Fall break is a hell of a lot less sexy than spring break. No one goes down to Panama City (I used to tease my students by telling them that we called it the Redneck Riviera, but the thrill has worn off). No one sheds their clothes to go bobbing for apples. Damn shame.
This is the first break in a while in which I accomplished very little. Oh, sure, a little cleaning around the house, a little bit of grading early, some poem revisions and emails out to Important People in Ecopoetry (who've all been generous and kind in turning me down). And then, nothin'. And it felt good. Let me expand, though, on what I mean be nothin'.
I mean, going down to Indian Cave State Park (which is not what I usually mean by nothin'. Usually, I mean Snakes! On a Plane! and other times I mean, no, put the hickey where it won't show. I sense a digression). If you are not from Nebraska, but, instead, are from a hilly/mountainous wooded area of the east coast, hie you down to this park. It will make you feel, however briefly and illusorily, that you are in that other (perhaps better) place. You will climb to the ridge of a line of hillls, look out, and see the ridgeline of another line of hills. Sure, you're barely above corn level, but it feels so good. And you can look down and see a river--and it's a big river. So not really like going up to, say, Raven Rock in Cooper's Rock State Park, but, well, nice. Here, I'll illustrate:
D's shocked and amazed at the park. And then the approach to the cave:
Look! The eponymous cavesite! Which as some really excellent glyphs done by Native Americans way back before there was a back in the day, though this picture is more about autumn the cool dampness of our visit:
Some scenes of the forest:
Here, I'm looking out from a campsite about a mile from the trailhead and off the path by about a fifty yards:
And a vista:
Lovely spot. But this is also nature that gets used a lot. Fishing. Horses (christ, those fuckers chewed the path to a pasty mess). History walks and talks. It's an active landscape. But not when we were there. We were all alone for about four hours. I started to feel like a human again.
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