Entry 2: End Of The Road




July 22, 1970



Dear Hippy Chick,


     It's Sunday night again and your absence leaves me lonely even when I know you might not be coming back.  If you knew I existed you might be wondering how a man like me got to be in this remote place. The short answer I'd share with your guy friends is that I hitchhiked west on a moonless night to where the highway ended.

     The long answer for my Sunday night missive to you is not so straight. The seven-mile trek I took down from Big Draft after I-64 West ended at White Sulphur had two tough hill climbs and some unmarked intersecting trails. Only a backpacker with good map and compass or a veteran barefoot walker like me would come that way to this remote swimming hole. 

      I've heard the day trippers prattle on about two other trails. Three teenagers bragged about wading rushing springs and scrambling through downed trees on their four-mile hike from a place called Blue Bend. They moaned that no hippy girls were skinny dipping before they stripped down to pale, hairless bodies for a shivering swim. Then they quickly dressed and departed, leaving me to my day bed on the ledge.

      Most who come out here seem to have made a two-mile trek up from the Greenbrier River. They arrive soaked to the waist from a chilly ford of Anthony Creek, sand coated from scrambling up the bank, and scratching their legs from the wood nettles lining the last stretch of trail. They make a mad run for soothing cold water without even seeing the fat copperhead momma slide off the rock at the center of the hole.

     However people get out here, it takes determination. I'm just relieved they only seem to do it on weekends, leaving me to my diurnal bed for the rest of the week. Speaking of which, I just heard the otters splash into the creek and glanced up from my fire pit to see the greenish-orange tint of dawn in the gorge. Sleep calls, but I promise to reveal more of the man-like-me in a next entry.


                                                                Goodnight my love,


                                                                Your eternal Dogface

    

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