Escaping for a Day

We’ve been sheltering-in-place since March. Almost two months. We have cleaned the house, cleaned the yard, re-cleaned the house, did some crafts, worked, cooked, ate, walked around the neighborhood and discovered new parks and trails around our town. But some days I have kinda reached the limit of what else I could possibly do to fill up my time.

I can do a little longer without people. But I could not do anymore without getting out of town. Truly, just driving away and leaving home behind. Going away is vital to me. I need to get away, to not see my hearth just so I can recharge, just so I can look back at my life with perspective and re-plan, rearrange and find efficiencies. If I just sit in one spot, I churn the same garbage every day and nothing new nor good emerges from it.

I am also a Gypsy by heritage. We cannot help it. We wander. If we don’t move about, we don’t breathe. If we don’t dream and plan in our head our next trip, we suffocate. Without this, I could no longer do.

How much harm can it be done to just get into our own car and start driving on the open road? Maybe get to the edge of a hill, stop, look down at the valley and breathe in the wind. Then snap a few shots, turn around and come home. How much harm? We won’t run into anyone. We have only our home, and no other people, to come to. No one to meet at the end of that road, no one to come home to but us. How much harm?!

We’re somewhat lucky in this country: we’re free to drive anywhere. Some people abuse it, unfortunately. But we try to use that privilege carefully. So, to get us out of this funk, we jumped in the car and ended up in Mayo River State Park, about an hour and 20 minutes North of our house, on the North Carolina – Virginia border.

This is what Highway NC-421 looks like in a pandemic

I know you’d think that it would be repetitive to say that a forest is green. But this forest was green! I mean, even branches and dried up pine cone which are normally brown turned green under the intense green reflection from the leaves and from underbrush vegetation around on them. We took pictures of each other and our skin looks green in them. It must be the spring fresh, virgin green, not sure, but everything was drowned in in.

This green forest ... 

We hiked a 1.8 mile trail up in the woods, and then down. A loop. One foot in front of the other. We took about 200 feet in elevation, and then lost it back on the way down. We had no idea the trail was uphill, and the bitter wind and the 58F temps made my chest tighten up and wore me out.

More pure and reflective green on the forest floor, most of these were along or on the trail

The trees were dense and tall – some of the tallest trees I have seen in The East, for sure. The interpretive panels scattered along the trail told us their names: American Beech, Red Maple, Sweetgum, White Oak. 

I have never seen so many fallen trees in a forest in my life. It felt like either their roots were too shallow to hold them up and they grew too tall for their roots, or that wind might have been permanent to knock them down daily. The trees that were still standing were whining. Almost every other tree was creaking like an old person’s joint with arthritis. Then branches, or half trees were falling all around us. We feared a big beast was near from all the noise of broken branches we were hearing, but there was really nothing but butterflies, lots of bugs and a tail-less lizard. Not even a squirrel. Birds were few. Just the trees complaining and breaking …

There was a spit of rain in the dry spring benches under the green forest, but no big water in the woods. There were a couple of ponds framing one end of the parking lot, before we started the walk with a couple of families of geese having a day out, too.

One of the peaceful ponds before we headed to the trail

The trail looked very wild. If it had not been for the marks on the trees that told us we’re still on it, we might have thought we’re not on the trail several times during our journey. There were ferns and other vegetation growing on the trail. And moss, too. Sure signs that the trail is not that busy.

We walked and walked and saw maybe 6 people in total during our two hour hike. Most people were hiking alone. A couple of teens were on a date, possibly. They hung a camping hammock between two trees away from the trail (thankfully) and they were telling each other sweet nothings.

We stopped often to wow at the trees and to take pictures. To take the life in, because every whimper of every tree, every swoosh of the ferns in the wind, every chirp of a random bird screamed life. Gentle life coming back to the world: butterflies, baby geese on the lakes, bright bugs eating leaves, lizard with no tail, halved but still alive and moving.

After the walk in the woods, we walked around the lakes and chased the geese one more time. 

Then, we took the car, and headed past random barns leaning on one side, past log cabins with darling little geranium window boxes, past old Southern homes with columns all around and deep porches with hanging fans on ceilings, past lazy cows watching their new-borns running about, chewing their lunch in approval towards another entrance of the Mayo River State Park. 

Driving around the country-side of North Carolina and Virginia, through the deep green forests, tires caressing the gentle sloping hills, and taking in the quiet, peaceful life of a people that have seen and done too much to rush is like driving through a fairy tale. 

Could be a shed, or a house, but it's poetic nonetheless

The second part of the park that we went to was right along the Mayo River proper – as peaceful and serene (besides the whining trees and the wind) as the forest was, the river was loud and screaming. Swallows were dive-bombing into the water, barely touching it with a wing. The current and rapids were too massive for any fish to swim about and not smash against the huge river rock. The roar was deafening.

After a 20 minute or so break for more nature watching and picture taking, we headed back home. I felt like we at the very least spent one night away from home! I felt like we headed up there at least 24 hours before. The richness of another place filled my voided soul with so much beauty and freshness.

I am so grateful we are well enough to travel, even for a day, and we live in a place so beautiful (really, the whole world is, if you look for it!) that allows us to take it in in a few hours (or less) so close to home. For half of a day, we did not stare at a screen, we did not read one piece of bad news, we did not eat uselessly for the fourth time in an hour. For half of a glorious, chilly, bright, windy May day, we renewed our breath and our retinas. We took in almost no people, either: only nature, clean air and promise of life eventually winning …

Swallows swooning into the Mayo River.
Click the picture to see the entire album from this trip.