“Both of us had noticed the property, which was listed for 30k, and since our job got rained out early, we found ourselves doing a little sleuthing, and side-stepping onto back roads, in no particular rush to get home. Well, one deviation is more than likely to lead to another. But I digress. I love when the paved highway takes a hard left, allowing the straight path to bump onto dirt. In the blink of an eye, suddenly you’re flying into the great unknown. We came upon a wild pond shimmering in the drizzle, then plunged into forest again, thick and following the bouldered brook, slightly uphill. “I wouldn’t want to take that bridge,” she said, pointing to something I couldn’t see yet, from the driver’s side. “Wait, that’s our turn, isn’t it?” I said, and I braked and pulled over, to check out the unobtrusive sign. “Pine Gap” I murmured. We both took a moment to consider. “Do you think it’s meant for vehicles? I don’t really like the look ..” It was then I saw the beginnings of her familiar, devilish smile, dawning like a sun gone rogue. Oft times, I might rightly be accused of being the stimulus for it, however, in this moment, I couldn’t tell who was the worse influence. “Let’s do it!” she said, and leaned forward, urging the truck to move. I sighed, laughed a nervous laugh, and cranked the wheel, directing the old Chevy towards the creek, and it’s flimsy cross-beamed contraption of a bridge. The first of two, it turned out, the 2nd one barely wide enough for two people, holding hands. I gunned it, lunged across, and made the next incline with little room to spare, just barely reaching the old schoolhouse, perched on a pallet of ledge, without bottoming out. For decades, this building had availed itself to children & deer hunters we would likely never know. But walking in, would have been a better plan. I tugged the wheel left, then yanked hard on the emergency brake. We were here. All 30k of the proposition lay before us. Spring water trickled down the hillside, despite the drought, down what seemed to be a sculpture of the smooth granite, perhaps the building’s only water source ... no electricity, either. We were too late for the open house. On tip-toes, we peered in thru the windows, at the cook stove, and basic camp furnishings. It wasn’t hard to see ourselves making the old shelter hum again. In the same breath, as the drizzle came harder, we could feel the complexity of doing such a thing, in today’s encroaching, meta-verse world. What in the 50s or 60s of last century would have been the start of a life, a family, a relationship with a rural village, now seems, merely, entrepreneurial. Everything, now, has to play well to a crowd, be personal, & poetic, regardless of whether it’s fake, somewhat fake, or not fake at all. In the woods, however, things can be stranger still. I was reminded of this when a half ton pickup truck danced over that same 2nd bridge, blocking us in. Long and short of it, we made a new friend, chatted a bit before he was ready to back out, no harm done. We were able to retrace our steps, the two bridges, the pond, then launch ourselves over a different gap, finding a short cut across the Moosalamoo. Our reality, I should add, had not dislodged itself, from a kind of shape-shifting modality. Can you say “National Forest”? It’s not a static place. Passing an unmarked forest road, a bell rang: of memory, of map reading, or maybe from some unknown source. “Wanna drive up ?””Sure!” she said. I knew we were onto something, but suddenly the road ended, at a scrubby clearing with no view. We were back in a nowhere space. This might have put an end to it. Somewhat defeated, we sat back into our cushioned seats, and let the truck roll back down the road. This is often the stage at which you must be careful, for there are such things as portals. Close to lost, not where you thought you were supposed to be, and uninspired, you will do something casual, like stoop to pick a flower. Then notice a path, a take a few steps. Then a few more steps, and head over a modest rise. We hadn’t meant to stop again. A half hour later, I turned around, and this is where we were and what I saw.”
