Detour! Unless you have a lunch date with Jesus, slow down!

I often go along one of the most beautiful passageways I've ever traveled. It's not the tree lined streets of Augusta's Olde Town or Summerville neighborhoods, nor the parkway which curves between North Carolina's hazy valleys and tall blue ridges nor Atlanta's Interstates which soar across the city where suddenly the Capitol dome appears, glowing in the pure gold from deep in the mountains. It's not even the ancient roads in the unhurried South of France. 

This one is a rural road which suits a comfortable 45-50 mile an hour pace. It passes by country churches and through alleės of tall straight Georgia pines. It's edges are marked by wildflowers in ditches, an occasional wild turkey and the scenic view of a pond with cows, donkeys, goats and horses grazing near a fence or snoozing in the shade. 

This week, several thousand new drivers will speed through as they try to make up the time caused by a "detour" around the Keg Creek Bridges. 

Most will not expect to find a farm vehicle moving slowly here or a curve not banked for high speed there. Logging trucks will swerve to miss drivers who are in an unfamiliar area and "miss" the 4-way stop.  During the 500 plus days of detour, there will be accidents and the ROAD will be blamed. Someone will suggest cutting down the trees. Someone else will want to cover the yellow daisies and fill the ditches. Another will ban the animals. Few will suggest a LOWER SPEED LIMIT, but for many reasons, it would be a good thing.

Not So Nice

I am so delighted when I come across a plant in the woods which William Bartram identified. As he came through our neck of the woods in 1773, he found a beautiful vine with shiny blue-black berries. The name of that “Greenbrier“has been given to much in the community, but, bless his heart, I’m thinking if William had to pull that prickly green thing from HIS flower beds, he would have named it something NOT SO NICE.

The Bartram Trails are well publicized across most states. We have a well kept secret one near our house. It’s marked, but let me know if you can’t find it.

New place to walk; new things to see

When I first started writing this little blog, I lived just 4 blocks from the Savannah River in a downtown neighborhood. A marble slab on the Riverwalk indicated the 200 mile Mark. Hmmm.... I thought. Maybe I should walk 2 miles each day for 100 days and write about that day. I didn't make 200 miles!

As things happen, I stopped posting but kept observing what made each day different than the day before.

So now I am no longer in a downtown neighborhood, but 30 miles further up River. It's perhaps 2 miles from the water as the crow flies -- in the middle of a rural community where donkeys keep the coyotes away, birds call out a "snake, snake" warning to those who listen and crawfish swim in the spring. I'm learning about the folks who probably walked this land -- Trail Blazer William Bartram, Methodist Circuit Rider Francis Asbury, Explorer Meriwhether Lewis, the Mother of Historian Laughton B. Evans and lots more!

This time I'll try to share for 100 days - no miles!

Some days you just can't keep your feet on the ground during a walk in the park.