Roots

Last week I journeyed down my mountain and up another to find my ancestral ties.  Two cousins agreed to join me in the search.  We share a common pair of great grandparents, our parents were first cousins.  Does that make us cousins twice removed or thrice? No matter, we each grew up in very different circumstances with paths that bear little similarity, still a thread of commonality remains.  Actually I would call it more of a strong rope or steel cable.  Childhood memories are always fun to dredge up when one reaches a certain age.  Locating the landscape where the events occurred is sometimes a little more difficult.  Cousin 1 has remained in the county of our roots all her life, married a hometown boy and raised her children there. Cousin 2 stayed in state, married a boy from the capital city and raised their children in the central river country.  As you may know, I left the hills and grew up on the plains of Texas marrying a native and raising my native Texan children in several parts of that state. A favorite spot from all our childhood days included a cliffside cave with a strange green growth around it.  We loved climbing around the cliffs and following the trail down to the overhang to eat a picnic lunch or make up wild tales about outlaws and renegades.  Back then, the cliff overlooked a pretty little valley with a winding river running through the bottom.  Trucks traveling along the roads below looked like tiny matchbox vehicles and we made up stories about what they might be transporting...like chocolate bunnies for Easter or straw hats for summer.

We set out certain of our destination.  A short way up the mountain each of us at one time muttered the phrase "this just doesn't look quite right", but continued on in spite of confusion.  After several false turns on roads that should not have been, we finally called 1's son for help.  His instruction was to turn left on the first road after somewhere and go down to a road that had a gate that could not be opened, but could be driven around.  Follow that road down to a fork and take the one that isn't all washed out.  Sounded like a good plan, except we had just been down that road.  We started looking for another road that went around a gate and alas only that one met the description. After following a cowpath named like a road down the mountain and taking advantage of the only wide spot to turn around, we grudgingly returned to infamous road that went around the gate. Previously noting that the road appeared to go down at the fork at a steeper grade, we were sure this couldn't be it. The cave was at one of the highest points on the mountain in our memories...we just couldn't go down to get to it. 2 and I followed one road and 1 followed the other and Viola!..they met about a hundred yards down the hill and we could clearly see our destination ahead.

A lake covers the valley below now and the view is still absolutely beautiful. Not one of us had the nerve to take the trail down through "fat man's squeeze" as the narrow place on the trail to the cave under the cliff was called. Still we took photos of one another atop the cliff just to prove we found it and shared happy tales of childhood. Later we shared lunch without sand or bugs in a sandwich shop up the road. It was a wonderful day! (more to follow)