...and lived to tell the tale

Let me just say in defense of my daughter and I, that we are wonderful planners and organizers, but just not when we do things together. Each of us just assumes the other has taken care of everything and we both jump in the car and head off to have amazing adventures. That’s how I found myself driving back from Shenandoah Park late Sunday night wearing only a thong and a wet tank top. Now no poker was involved, but that was the story I planned to tell my husband and/or the police if we were pulled over. The weekend started off low key enough, with my girl and I making a decision to start on a detox diet to lose ten pounds each. When Saturday came she was feeling a little depressed and decided she would join her father and I at our favorite bar for dinner and drinks instead of taking her usual trip to meet the boyfriend in DC. No, alcohol is not really on the detox diet, but well, we decided to continue that on Sunday. Her brother came too, and a middle aged couple tried to get them to come party with them after the bar closed. Fortunately no one was drunk enough to think that was a good idea.

On the way home we discussed plans for a hike the next day. It seemed like a wonderful proposition at the time. We just needed to get up and be on the road by 6:30 and drive somewhere vaguely to the west. When the thunder awakened me at 6 the next morning I breathed a sigh of relief and tried to go back to sleep. Around 8 the girl knocked on my door and asked me if I was ready to go. But it’s raining, I told her. We can’t hike in the rain. Oh, rain is no problem she replied, besides, it’s going to clear up later. I have no one to blame for deciding to wear my Lucky jeans with their delightful water absorbent qualities. I just did it because they make my ass look good. Around 5 that evening they were not looking all that hot, sagging below my ass and wicking water into my hiking boots. It didn’t really matter though, because in the process of fording the same raging stream five times in the course of the hike, the boots had water sloshing over the tops anyway. Now I didn’t have to walk through the water, but so many slippery rocks were positioned just beyond my leaping ability, and with the alternative to missing them being the possibility of being washed downstream and over a waterfall, so time after time I decided to put my foot right into the relative safety of the river rather than on a precarious rock. It’s funny how those survival instincts kick in.

Looking back I realize all the signs and portents in the heavens were telling us not to head out Sunday morning. Aside from the hangovers and the late start, the first thing we discovered on the road was that both our ipods were out of power. No problem, says my sunshiny daughter, we can just play the “who can find the worst song on the radio” game. That would have been more fun if the folks at the Car Pool I went to on Saturday had replaced the radio antenna after they washed my car. With only very local stations coming in all we heard were the flash flood watches for the Shenandoah Valley, the direction we were heading. I did mention to the girl that White Oak Canyon was, well, a canyon, and the radio said that’s what we were suppose to avoid. Oh, she says, nothing is going to happen. Don’t worry. That’s about the time the car ran out of gas. She had the nerve to accuse me of not wanting to hike as we sat there stranded on 64. I promised her it was not duplicity, but stupidity that had made me miss the blinking light on the dashboard. I’m not sure if angels or demons sent our salvation, but a nice lady stopped within 5 minutes, took the girl to the next exit for gas, brought her back, and then offered my son a job. We were on our way with only a thirty-minute delay.

I would loved to have recaptured that thirty minutes 7 hours later when we were struggling uphill on Cedar Run, hoping to make the car before sunset. Of course, neither of us had a watch, and our cell phones had long ago ran out of batteries while looking for service in the wilderness. With the overcast skies, the only way we had of determining the time was the fact that the deer had awakened and were browsing in our path. Wet and cold, we staggered on in the downpour with our own private thoughts. I won’t say my whole life flashed before my eyes, but I did entertain the thought that I might not be around for the birth of my grandchild. That was the driving force that kept me putting one foot in front of the other for the last mile.

Finally I hear it, above the sound of the awakening owls, the noise of cars passing on the parkway. We crested the hill and there sat my sweet little red car and it had never looked so good to me. We pulled off our shoes, wrung out our socks, and wished we had the foresight to have packed dry clothing. I took off the soaked jeans jacket, then the jeans, and my extra shirt. We turned the thermostat in the Prius up to 85, but because we were going downhill with only the electric motor going, the car did not warm up rapidly. Shivering, we drove slowly down the parkway in a cloud, trying to avoid omnipresent deer herds making suicidal dashes across the road. The fog on the narrow winding highway parted occasionally and the evening sun lit up spectacular views of the valley like a Hollywood set. We pulled over to take another picture, but the camera battery was dead. “We’ll just have to keep this one in our head”, I said, “but we really have to bring extra batteries next time.”
“Right,” she replies “along with extra clothes, charged ipods, a radio that works, a watch, and gas in the car. Don’t you remember the last time we did this and we both said we’d make sure the next big adventure was better organized?”
“Yeah, I remember. We’ll probably be saying the same thing after the next trip too.”
“You’re right Mom, but think about it. We’ve done the two hardest trails in Virginia.”“…and lived to tell the tale,” I replied, finishing her sentence. Like two warriors around an evening campfire, we spent the rest of the drive home talking this one into legend.