A Personal Reflection on Words, Writing, and Travel

When I moved to West Virginia, I decided to go out and see this part of the country. I did not know how long I would be there. This move was suppose to be a stepping stone and it turned out to be a life changing decision all right, but one that lead me in a direction I would never have anticipated or seen in my future. That is life though and that is what happens when you choose to combine your life with someone else and their family. It makes life rich, unpredictable and wonderful. And, it would never have happened, had I not moved to the green hills of West Virginia.




Luckily, I meet another person in West Virginia, my future husband, who was interested in see this place while I was here plan, or at least interested in seeing the little places my map said we might go. I credit this map and the social network for new faculty at the University, called the Rookies, with getting to know and falling in love with my husband.






Oddly enough, his maternal family was also from and mostly in Illinois too, with a few in Iowa, as my parents were in Arkansas. His father’s side was in Brazil. I found this Illinois connection interesting since I had left Illinois with no intentions of being tied to it again, except through my own family, immediate and extended. It also does help immensely that our families are concentrated in Illinois. When we had to travel to see family, we were often in the same state as they, or passing though it to get to other family and so seeing those in Illinois on our way to the next states. They were both in a central location, or roughly so. I had no idea I would be moving nearer to them in the future; the job market decided that.






I just made a decision to see what I could, camp when I could, walk in the woods when I could, and soak up the history of the Eastern states as much as I could, and it lead to today—us living in Iowa.






While in West Virginia, we saw West Virginia and Southern Pennsylvania; Pittsburgh is nice and close to Morgantown, and we got over to D.C. and Gettysburg, Antietam, Harper’s Ferry, the Appalachian Trail, Assateague, and the Outer Banks while we were much closer to them then we are now.






We could have seen even more. And hopefully we will again someday.






Now, we are in Iowa and trying to have the same goal we had before. Money and time are factors of course in being able to travel. The academic life in West Virginia gave us the money and time to travel. Previous to West Virginia, I was a student, which meant little money, even if the time existed to travel. And a transition in jobs, with half of us a student again and half us looking for employment, means the travel has slowed a bit too. But, I said when I started this blog, travel could be as close as the restaurant next door, and I am going to hold myself to that idea again.






I have not been posting. I have been working a bit, but not enough to mean not posting. And money was tight, but we use our money from West Virginia University wisely, so we are okay. I can only guess I was not in the mind space after our move to write on the blog in the way that I did before. I am back to that space again. It helps to have a job again; one that is temporary again, but enough to give us some breathing space in terms of paying bills. It takes my time, but I am making room for writing in my life again.

In the Pines: Part 2

When I moved to West Virginia, I was excited about the hills. I had been working that summer with a group of Geologists in Tulsa. Within seconds of telling them I would be leaving them for West Virginia, they whipped out the geologic maps of the area and explained the geology of the area to me.


Hills again. I was excited.


I did not know that West Virginia and Arkansas share a history. The Appalachians are old, old. They are at least 460 million years old and were there when the continents were all together as Pangaea. They went through a lot of uplifting, folding, volcanic activity, and then erosion as the continents crashed into each other and the separated again over many, many years. At one point they were higher than the Himalayas and the rivers today cutting through the valleys are as old as the hills. They saw that height. (They probably never dreamed of coal barons blowing them down after experiencing all the damage the wind and rain unleashed on them and continues to unleash on them today. At least the wind and rain respect them by slowly letting them get used to the idea of wearing down. There is not a lot slow about being blown up.)


In Southern Arkansas, we have the Ouachita Mountains, which where once a part of the Appalachian chain, long ago, and then, they were separated by geologic history. They are cousins to the West Virginia mountains.


I should have known. I should have recognized it.



I loved waking up in Star City and heading down the hill to go to work seeing the layer of cloud resting on the Monongahela River. I loved walking through the woods and was mesmerized by the moss and ferns that grow wild in those wet hills. It rains and snows more often in West Virginia than in Arkansas, so the ferns do not exist on the forest floors of Arkansas. They cover the forests of West Virginia. I had gone from hills experiencing a drought to hills that did not know what a fire ban was. In fact the year we left West Virginia was the driest I have ever seen the place. And a burn ban was in effect. The brown and crunchy sound was uncommon in West Virginia until that summer. At it was down right weird experiencing that in West Virginia.


The same mysterious presence also existed in both places. The sense of being alone int he woods, of not being able to rely on your cell phone, of taking off down a dirt road and seeing something beautiful beyond the next turn, beautiful and unexpected. Those things existed in both sets of hills.


Both were difficult terrain too. In Arkansas I once encountered rugged weather; we camped on a mountain top and got caught in a thunderstorm in the Ouachitas. I felt exposed on that rock that night as the wind whipped the tent and pulled at the stakes. There was not a lot of soil to hold those stakes, so mainly we held the tent down with our suppose-to-be sleeping bodies.



It was also difficult to walk and hike in the Appalachians. It took effort. I had the same feelings of effort and ruggedness in the Ouachita Mountains when I hiked there. On the Appalachian Trail that meant an ingrown toenail. In Arkansas that meant sore muscles the day after a long backpacking trip, which made walking incredibly painful if I sat still for 10 minutes or more.


In Arkansas we met some women and her child burying something she kept telling us she had permission to bury. We did not inquire further. And I slept with my knife close that night. On the Appalachian Trail, we encountered nude male hikers on a narrow trail in broad daylight. We heard later it is a tradition on the Summer Solstice. Tradition or not, it seems dangerous to me.


The camping in West Virginia is excellent, as it is in Arkansas. West Virginia is covered in parks. Hiking was harder in the humidity and tougher in the rugged hilly hills of West Virginia for me, but the views, the ancient rivers, the rocks were all worth it. The history was interesting too. It is rare in the mid-west and west, particularly in the north, to find civil war battles, but not in the East. The signs in the east proclaim every battle of it. The Western signs proclaim a different war and a different slavery and removal of people. They mark The Trail of Tears, the Native history that makes up the history of the West. Native history exists in West Virginia, too, mainly because of the people who keep it up and in their memory, but you have to ask them to see it. It is not on their license plates like in Oklahoma.

Moving to Iowa meant saying goodbye to a period in my life when I lived primarily in the wooded hills, but I had been in flat lands before and knew my experience with hills and woods would be in me for years to come. The memories, as long as my mind stays relatively intact, mean that I can go back to them again and again, as I wish.

As studying literature has taught me, memory is tricky. We change it. Gloss it over with nostalgia. Look back in anger. Turn a moment into poetry, even a moment of death or irreversible change to our bodies and souls. Repress and forget. Re-imagine, re-cast it. Memory can bring us far from truth or reality. Memory is creation. And creation is magical. It can make us happy beyond belief. It can lead us to truth and reality, even when it is fiction. When that fails, what is left?


I will keep the woods of my imagination with me always, and hopefully forever. They are a part of me and I have been a part of them.

In the Pines: Part 1

I heard this stereotyping of people, places and culture again when I moved from Tulsa to West Virginia. Lots and lots of teeth jokes. Perhaps more than I heard when we moved from Illinois to Arkansas. So, I knew they were entirely wrong and unhelpful when it came to pondering what I would encounter in West Virginia.


For me, West Virginia and Arkansas shared many similarities, including the stereotypical ideas others have of the people in those states. They both have a lot of hills and woods. Arkansas also has some flat land that is not valley land because of the Mississippi River. But, the part I knew and loved was hilly and rocky, like West Virginia.

 I had been living in a flat, green place—Tulsa—that was drier and hotter than Arkansas. Oklahoma does have some hills in the south and as you get closer to Arkansas and rolling grasslands even on its eastern side. Beautiful country. Driving back Arkansas from Oklahoma is a beautiful drive on 412 made easy by the Cherokee Turnpike. As you get closer to Siloam Springs, it gets a little hilly and then flattens into ranches until you get to Springdale and highway 71. 71 took me to Rogers and highway 62.

 This was when I got excited. The moment you get out of Rogers, past their little airport with a museum and a giant plane banking but attached to the ground, you start to get into the hills. I would roll down my windows and immediately the breeze was cooler and sweeter. It was an escape from the warmth of Tulsa and the concrete of the Springdale, Rogers, Bentonville area. As 62 twists and turns and dips and rises, past small towns like Gateway, Garfield, and the Pea Ridge Civil War park, I felt like I was home. The tension left my body and driving became fun.


Traffic was generally better too, unless some visitor was slowly making their way to Eureka for a weekend visit. There were only two places to pass, unless you were suicidal, so you had to have luck and timing. Tourists never did the nice thing and pulled over for you to get by. But, I had my landmarks of passage that meant I was close to the empty road, 187, which would take me home to my parent’s house.


When we moved to Arkansas 62 was snakier. They cut a pass through a hills and cut out 5 U curves and about 30 mins of time. They had to blast through the rock and my parents would talk about hearing and feeling those blasts. When I got to the pass, we affectionately called ‘Howard’s pass’ (after a neighbor), I knew I would be home in 20 mins more or less. And that soon, I would be turning off of 62 to 187.


That turn to 187 was my favorite. I have always wanted to live off that road. Houses sit back in the hills off their gravel and dirt lane road, and one of the farms has a bunch of goats that you get to see when you drive around a huge wall of rock and there they are. I am a fan of goats. Beaver is the next town and one I like a lot. It has about 95 people, a post office, and a store. They have a one lane bridge they made historical so the government wouldn’t ruin it and make it an ugly, tourist letting in two lane bridge.



I had spent much time on the river that the bridge spans, high on rocks above it, with the trees leaning over me, thinking. It is a special place for me. It was clear I was almost at my parent’s door.


Driving those roads at night is not as fun. The turns are demanding even in the day and I found this to be true of the best places in West Virginia too. It is the nature of living in the hills I think. They demand time and attention, even when not driving through them. They can be best friends when Iwake up to their beauty or hike through them and get my excercise. And they can be dangerous. Deer jump out in front of you. Bears, bobcats, snakes, and cougars live in them. I even got stuck in them when a winter storm makes the roads impassable and the trees fall in the paths from the heavy ice.


But, they are worth keeping as they are and I learned from good West Virginians fighting to keep their hills intact, that lesson. target is nice, but the wildflowers are too and much more fragil and a concrete target that levels a hill.


I mourn those 5 U curves in Arkansas cut off from their road and those one lane bridges. Everytime I pass those curves I can no longer take, I want to turn and follow them despite the gate in front of them. But, I don't even stop the car and get out and walk them in my hurry to get to my destination. So, I miss out on those views I have seen them give of the valley below.

In the Hills

In my last post ages ago, I wrote about my last day in the woods of Appalachia. Since moving to Iowa, I have been in the woods one or two times. This is the least amount of time I have spent in woods since I can remember and I miss them. But, this is mostly my fault. There are woods here, even hills. I know. Everyone hears Iowa and thinks flat land, horizons, and corn fields. I did too. But, I know from moving many times to many states that what you hear about a place is mostly all untrue.

When I made my first big move, from Illinois to Arkansas, I was 18, I heard all the jokes about Arkansas out there—about people with no teeth, with heavy dialects, who were hillbillies etc. I had of course been to Arkansas previous to moving to it and I did not see these kinds of people. In fact, they seemed like Illinois people only friendly.

They said hello to me as I walked all over the campus of the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. And they did not know me. They made eye contact too. It was different, but I liked it. And they had good teeth, clear speech, and if they were hillbilly, I had a good feeling about them. They were cool. You could eat vegetarian anywhere, and they sold incense and coffee everywhere. They were hippies. One walk down Dickson street past the restaurants, bars and the best used bookstore ever and I was sold. I was moving to that school. And I did.


And I never did find those stereotypical hillbillies everyone in IL said I would find. I saw the caricatures all over for sale to tourists in Ozark stores. But, never in the woods, even the back of beyond woods. Sure, sometimes the Locals were unique, but they were better than the Missouri hikers who tramped down the trails loudly and announced their presence in the Ozarks woods a bit too grandly for my tastes. Maybe they thought if everyone knew they were there, so would the bears, cougars and bobcats. Maybe the Locals wanted to see the bears, cougars and bobcats. I think I am somewhere in between. The Locals did have guns, not sure about the Missourians, and I knew I did not. I just relied on the animals not wanting me to see them and followed the ranger’s advice about what to do if I met up with one. Besides pee in my pants.


My parents had moved to a small retirement town near Eureka Springs, AR and I adopted Eureka as home. There is something about the narrow streets, the winding hills, the trees, the rocks and the art galleries that feels like home to me. The Ozarks, and a bit further south and east, the Boston Mountains called to me to walk in them—to explore them. And I love waking up in them: clear blue skies, green trees, rocks that seep water, clouds in the hills above rivers in the morning.


Fayetteville was a retreat for me. High school pretty much sucked and college in Arkansas was turning out to be what I had wanted and never received in high school. I lived in Gibson Hall, a small female only dorm, right in the middle of campus on the hill. It was across from the English department, so perfect for me. I made great friends there that I still love today. Later, I moved to an apartment across from campus. I remember one day that sums up my feelings for this time in my life well.


Our apartment was near a green line bus stop that went right to the union and meant a short walk past Gibson to Kimple Hall, the English building. I took it everyday to get to my classes, but one day sticks out most in my mind. It was my birthday, my senior year, and a Tuesday, which meant I was going to my Shakespeare class. I crossed the street to the bus stop and got on the bus. Two of my friends were also on the bus that morning, a pleasant surprise. I was standing because the green line was popular. The bus climbed the hill and I looked out the window towards the football stadium. Everything felt perfect.


I was excited about going to my class. I had the best teacher who read Shakespeare like it should be read: sexy. His voice lulled me as he read. He wore bowties, had a shiny head, and was one of the smartest scholars I have met in my life. He knew Shakespeare and he gently demanded we do too. I liked that about him. His tests were not easy, but they were so good. I learned so much from him and I saw how much he loved what he studied. It was inspiring and wonderful, so I looked forward to that class every Tues and Thurs. It was also the only class I had that day, so the heavy Riverside edition in my bag was not a drag to carry.


As we climbed that hill, I knew this was a moment I would never forget: standing in the bus, holding the rail above me, my bag gently knocking against my leg, the book in the bag a hard lump against my leg as it gently swung with the movement of the bus shifting as it climbed the hill, the clear blue sky, the stadium glinting in the sun, my two friends standing next to me on a packed bus, the excitement of going to a class I loved. I knew it was a moment that would last only a short time, but I was in it and I realized I was happy. Content. I could ride that bus up that hill forever. But, I also knew it would not go up that hill forever. So, I took a deep breath and was there, hoping I could come back again and again to that moment after it was gone.


I was not in the woods, but I was happy. And I knew I would be in them again and would be in them in a way that would allow me to return to them again and again when I needed to but could not get away to them.

The Youghiogheny River: Ohiopyle

One thing I am not going to write about is moving from West Virginia to Iowa. I will not document one of the worst moving experiences of my life, and when I did get here and talked to others who has experienced moving to Iowa from far away, I heard their similar and sometimes more horrifying stories. I took that as a sign that I would be okay here, since they were and are okay here after their horror.

So, I am writing about the days up to the move.

My mother in law, Rebecca, and niece, Bela, flew out to Pittsburgh to help us move. My niece is a cat whisperer and we owe her, or at least I do, our/my sanity…and definitely our cat’s sanity.  Since Bela had never been to West Virginia and there were some special places we wanted to see before the move, we brought her to Ohiopyle.

Ohio Pyle is a state park in Pennsylvania in what they call the Laurel Highlands. The Youghiogheny River runs through the park and attracts rafters and hikers and anyone who wants to see the falls at the center of the park, in the middle of the river, as the river flows down from the highlands and through the hills. There are two Frank Lloyd Wright homes in the area as well: Kentucky Knob and Falling Water. Both are worth the price, but we were there to see the free trees and water.

The falls of the Youghiogheny are amazing and we gazed at them and watched the water run over them. I will remember them fondly, but the hiking along the river was always what I enjoyed the most. Those Eastern rivers have big rocks in them and they flow North. I was used to rivers with small rocks that flow South. I grew up near the Mississippi River in Southern Illinois. It is a broad, sandy river. I knew about sandbars and I knew I would never dip a toe in that polluted water. I was content to swim and boat on the local man-made lake with a bottom of clay and water which no light penetrated.

Then, we  moved to Arkansas and I swam in Table Rock Lake and could see my feet when I was treading water. It felt so clean. It is a lake of rock and green water with cliffs make up the sides of the lakes and rocks that line the bottom and jut out from the sides of the lakes. We would jump out into Beaver Lake off of them and cautiously watch the snakes that would swim over and try to take our sunbathing rock spot, but the rocks there were slabs and the water was calm.

When I went hiking with a dear friend in the Buffalo National Forest in Central Arkansas and we reached the Buffalo river, we were so hot and grateful to see water that we stripped to our last layer of clothes and dived into the river; the cliffs that  line that river are super high, white limestone rock that rose above us and from which trees grow despite its vertical nature. The rocks at the bottom of the river were smooth and small and did not hurt our tired, hot feet. They were slick and kind and the water flew over them a little fast, but still calm. I knew the river was low that year due to drought year number 5 and I believe the same drought is still going. I knew that when it rained, this river was a different kind of river, but I did not see it that day. I saw the calm river of the west that we could dive into without fear of anything but some snakes.

I moved to West Virginia and visited Ohiopyle and saw swift water over huge boulders with an amazing powerful and awesome current. There is water everywhere there—in the trees, in the air, in the green that is also everywhere. And it never recedes in a way I was used to seeing in Arkansas when as the drought continues the lake and river water would recede and reveal more silent boulders under where we had been swimming last year. They were ones that we never saw—the green, deep water hide them—but we sensed their presence. And that kept us from jumping from the cliffs above that overhang the lake and exposed rock shoreline into the green water below. Instead of jumping, we climbed down the overhang to the rocks that met the water and we lived.

 In the Youghiogheny, those rocks were always there. Sure they had water lines, but they were huge and jutted up out of the water, even when it was high water. And the water rushed past them wearing them slowly away. It was not water to jump right into or even to wade right into. T he current was strong, an unwavering force. The water was also cold. We would sometimes go to Ohiopyle to swim and we choose a spot above the falls. The water was that rock green clear I knew, but cold even in July. I was used to the water in Arkansas warming up the end of June, but I swear it was never, even at its coldest, the temperature of the Youghiogheny in spring, summer or fall. The winter snow had melted into it and we could feel it. We had to jump in and be brave or edge ourselves in slowly and when we came back out, we were gonna be a bit numb. The current was always present and always ready to sweep us towards the falls.

I had also never seen natural slides until Ohiopyle. Some local friends of ours told us to go to them. The water, a run really that emptied into Youghiogheny, had gouged out a tube like path in the rock as it gathered and flowed down the side of the highlands as a creek. It was a natural pipe. We visited it about 3 times in the five years we were there. On a hot August day, the trails were packed and people lined up at the top of slides to slide all the way down into shallow pools of water that gathered before the water spilled out of them and went back into the main river. We even tool the trail up and followed the run and found more swimming holes and water falls above the slides. The more rain or snow melt we had, the faster the water flew down the rocks to the river below.

It takes courage to  go down the slides. I was not brave enough to slide down them, as Ernani and our friend Cari were, but I recorded and worried about broken arms and legs as I watched them go down the slides into pools that lead to another set of slides. The limestone was carved out into slides by the water and the angle was a sloop. It was a gentle ride unless there was a lot of rain, then it was quick and scarier as far as I was concerned, but we wanted to take our niece there so she could see it, since it is pretty cool and a once in a lifetime kind of place.

After the slides, we drove to Cucumber Falls. Neither Ernani or I had been there despite our many visits to the park. Waterfalls were always a treat for me. They are hard to find in Arkansas and the best ones there are the ones you run into without expecting to run into when walking a trail. Often the trail will tell you there is one, but when you get to it, it is dry. In the West Virginia area, waterfalls thrive and abound. We had seen many and they never got old. But, those we saw we, we could never get close to like the few I got to get close to on Arkansas trails. The ones in West Virginia were serious. Gallons and gallons of water falls in WV when it falls. It is often not wise to get too close.

We parked in the dusty, rocky parking lot next to the sign for Cucumber Falls and followed the trail as it snaked down to the valley. This was another run, creek, that was making it way to fill the Youghiogheny below it, but this river was not one solid mass of rock the water could carve a path into. Suddenly the water meet a gap and had to fall to reach the ground that sloped to the river. It was a beautiful water fall and behind it was a grotto. We could walk and climb the rocks on the banks of the river it made after it fell and get behind it and dunk our heads into the water falling from high above us. And we did. It was exhilarating. It was not a moment to pass by. Cari, Ernani, Bela and I each took our turn. The day was perfect and I had forgotten about everything but the moment we were in and the pressure of the water on my head, neck and hand as I reached out for it.  We made our way back to Rebecca who took our pictures and then  up the trail to the bridge that crossed the water as it was about to fall off the edge of the rock onto other heads, hands, necks and then to the river. We walked to the car and drove back through green hills and sunshine to reality. 

Leaving West Virginia, Almost Heaven

Leaving the hills was not something I every really saw myself being able to do without the certainty of leaving them for a job in my field. Life did not work the way I thought it would though. The dream teaching job did pan out and my husband is less stubborn than I am.

When there is a problem, when I am fixing something, or putting something together and it resists, I rush headlong into it and continue working on it even when I should I stop. It is just one of the many traits that make me, me. I remember when I was getting my Master’s degree, and one of my colleagues told me: Lisa, all you get by beating your head against a brick wall is a bloody head. I have been pondering that sentence since she spoke it, and it took about ten more years to realize how right it is. But, have I stopped this beating the head and this being generally stubborn about fixing things that just don’t want to be fixed? Of course not. I just needed her to remind me that I have this tendency not to stop when I should stop, so that I stop a bit sooner than I did in my 20s.

So, while I would have clung to the 4/4 teaching load that made me insane every October (midterm), December (finals and finals grade), January (evaluations), and Feb/March (midterm and receipt of annual review), May (finals), Summer (no income), and August (writing the annual review)--and, I worried about not having time to do research and squeezing in 500 job aps between Oct and March in between the grading—I would have kept doing it until I was 65 years old. Luckily, I met my husband, who can be more rational than me about these things, and he decided to change his life, which meant mine changes too. He decided to take the LSAT. And, then we decided to move to Iowa.

Iowa. I am from Southern IL originally. I know flat. I hated flat. I hate Winter. So, why did we choose Iowa? Family. We had lived in the hills, but we were far from our family and we missed them. This can happen as you get older.  I was scared to go back to Fayetteville, Arkansas. I loved Fayetteville. I love Arkansas. I don’t want to look for jobs there because I fear that that might ruin the place I love so much. I want to return there someday when I can enjoy it without fear and worry. And the law program at the University of Iowa is good. My husband loved received his degrees there in philosophy. He knew the city well and he has good memories of the place.

A part of me was ready to get back to the western, and right, side of the Mississippi River. I reason that I can tolerate the winter with family nearby and if I put my stubbornness against it, perhaps that would be a good outlet for it. And, Iowa City does have some hills. It is nice to be able to really see the stars from horizon to horizon, instead of hill to hill. There is so much more sky to see. I miss those hills, but someday, I will be back in hills, in Arkansas perhaps, back in a warmer place and ready to be there without a bloody head.

But, first I was moving to Iowa from West Virginia and had only a few weeks to say goodbye to one of the prettiest states we have. Camping was on the agenda. I wanted it on every day, but I had to pack too, so we only got out a few times that summer. I have written about most of them, but not these final weeks, so here it goes.

Ernani and I took off on day trips together and spent some nights in the woods alone, saying goodbye to the green hills. I love driving through a country that is hilly. All my stress evaporates. I cannot wait to see what is behind the next bend. It is the same on a trail, unless I have a heavy backpack, but those are different stories.

We found another swimming hole where we met a father who told us he came here as a boy to swim, his Mom and Dad came here as children to swim, and he was taking his kids here to swim. We all, even our returning friend, marveled at a house on the ridge above the swimming area that was new to us all and looked as if it could easily slid right down the cliff into the shallow water/river below it in which we were swimming.

We stayed at a place just inside the old entrance signs to the Monongahela National Forest. Our campsite was nestled in the trees off a paved road, but if we continued on the road and turned to follow the paved road, it dropped us into the valley and brought us to the swimming hole. If we turned off the pavement onto the gravel road, it twisted up and up the hills. We followed it and got to see amazing drop offs into deep and shallow valleys of green trees and ferns. We saw deer leap randomly out as we drove by those ravens. We climbed up and up and sometimes we saw a deep, open raven and the walls of the next hill not quite as close as those before were. We twisted up and up and around. The road seemed to go on forever and I really think it did. We never reached the end of it.

We did reach the top or a top of a hill really. Suddenly, we were in the open sky, a field cleared for a pasture. Ahead of us the road continued to snake slowly up a hill in the distance, but we stopped; we pulled off into the ruts of tractor and jeep tracks that marked an entrance into the pasture and a closed cattle fence. We shut off the engine. Besides the small clicks of the cooling engine, we heard birds in the trees slightly below us and in the grasses around the fence by which we stopped. We pulled on our hiking boots and climbed over the cattle fence.

We jumped from the top of the fence onto the grassy ground and started up the slight rise of the top of the hill. Rocks mixed in with the dirt and cow patties marked the passage of the cows, which we never did see. We followed the path, improvised road really, to the top of the hill and to the trough of water some park people must come by to fill every so often. I ran the last few feet knowing that what we got for our exploration was a reward—a 360 degree view of West Virginia. I turned and turned and in every direction I saw perfection: green hills whose ridges sloped jaggedly to pass in front of and behind the other ridges of other green hills.

Rarely did I see signs of people, except on the bald hill I stood on to see these other hills and the occasional radio tower on opposite hills. I did not care about people up here though. I breathed in the fresh air and feasted on the sights before me.  I could not see enough or stay long enough. I admired the circling buzzards Ed Abbey taught me to love and which I also see in Arkansas. I wished I had brought a telescope for later tonight. The sun was setting and the sky was turning pick and orange. The hills were getting darker where the sun could not penetrate because of the shadows of the ridges of the hills nearby. The sun was lightening up the trees it could reach. The pattern of light on the trees gave the hills texture and definition. When I was in the car, I was in that pattern on a road under those trees. Now, I stood outside of it and above it. I saw it again, but could not see the road, since it was high summer, where I had been earlier inside those trees. I lifted my eyes. The sun slipped behind a hill to the west. Stars started to appear above me.

The way back was easy and took what felt like less time than getting there, but we walked it together and pointed out the things on the ground we had noticed and meant to point out to each other before as we walked to the top of the hill—the rocks glistening with mica, the flowers embedded in the path where the tires and hooves and feet that had passed by before us had missed them.

Every so often I would glance back at the view, at the place where I had stood above the world in the sky looking down, but I was no longer on top, so I looked to the sides and said a mental goodbye to the valleys I could see. It was a perfect end to our time in West Virginia in a perfect place. 

The Swimming Hole

The swimming hole was a sliver of a river--sand and gravel on one side and a cliff face on the other. A few trees grew from the rock face, but huge boulders stood at the feet of the rock cliff and from the sandy and rocky side, the ground sloped downward into a cool pool of deep water. The water was clear and green and large fish swam in the deepest parts.

A few other people were there: children who had swum to the cliff side and were playing on the rocks, an old man sitting in the middle of a floating device, the ones you lie down on, drifting slowly to the cliff side, families watching their children, sitting in chairs, relaxing in the heat and the cool water.

Ernani, Cari, Sam and I walked along the river. We waded into the water, coaxed Sam to come join us from the beach. Sam was not convinced and Cari held her in the water, but she was not a fan of the swimming. She liked to walk by the water and wanted us with her. She tolerated our swimming and did her best in Cari’s arms to be with us while we swam.

It was lovely. It was a perfect summer day.

When we returned to our campsite, we were cool. Dinner was simple but as night fell, the stars shone in the night sky between the hills and we pointed out the constellations and stoked the fire.

The next morning, there was no question that we would go back to the swimming hole. We had it all to ourselves. Except the Eagle sitting in the tree growing out of the rock face. He was 50 feet from us, above us in the tree across the river. He was big and wild and had clearly been hunting fish. He stopped us in our tracks. We watched him look left to right, ignoring us, except in his next movements, when his body tensed and his wings spread and he took to the air flying fast but smooth to the north, following the river.

We had felt blessed.

We spent the morning in a kind of meditation and happiness mixed with companionship and laughter.

We walked the river. I love the rocks. I saw the shapes of them and enjoyed the water that had made them so smooth and round and perfect. I saw the beetles in the shallows and the tadpoles and small fish that Ernani would try to coax above his hand and try to catch. I saw them get away, swimming fast as they were meant to swim. I saw the light fall from the sun to the river and get caught in the trees of West Virginia as it made its way to the water. I saw the big fish treading water until my shadow scared them and they darted off into deeper, more shaded water. I saw each boulder that the river had placed in its exact spot and each butterfly further up on the sandy shore resting it wings in the sun.

Leaving the place was hard until we passed another human making his way to enjoy the cool water on what was to be another hot day. I was glad he had disturbed the peace. It made it easier to leave the water.