Rounding out two months in a new location I thought it was time for a new hiking adventure. The weather was cooperative today with cool, crisp air and a clear blue autumn sky. After spending nearly $50 on a tank of gas with the gas gauge extended beyond full, I was ready to drive my old car anywhere the roads would take me. I decided on a trip to Silver Falls because there is always something magical about a waterfall. What it is about them that mesmerizes us, draws us out in masses I cannot explain; but anywhere I've lived waterfalls have coaxed dollars out of peoples pockets time and time again. Why does gravity at work fascinate us so?
I debated stopping at the bank bank first. I knew that the state park required a $3 day use fee and I had less than one in change. My feet, however, were eager to trample through the mud and convinced me that I could find one somewhere along the 25 mile route to the falls. No need to drive three miles in the wrong direction I reasoned. Ha!
That warm sun and a fully functioning heater kept me toasty and smiling. Driving on out of town I sang along to my favorite country stations, selecting songs happy and upbeat like "All American Girl". The speed limit creeped up as I rolled on out. 25 mph and I was still shivering. 30 and I was just praying the car would make it up the steep hill. Forty and I started looking for some sign of a bank, but there wasn't one. 45 and I thought maybe I should have stopped at Walmart because they would at least give me cash back. 55 and I just hoped that there would be an AMT in one of the towns along the way. At that seven mile turn off I looked out at nothing but fields and an empty road. I considered turning back, but optimistically pushed forward. At the first junction with a road leading elsewhere I turned right and raced 55mph toward a settlement of 3,000 people. If there was a bank, I didn't see it. There was a grocery store. So I bought some water and apples, (good for hiking), and a cucumber to take home to my falafels. As I went to pay with my new debit card I forgot the pin number, but it didn't matter I wasn't going to be able to get cash back anyway. So that was three miles out of the way to make a tastier falafel when I meant to be hiking.
Back on the road to the country highway I debated turning back again, but rationalized against it by telling myself there was one more even bigger town along the way. So I sped through the sunshine until I saw that sign for my next detour. The Oregon countryside, hilly and green, spread out like a hundred other views, more ordinary than the short rolling hills of Wisconsin and none dotted with fences and horse pastures so familiar in the hilly Kentucky countryside. The occasional Christmas tree farm reminded me that beautiful bright days like this are coming to an end and maybe, just maybe, we'll have snow this year. As I continued, I wondered what it was about my driving that caused my engine light to turn on and off at random intervals even after it had just been reset. A good twelve miles later, the town finally emerged from behind a clump of tall dark green trees at the top of a hill. Unfortunately, when I reached the center of town I turned the only way I could on a one way street. It was unfortunate because I soon realized I was at the end of town, any ATM there might be was definitely behind me, and I couldn't find a street to turn left onto. Finally, I did, and had to share the narrow space with a large black truck going the other way.
Headed back into town I still couldn't locate an ATM. As I was about to turn left to head back up that one way street I saw a sign for a grocery store ahead of me, so I changed my mind and my lane. But as I was about to pull into the parking lot, I remembered that they too do not give cash back, so there was no need to buy more stuff there to romance up my falafels. Instead I turned into a fast food place, ate, and mentally regrouped for my ATM hunt. Again behind the wheel I still couldn't find one. I was doing 27-30 in a 25 zone despite trying to go slower and there was a cop in my rear view mirror. Frustration had me unwilling to care, I figured he could go ahead an pull me over, maybe then at least he could give me directions to an ATM too. Instead, after following me for several blocks, he disappeared from my mirror when it seemed there was no place to go. Having passed another supermarket I stopped and turned my car around on a narrow road with ditches on either side. This time I loaded up on enchilada sauce and shoe polish, proudly getting my cash back!
With two crisp tens rubbing against each other in my wallet I motivated my little car up the hills back to that main road. As I go closer to the state park, I found more people set on the same adventure. The car two spots ahead of me set the pace for the slalom into the park. At the entrance to the parking lot I happily got in the long line of cars leading up to the ranger booth. I was going to go hiking! I didn't even mind paying for it. But then, I noticed that people weren't paying at the booth. They were using the automatic machine. No big deal, I thought. That is, until I saw the sign that they only took ones and fives. I could have risked putting my ten in, but didn't want to. I made a u-turn around the empty booth and checked my change, but no there really wasn't enough. Briefly, it occurred to me that I might just park without paying and risk getting caught. After coming all this way, it was disappointing to turn around. I wasn't about to give up just yet. So I went back out to the road and further down in search of another alternative. A few miles down there a smaller parking lot appeared. Needing to use the facilities, I parked and got in line to use the smelly, sink-less outhouse style toilet. Under other circumstances I might not have, but well, sometimes you use what you find. Next to the same was another automated parking machine, unwilling to accept anything other than ones and fives. So I shuffled back to my car shivering at the chill still stiffening the air like starch on a shirt collar.
I figured there must still be some place where a real human being would happily accept my Mr. Hamilton. If anywhere, there ought to be someone at the campground entrance. As I tried to pull back onto the road from the outhouse experience, a car came rushing down the blind hill honking angrily at me for pulling out in front of it. In all fairness, I couldn't seen it when I started; it only appeared in my rearview mirror. Annoyed already, that honk pushed the last button I had to push. At the first chance, I pulled off the road and was thanked with another angry honk. I sat there for a moment fuming, mentally throwing pebbles at the little red car zipping away. I know it isn't nice, but I figure if they felt inclined to honk twice they'd given me a few new not-so-nice names and modified them with a few unnecessary expletives.
Eventually I got out of the car and headed over to the fence to grab my only glimpse of a waterfall. Gravity in motion.
Back in my car I ventured over to the campground and once again found a closed up booth, this time without even an automated pay machine. That was enough for me. I could have just gone on and not paid. Probably most people out there would have, and no doubt they think I'm stupid to drive around in circles and then leave without getting any exercise, but that is exactly what I did.
When I got home I walked over to the large park two blocks from my apartment and took a half an hour walk around it. That worked off most of my frustration. Then I stopped in the rose garden section because I felt I really needed to stop and smell the roses. Fall really does seem to be coming. Most of the blooms are post peak, with bleached, withering petals and a thickening carpet of them on the ground. But there was still was still beauty there. I wished I had brought my camera. I sniffed around, but only found one type of rose with a deep, intoxicating fragrance. It was pale yellow with a blushing pink on the petal tips. Beautiful and seductively innocent. Cliche as it sounds, after a long annoying drive to nowhere two whiffs of that rose made it a not-bad day.
As the fog lifted I headed toward the local park to explore the trails along the river. I wandered around thinking to myself about the great blue sky, the changing leaves and everything that has happened over the last few months. The smell of nature all around me was intoxicating. My miniature camera took pictures of everything, but later as I reviewed them, the pictures seemed less impressive without all of those intermingling scents or the feeling of sun on my face.
I spent hours there walking only a portion of the miles and miles of trails. At one point as I stood there about to choose between branching paths, that Robert Frost poem I had to memorize in 8th grade came back to me about two roads in a yellow wood. Unlike Frost, I did not stop to question what was down that untaken trail, knowing well I would return that way another day to trample upon the leaves strewn there. Instead, I eagerly chose the path muddy and lined with blackberry brambles. Unconcerned for the remote and unpopulated location I might have skipped a step or two, but there were no witnesses. Also unwitnessed was my tasting of blackberries straight from the vine. Some raced tart to my brain and others, in a slow sweet memory of summer, carried me off to other delicious blackberry remembrances. 
I shuffled my feet through the leaves to hear that glorious sound crinkling and crackling, longing for a rake to create a giant leaf pile. On that path where anything could have happened, I left behind shoulders strained with worry and a heart full of indecision.
As one hour turned to two, and two to three, I returned to a happy place. Not wanting to lose that euphoria of summer blackberries, dragonflies close enough to touch, gaggles of geese in flight overhead, the strong smell of crab apples growing along one trail, or the landscape festooned with autumn colors, I walked on. When finally my muscles began to betray fatigue, I returned to my little old car.
I'll stop to smell wild pears along the road; and I'll wonder at the strange animal slithering against the river's current, because there is no point in denying ourselves real moments of happiness just because we believe life might have been better down a different hypothetical road.
