It is still morning when I leave Devil's Fork without walking the Bear Cove Trail feeling sadness and regret.
Driving back on Hwy 11, Rodney Crause and Emie Lou Harris are singing a haunting song saying "I'll always rove your way again...til I can gain control again.." I cross back over the deep green Keowee River and on the right is a sign for the Long Shoals Park. I pull over and find a young family getting out of their van, an older woman helping her wheelchair bound husband back into their truck, all hauling picnic coolers. There is an enticing path inviting me down the sharp incline through the forest. I follow the family and suddenly we come upon the glorious and fantastic sight of the creek rushing across smooth rocks, surrounded by bounders the size of Drednautus, the dinosaur unearthed in Argentina four days ago, as long as a basketball court, two stories tall and as big as 6 elephants. There is a small beach with a few families, children splashing in the cool water. Boofa and I meet a man with a dog on a leash and a fat black and tan puppy named "Flash". The man tells me he found 8 puppies under a burned out house, gave the rest away and kept Flash. There is a trail going down by the creek. Muscadines are on the ground. The magic feeling that a key has unlocked the other world of the woods, the water, the cloud filled sky above is suddenly with me again.
The wayside park is part of the SC Department of Forestry and managed and maintained by the Andrew Pickens Chapter of the Cherokee Foothillls Byway Association. The managers are Dennis Chastain and Dr. George Smith.
The magic has infused my heart again. I feel a part of the universe, the universe where the Drednautulus skeleton bones were found, the universe where the Pit Bull asteroid is flying by only 25,000 miles away from earth today. The place where we live.
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