I like to explore.
I have always had this urge to go into places I’ve not been into before,
just to see what’s there. This
tendency has caused me a fair amount of grief, gotten me into bits of trouble
here and there, resulted in any number of practical and useful discoveries, and
occasionally delivered delightful surprises. As a young kid, I would poke into any closet, climb up any
attic stairway, scramble into crawlspaces, follow rabbit tracks into hedges,
climb ladders, climb trees, go just about anywhere that looked interesting,
curious, and possibly somewhat inaccessible. As I grew older, I simply expanded the scope. To this very day, I am quite happy to
poke into any odd passage, roadway, or byway. Often my explorations lead to dead ends, but there are
surprises and delights even there.
I went through a period when driving seemed like the most
important thing in the world to me.
I was as car-crazy as any other American boy. Wheels. Engines!
Go! Of course that
sort of restricted my travel too, though I didn’t realize it at the time. I got over that initial intoxication
with automotive things, and once mounted on a bike again, started finding
places to go that cars just didn’t seem to take me to. Cars were for going to places that were
important, not for idly messing about
and exploring.
Oddly, I found a lot of routes, shortcuts, and practical
alternatives that could be used when driving. I found most of these while mounted on
a bicycle. Then there were the
surprises that could only be used on
a bike.
I’d been aware of the “interesting road” for several
years. I’d first seen it when
driving my siblings to the swim club. I spotted it as I drove by. There was no street sign or route sign on
it. It didn’t look like a
residential road, and it didn’t look much traveled. It had one more attraction. It led toward the mountains.
I should explain that last statement a bit. In the Shenandoah Valley, there are a
lot of roads that are out in the valley proper. Some of these wander around in towns or out into farm
land. There are big primary roads
that run north-south along the valley.
There are a few roads that run east-west and cross the mountains. But when you are in “The Valley,” and
you are approaching the mountains, small roads that go toward the mountains
tend to peter out. There are
occasional exceptions.
It took me several years to get around to the “interesting
road.” I had reached that
transition in my life that led me away from motor transport, and toward
bicycles again. On this particular
afternoon, I was riding my “do everything road bike.” I had gone out in the early morning to accomplish a Saturday
errand, and was returning by a different route, one I had driven many times before,
but had never ridden on. I had
just had the thought, “That interesting road should be around here
somewhere.” No sooner had I
thought that, than I spotted it, to my left, ahead. I didn’t even think about the decision, I simply made the
turn onto the road. I fully
expected this road to travel back into the woods a bit, and then end.
The pavement was immediately rougher than the main road, not
terrible, but obviously not recently maintained. The road took a bend, passed several houses, and then took
another bend. At this second bend
the surface became rougher. In the
next half mile, the road surface continued deteriorating. I came to an intersection. The road to the right came to a visible
ending about a hundred yards away.
It just stopped, with a stand of large trees beyond it. I cast down the left hand road. After about a mile, it too ended in a
large, rough, overgrown clearing.
I went back to the intersection and followed the original
road, deeper into the woodland.
Within a mile it had turned into mostly gravel and potholes. I rounded a curve and could see the
road ending ahead, coming to a stop at a huge bare dirt slope. Just before the end of the road, I
spotted another, even older road leading off to my left. This one was barely more than some
heavily weed covered double track.
I turned and headed up into the leafy tunnel. I was climbing immediately. It didn’t take me much time to be
riding past the dirt embankment. I
looked out over an incredible landscape.
Huge holes in the earth, massive dirt piles. (I would come back to that fascinating wasteland on many
future exploration trips.) I was
passing an old quarry of some kind.
(I never did find out what had been quarried, or mined, there. During this stretch the double track
route was mostly level, but that changed.
The double track turned away from the quarry and started
ascending in earnest. It rose, and
twisted, then started going up in a series of switchback turns. There were occasional short flat
stretches on the old road as it rose.
Likely this was an old wagon track, and these “flats” were cut into it
to allow draft horses to rest.
I got to a place where one side of the double track was
deeper and much lower than the other.
The deeper side was less overgrown too. At some time this might have been an old fire access
road. It had obviously been used
by hikers of some kind, but not much else. In some places there were good sized trees growing right up
out of either track. It had been a
long long time since any kind of
wagon or car had traveled here.
I kept working the old road bike higher. At times I had to get off and
push. Some places I had to get
through by carrying the bike.
Always upward.
As I neared the top of the mountain ridgeline I was rewarded
with a “find.” From the state of
the vegetation around me, and the sound of passing cars ahead of me, I knew
that I was inside the Shenandoah National Park, and was approaching the Skyline
Drive.
Abruptly, I broke out of the trees and underbrush. There, ahead of me, was a stone
archway, carrying the Skyline Drive, over this old wagon track. That told me that, back during the
Depression, when the Works Progress Administration was building the Skyline
Drive, this track had been a road that was still utilized. The WPA had seen fit to bridge over the
old road, without connecting “The Drive” to it. I rode on grass, through the archway, and across the grassy
verge on the other side. Sure
enough, as I entered the woods again, I re-acquired the remnants of the old
road. Now it was down hill. Steeply down! (Do bear in mind;
this was on a ten-speed, heavy steel, road
bike, and a good ten years before mountain bikes had been invented.)
Going down was easier than going up had been, but only slightly so. I was slowed a bit by simply losing control and falling off
the side of the trail. The flat
tire also delayed me somewhat.
On this side of the mountain, the road/trail was a good bit
less there. I could barely see
where one of the two tracks had once been. The re-growth of trees and foliage was much more
complete. In some places I had to
dismount and sort of pick my way through thickets, dragging the bike with me. After a semi-eternity of bramble
scratches and mosquito bites, I had worked my way well down the mountain. Here the trail improved to a bit of a
path, kind of like a game trail.
I was getting glimpses of civilization through the
foliage. I could see rooftops
through the trees and brush. I
could hear lawn mowers.
The trail stopped against a thicket of dense foliage. I dismounted and groped my way into it,
struggled a bit, and… emerged! Right into a back yard.
It was a neat and tidy back yard. The grass was closely trimmed and even. There was a tidy house. There was a man, presumably the owner,
working in a small garden. He
looked up, astonishment clearly showing on his face, and cried out, “Good grief! Where did you come
from!”
After a few mumbled words of explanation, I departed, and
mounted the bike. Rather than
re-tracing my path over the mountain, I took to the road, and went around. I never went all the way over the mountain that way again,
although I did use the “interesting
road,” and it’s ancient tributary, to climb up to the Parkway many more
times. I’m not sure I could find
it again now. Things change a lot
with the passage of time.
It’s good to explore, and good to find. I still do it, and always will.
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