Walkabout, Day 4

[unforth]

Despite the prospect of rain that the weather forecast predicted, this morning dawned with a sky with just enough clouds in it to be artistic, but an interesting conundrum: I didn't really know what was happening next. I'd looked up information on the Natural Bridge Caverns and the Stonewall House Museum, and had already had to change the plans I'd formed last night: The House didn't open until 1 on Sundays. The Caverns opened at 10. I decided that if the Caverns took me 2 or more hours, I'd head to the House, but otherwise I'd press on - I didn't really feel strongly about seeing the house anyway.

Sure enough, the Caverns were only a 45 minute tour, and so as I emerged at 11 was left with a fascinating problem of not really having a clue what I was going to next. Thus, I sat down with the atlas and tried to solve this problem.

The Caverns themselves were quite lovely, if not immense. Because of the minerals in the soil and the quantity of iron around, all of the stalactites and stalagmites were a kind of muddy brown color, but at places the darker shades of the underlying rock showed through, which was neat. More than that, it had all been carved out by running water initially, so the ceilings were fascinating where the water had made inverted bowls. The neatest bit, though, was down at the bottom where an earthquake about 65 million years ago had caused a long fissure. While they weren't extensive, they were pretty cool, and it's been so long since I did a cavern visit that I was glad that I did.

Anyway, I knew I wanted to go vaguely in the direction of Shiloh, which is way out in Tennessee, west and south of Nashville. However, that was too far to do in one days driving, and so I decided to parse it up. I'd noticed on the map that on the Blue Ridge Parkway (another ridge drive, the continuation much farther south of the one I was on yesterday) that there was a waterfall called Apple Orchard Falls. I decided I'd go over that-away and see the waterfall, and then press on until I could get back on 81S and head in to Tennessee.

The views today were just as spectacular as yesterdays (a couple maybe even more so) and I also managed to get some hiking in - the first being did a short walk around a lake up there. The second was far longer, and also pretty much the only thing that produced anything interesting to talk about in my day.

So it turned out that Apple Orchard Falls was 1.4 miles off the highway. I debated this only briefly before deciding to go for it: I like waterfalls a lot! A little more debate, and I decided to take the Jonie dog. The thing is, she's just not well behaved - she pulls like crazy. And, as it turned out, the 1.4 miles to the falls were all down (which didn't at all bode well for the return trip!!)

As the dog caused me problems, and as I walked down in the mountains following the converging paths of many small streams that were slowly joining up into ever-larger flows, I debated what to do about her. In particular, I asked myself a serious question: What would happen if I took off her leash?

Like any dog, Jonie has of course gotten off leash a few times. In my own experience, this has generally not been a big deal: she runs around like a maniac for about 10 minutes (sometimes less) and then comes back assuming that she's in big trouble. However, I know that this hasn't always been the case: while I was away in Japan, schenker28 was taking care of her, and she bolted for real at least once and was gone for more than 3 hours - despite multiple people searching for her in a most dedicated fashion. With this in mind, and compounding it with the fact that she was in unfamiliar territory and therefore wouldn't know where to return to if she did bolt, and I was very, very worried about what might happen.

On the other hand, I had a few votes in her favor: first that she'd always come back quickly when she ran away from me; second that I know she has very low self confidence in a doggy way and that she likes to stay close to me if she can (whether it's crowding me on the bed or following me from room to room); third that there were no people or animals around to distract her, at least not that I'd encountered thus far, I was about a mile down at this point); fourth was that I'd been hiking with her once before, last March, and had discovered that she was a bit of a "trail finder" - at that time I was hiking Bear Mountain in NY, which is very rocky, and there are entire sections of the path that are just enormous slabs of rock, and it can be very hard to figure out where to go, and yet Jonie invariably found the correct direction (and pulled me that way as hard as she could, of course); and of course there was the simple fact that she was driving me crazy with her pulling.

I debated this for a good quarter mile, and finally, at right around the 1.1 mile point (there were occasional signs, that's how I know) I decided that I'd give it a try. The absolute worst that would happen (I hoped) was that she'd bolt and I'd spend an unpleasant afternoon trying to track her down.

She of course did bolt, immediately, but then she bolted right back, and then repeated this several times while she tried to figure out what was going on. But she always came back. I tested it a couple of times, and sure enough, while she didn't always listen when I called, she always kept up, and she always came back to the trail.

Basically, it couldn't have worked out better. My "no animals" record held, and we only encountered one other hiker (who I had to apologize to, because Jonie was ahead of me and jumped on him, leaving a dirty paw print on his pants, before I could get close enough to stop her. Meanwhile, she ran back and forth and probably covered twice the distance I did, she helped me find the path a couple of times, and more than that, she discovered a new love: frolicking in the water. Whenever she could she'd leave the path and go and jump around in the falls (which were very, very long, and rather pretty, but that's not really the point. ;) ) And I was super glad I did it, because instead of both of us being miserably, she got to run like a maniac, and I got to handle the hard uphill hike without the added difficulty of her pulling me along.

I feel like this says something deep about the nature of trust, though perhaps not something generalizable. I've always had trust problems with the dog. I used to close her in my bedroom when I left, and I'd invariably find something ripped up - but I only did this in the first place because when I didn't I would come home to find the garbage scattered around the apartment, and coming home from a morning of classes and an afternoon of work with the expectation of homework is not at all fun when there's also torn up tissues and bits of eggshell all over your apartment. (She was still a pup when this was going on, in her defense). But when I left for Japan, schenker28 decided not to close her away - and she hasn't ripped up a pillow or blanket since (to the best of my knowledge!) Yet despite this positive story, she otherwise invariable lets me down because she's completely unwilling to modulate her speed to mine, unwilling to refrain from eating anything that strikes her fancy on the sidewalk, and unwilling to not randomly decide that some people are interesting and must be lunged at while others are uninteresting and therefore can be ignored. For all of these reasons, I generally have to be extremely vigilant when I walk her. And unfortunately, when these have been tested, she's lived up to expectations. As such, I NEVER would have taken the chance of removing her leash if I'd thought there was a single squirrel, deer, or other dog any place near me. And yet, in the right situation, when I took the chance and trusted her...she lived up to my trust. The only trouble I had with her at all was right at the end when she realized that the party was over, and she reverted to running around like a maniac and pretending to play a game of keep-away until I finally got a hold on her collar.

All in all, it makes me think she'd be much happier as a country dog, but there's nothing I can do about that. It also makes me think that I could build on this success, especially if I had a pocket full of treats with which to reward her for coming. I've never done enough of that kind of thing with her, and I bet it would help.

So that was pretty much the only interesting thing in my day.

After I finished the hike, I started off on the road again. Having looked at the map, I thought it might be fun to take Route 11 instead of 81 (they mirror each other) but within an hour I had it amply demonstrated why this was a terrible idea, as bad signage in Roanoke meant that I almost got badly lost (saved by good instincts...and a GPS which could immediately show me where I was in relation to where I wanted to be - which wasn't that far off thanks to the instincts). With that failure, I decided to screw it and got on the highway, which I think was the right decision. Destination? Well, that was the question, wasn't it!

Next stop: Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park. I actually know very little about these battles (there were some nasty charges involving very steep hills, I know, and Chattanooga includes a siege by the Confederates that almost caused mass starvation among the Union troops, but that's pretty much the sum of my knowledge beyond that ultimately the Union won both battles). These sites are actually located in Georgia - where I've never been before! (not counting trips that have taken me through the Atlanta hub...).

And after that, on to Shiloh...and after that? I have no idea - but I'm thinking either swing north and visit places like Fort Donelson or Nashville or something, or swing south and maybe go as far as the Mississippi to Vicksburg and then cut east across to South Carolina (a looooong drive)...but for now, just Chickamauga/Chattanooga and then (on Tues?) Shiloh.

Oh. The rest of today was driving. That's why I've nothing more to say.

Pictures have been uploading for the first few days, but it's been a slow process, and it's gotten late again - so I guess I'm gonna put off linking them to the posts another day...

Comments

[schenker28.livejournal.com]

I thought it might be exterminator-avoidance, but I skimmed quickly enough that I wasn't sure. Was it roaches, I recall?

I just called to say "stay out of the rain!" because the day after reading your post about getting soaked, I also got soaking wet, down to the underwear, which hadn't really happened to me before, so it was funny to me. We had a big rain storm and I had to walk a few blocks through it...