More Pics of the Rimrock Trail

It didn't begin with me, and it surely will not end with me.  I'm just a single tile on the roof.  I am overlapped and overlapping.  That's how a roof does its job.  Things have to overlap for the water to run off...and perhaps our lives are the same.

We think of our lives as whole and complete in themselves.  And yet, we die with so much left undone, so many projects we barely started, so many books we never read, so many places we never visited, so many relationships we never brought to their fullness.

Ah, and so many people we never loved...or barely loved...or loved far less than they (or we) deserved.

Is it possible that my life will never see its own neat conclusions, its own fruition?  Must the events working themselves out in me extend into the lives of my children, or those I've loved who survive me?  Do our human lives overlap like tiles on a roof. No single tile can do the whole job of shedding water on its own. It must pass the water down, hand it off to another tile... Is that how our lives work, with their issues, their dramas, their doubts, and joys, and nagging desires?  Do we just hand them off to another when we die?

They say--a little too frequently--that it's about the journey, not the destination.  The Rimrock Trail might tell you otherwise.  It's pleasant enough, but you'd never make this climb if not for the views at the top.  Westerners dismiss our Eastern trails as "tree tunnels," sightless, uneventful.  And while I like trees and welcome their shade, I have to admit that broad vistas are more exciting.

In places, the way is steep. What calls us forward if not the idea that our efforts will be rewarded...with a view, with a climax, with a resolution?  Are my parents' and grandparents' passions still playing themselves out in me?  Are your ancestors' sins and glories still resolving themselves in you?  "For nothing is secret that shall not be made manifest; neither is any thing hid that shall not come into the light."  Maybe it takes generations for our private stories to be told.

Fading Americana

Such a strange fall season. The nights are cool, but the days are still hot. The trees were already turning colors and shedding their leaves in early August due to the heat and aridity. This past Saturday, up north, I took a long walk down the gravel lanes near the house--in the furthest northeast corner of Venango County. Most of the buildings along those roads are old hunting camps, many of which are abandoned, like this one. It makes me sad. I think how I used to long for a little place in the woods, just like this. How can anyone leave it to collapse into its foundation?

Some of the hunting camps are disused farms, or else farms where someone still works the fields, but no one lives on site. This place is cursorily maintained, but it clearly hasn't been anyone's home in a very long time. I was curious about it--so scenic, with such a large farmhouse and barn. It must have been quite prosperous at one time. Of course, many of the farms up here did milk cows on the side, while leases with the oil companies brought in the real money.

Same homestead from a different angle. The world was so woefully dry that day, as if every green thing would crumble to dust and blow away.

I'm not sure I've ever seen such an ungainly farmhouse around here. The general rule--when they were building farmhouses in this region--was to make them as tall as they are wide, but this one never got the memo. The second photo from the top might make a decent painting--if the right artist undertook the task and got it from a slightly further distance, to include more of the surrounding countryside. 

Night Scenes, Morningside, Pittsburgh

This street runs right along the Allegheny River in the city of Pittsburgh.  See how the vines, and brush, and trees overtake these old rowhouses--which command a majestic view of the river?  Not much parking along these streets, and a trip to the grocery store will be followed by 25 steep steps up to your front door, so try to do it all in one trip.

Now, what do you think the story behind these tire tracks might be?  Someone spinning dozens of donuts in the middle of an intersection?  

Kinzua and Rimrock Overlook

I've become like a Londoner in some Evelyn Waugh novel who "weekends" in the country and returns to town every Sunday night in order to be back to the office on Monday.  Except that in my line of work, I flee the city after work on Thursday evening and return on Saturday evening, so that I can be back to work Sunday morning...which is decidedly not anything a character in an Evelyn Waugh novel would do.  (Also, if I have a wedding or a funeral on Saturday, I have to come home Friday night, giving me only 24 hours away.)  The point is that I take Fridays off and spend them up at my country house.  

This is Kinzua Dam, which locals pronounce "KIN-zoo."  This area was a reservation for the Seneca People until the US government rescinded its promises, evicted them from the land, built a dam for flood control, and put most of the reservation under water--at least the Pennsylvania portion; there's still some reservation land across the line in New York State.

You can see how desiccated and sunbaked the scene is.  I hate, hatE, haTE, hATE, HATE all the confounded sunlight!  And the heat.  I get reverse Seasonal Affective Disorder.  I need cloud-cover and the occasional rainfall.  It's been an unpleasant summer, and most of the things I planted this year have either died or failed to thrive--old heirloom forsythia varieties, mainly, which turn out to be neither deer-repellent nor very hardy, though they are said to be both.  (Don't speak to me of planting native species; that will be another post.)

But I'd waited years to do the uphill trail from Kinzua Beach to the summit on Rimrock cliffs.  It's a pleasant trek through late-summer woods to the broad views at the crest.  It gets rocky and steep as you get close to the top.  Look at these uneven stone steps.  

The views are worth it--some of the best in the Allegheny National Forest.

It's possible to drive to the top from the other side of the hill, so it's a little disappointing to get all the way up there and hear the raucous voices of strangers.  But I was here on a Friday morning in late August.  There weren't many folks up top.

I had this broad view all to myself for about half an hour.  It's not exactly breathtaking, but it is scenic.  Look out over this land where the redtail soars beneath you, where Chief Cornplanter once dwelled, where--long ago--the trees were all torn from the hillsides and carted off to New York and Philadelphia, where the forest was finally allowed to regrow.  This land has been stolen, and bought, and sold, and sold again so many times.  It's been pumped for oil and entirely denuded of hemlock and beech, and then left to return to something akin to its natural state--except this time in maple, and oak, and pine.  The story of America--and perhaps of most of the earth--is always one of stealing, and buying, and selling.  But still the land survives...and manages to be beautiful.

After hiking the 1.6 miles back downhill to the beach, where I started, I picked some elderberries and wild grapes.  Can you believe that the big fat grapes you buy in the grocery store descended from the small, flavorful, thick-skinned things you see here on my wrist?  I do like the flavor of wild grapes, though I hate the way their vines overtake the woods.  They're concentrated, and they almost burn your tongue.

And this?  This is Kinzua Beach, a public swimming beach in the Allegheny National Forest.