared of what might not be there, versus what is there.
HA! Great tip — gonna have to remember to bring extra food next time. Oooh I don’t know if I could do the whole hanging over cliffs thing. It’s weird — I’ll skydive, but when I’m not strapped to something solid or someone who knows what he/she is doing, I’m not going to take a real risk. ;)
Great pictures sound like a great day even with the “unintentional” shortcut
Haha, it was — we really had the perfect weather.
Haha– I’m going hiking with The Wedding Date on Friday. I’ll have to keep this is mind, especially as he’s never been hiking before so I’ll be blazing the trail :) Are those your dogs btw? They are really cute!
Oooh, you two better take a flare gun or something! :) (SO glad you’re going out with The Wedding Date again, by the way.)
Yep, those are my pups. And my husband’s not too bad, either. ;)
Could have avoided that with a GPS…which would then further ensure continued pay check.
But that would’ve taken the fun out of it! ;)
Somewhere, I think there’s an aphorism to be gleaned from all this:
“Stay off the beaten path, but only if you like fried chicken.”
Okay, it’s a work in progress….
Ha, yeah I was trying for something like that, but gave up because I was hungry.
Huh. Maybe there’s one there, too…
Katie! The weirdest thing just happened. So I happen to be laying here in bed, browsing Facebook, and well, basically being bored before turning in for the night when something in the top right corner of my computer screen caught my eye. Facebook says “People you may know” and it said “Katie Gard” !! I clicked on the image to make sure and sure enough this person’s profile linked me back here. I have to admit this is very cool, but, how on earth does facebook have any knowlege at all that I may or may not “know” you???!!! Strange.
Oh and p.s. I may be the biggest Stephen King fan ever. I have The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, and 27 other King books on the bookcase as we speak.
Its been a while again, hope everything is going well!
Ha, maybe Facebook really does know everything! You should add me — obviously, it’s Kismet. :)
Have you gone to Peru yet?? I’ve been waiting for blog updates!
King has a gift. If you haven’t you should read his book, “On Writing.” I was actually very disappointed in that book (surprisingly), but it gives some fantastic background on his life. :)
Niiiice, added!
I have not gone yet, but I leave on the 28th. I cannot wait to head down there, I even bought a new trusty little wide-angle lens to take with me. I’m looking forward to getting back into my own blogging with some articles about this trip as well. I wish I had more to write about right now, but I don’t really want to stray too far from the travel niche. The down side of that is downtime when it comes to writing, and quite a bit unfortunately. In fact, I might be making some changes to the blog soon.
Ive read it, its part of my collection, and I actually rather enjoyed it. I loved the background information he gives us about his life, and how it relates to his writing. A lot of it makes a whole lot of sense, if you know what I mean hah. Have you read his 7-book Dark Tower Series? Those are probably my favorite books ever written.
I’m ashamed to admit that I think I made it through like 4 or 5 Gunslinger books and then got distracted by school… By the time I wanted to get back to it, I’d forgotten a lot of what had happened and I was too lazy to go back and start from the beginning. But now you’ve inspired me — I just might have to give ’em another try. :)