An Easter Hike: Path to the Past
1. A ladder that allows hikers to bypass a barbed wired fence seems to separate one world from another.
2. Once we cross over, our mood becomes somber, as we discover and explore an abandoned house site.
3. We come upon an old bed of springs from which a mass of bramble bushes is growing out of. Next to it is the rusty outline of a couch. I think about all the forts and outdoor clubhouses my girlfriends and I used to build when we were kids.
4. “Here’s the matching chair,” Joe shouts from further up the path.
5. “The family car!” I shout back. The road it drove on to get here is no longer visible.
6. I’m excited to find a patch of pink phlox growing nearby the metal remains because I know it had to have been planted there. The hands that planted it have long ago left this world, but the beauty of their efforts still returns in the spring.
Post note: More Easter Adventure is HERE.
Comments
You always do a good job with your pictures.
I heard that the minerals of the rust helps flowers grow.
Has anyone else heard this?
Posted by: Sherry | April 13, 2007 9:33 AM
If you were down in Rock Castle Gorge, most of those old homeplaces belonged to my direct ancestors, at least on the upper end. Sad that they had to be abandoned.
Posted by: Leslie | April 13, 2007 9:47 AM
Sherry, Maybe the rust gives plants a good dose of iron and combats plant anemia?
Leslie, I hope to visit the Greenberry House soon and hear more about why people (your kin!) had to abandon their homes along the parkway. There are some abandoned house sites in remote places down the escartment (big drop off behind our place) which I assumed happened because they have no road access.
Posted by: colleen | April 13, 2007 10:18 AM
That picture of the bed springs is amazing. Fantastic!
Posted by: Leigh in Atlanta | April 13, 2007 10:25 AM
I see a good tattoo image in the bed springs. You know, like Mara's triple spiral.
Posted by: colleen | April 13, 2007 10:33 AM
I love to come upon the evidence of an old homeplace while hiking. Sometimes it is just some errant daffodils or a rock wall half buried in leaves and dirt. It reinforces the fact that we do not own the land, we are just visitors passing through. It sounds like a great hike, thanks for taking us along.
Posted by: susan | April 13, 2007 11:06 AM
i love stumbling across these kinds of things.... and daydreaming about the history and lives that were lived there.
there is a place called cataloochie mountain in NC that was abandoned when the government made it into a protected park area....you have to drive up miles of windy, dirt road but the homes, old school, and churches have all been preserved. it's beautiful.....
Posted by: bluemountainmama | April 13, 2007 12:32 PM
Is it anywhere near Asheville? I'll ask Josh about it. He's loving the town of Marshall, by the way! Just started on the kiln building.
Posted by: colleen | April 13, 2007 12:41 PM
I used to love building forts in the woods behind my house in Brockton. This brings it all back.
Posted by: patry | April 13, 2007 3:16 PM
Ah! Wonderful pink phlox! I hope spring is really happening there now!
You always wonder about the people stories that must go with abandoned houses!
Posted by: ruth | April 13, 2007 8:01 PM
What a great hike! I love the pink flowers amid all the rust and abandoned things.
Posted by: Catheroo | April 13, 2007 10:01 PM
All things pass away, yet the flower seem to leave a spirit of hope, don't they?
Posted by: Tabor | April 14, 2007 7:26 AM
I like phlox because of its resilience along with its beauty.
Nice pictures...I like all the swirls and contrasts.
Posted by: Deana | April 14, 2007 10:21 AM
colleen: here's the link to cataloochie....
http://www.nps.gov/grsm/planyourvisit/cataloochee.htm
Posted by: bluemountainmama | April 16, 2007 4:04 PM