Well, if you read about the Mountain Bike adventure you'll know that when Jex, my knight in dinted armor, asked if I wanted to go on a bike ride the other day I said 'no.' in the sweetest way possible.
By asking to go on a walk instead.
There's a little piece of land about a quarter mile from my brother-in-law's that's Beautiful. If I can ever remember to bring my camera I'll post some pictures. It's my favorite place in all of Ellijay. So, when Jex said his usual "I'm following you." I lead him there.
We threw rocks from the top of the hill into the river through the trees. Then Jex found a perfect skipping stone. He was going to try to skip it across the river from the top of the hill. I suggested that we go down to the edge of the river instead. The hill at the end of the pseudo-driveway is very steep, covered in leaves, saplings, and blue white stone. When Jex spotted a 'trail' he decided to go follow. Turns out it was an erosion trail that dumped off a sheer 4 foot drop into the river.
Hmmm.
Jex looks up at me, and with the child-like grin that makes me fall in love with him again every time, he said simply: "Your turn, trailblazer."
Okay then. I took my perfect walking stick and went back up the hill a ways and found what looked like a good path from above, but turned out not to be so great in actuality. I promptly slid on the leaves that covered a rock and nearly into a tree. But now I was on a real path and we got to the river. There Jex skipped rocks I didn't know could be skipped and all was good.
On the way back up the hill, this time up a real path, I stepped on something under the leaves that snaked up and hit me in the butt. It felt too large to be just a stick. Turning around I saw a cleanly picked dear spine with broken ribs and a pelvis fused to it. I just had my butt smacked by a skeleton butt. Weird. Wait, there was another one... but no leg bones or head or anything like that.
It's about here I should mention that I never really grew out of my imagination as I grew up. Really, I'm not crazy.
All I can think of at this point is Werewolves. So, when Jex teasingly asks if I want to race up the hill I beat him to the top. Even with the fear that there's some large predator big enough to eat deer heads I still loved walking all the way back up to the road. There's something really great and soothing about the smell of fresh earth coming from your clothes from where you're covered in dirt.
Scarecrow and the Beachdweller
4 weeks ago
