Swamp Surfing
Growing up, my friends Drew, Doug and Eric lived on a cul de sac that dead-ended on a wide creek. Most of us kids spent summer afternoons with a sheet of plywood tied to the back of a motored jon boat with 15 feet of line, wake-surfing on a homemade boogie board. These bog boards weren't much different. Stepping on them, they would slowly settle down into the water, submerging, and into the mud up to our ankles and calves. Indy and I had fun trying to avoid an unexpected plunge into the muck.
Showers threatened earlier, then the sun returned. The afternoon grew hot. Eventually made my way to 'camp' for the night, a stay at a B&B called the Apple Valley Inn in Glenwood. Kate, the caretaker's daughter checked Slacker and me in. Laundry under way, food is being prepped, and I found myself lounging in the sitting room, silk boxers, a borrowed clean T-shirt. This is a stunning 19th century home. Slacker is picking something complicated out on the corner piano - the kid from Colby can play. The odor of frying chicken hints at our fare for the evening.
This day's hike has been excellent for so many simple reasons. The swamp just south of Unionville, lunch at the store in U'ville with Slacker, Otter, Drifter, Waterboy and Big O), Potaunk Mountain (even just getting there via the sod farms). Pretty.
The sod farms are drained marshland. Wetlands habitat lost, perhaps forever - as forever goes with man. Swamps with their varied flora and fauna, buffers for flooding, microhabitats for exotic life. We drain them, not understanding their treasures or richness. All to make cute little instant lawns. Sod.
Perhaps there is within each of us a wanderlust - peregrine forces we are conditioned to hold at bay. Our pleasures and pains are both shared and singular. We are alone together. A common union on trail - maybe seeking, maybe finding truths which we've known all along. But the AT has secrets of it's own - and only by walking will it reveal them.
Apple Valley is one such pleasure - a brief respite from trail or town.