They reclaim me

My husband and I returned again this year of 2014 to these same mountains. Again, we return in August, just as warm summer days are about to turn to fall. We come home to hike and visit as we have every year that we could since our marriage 21 years ago. In fact, it is our anniversary and we celebrate by going home.

We traveled the winding roads through the mountains and hillsides that are southwest Virginia and very much Appalachia. We turned off the main two-lane road onto the graveled dirt road that takes us far back into the country.   The road winds and turns along the bottomland surrounding us with pastures and trees, past grazing cattle and the occasional deer.

The turns are so sharp in places we almost turn corners as the road was made when travel was by horse and wagon. No hurried travel then, and the horses and wagons took the easier path of least resistance that the hills allowed.

We climb the mountain between us and our place of destination, winding and pulling our way along the road. We reach the top and curve sharply left and then down again along the other side of the mountain, down the ridge, curving and holding our breath almost as the drop off the edge of the road is several hundred feet down. Trees are on either side of the road, large gravel stones lay in the woods surrounding us.

We continue down and see a sign on the left hand side of the road at a crude cut off and read the words “For Sale”. I don’t think we even talked about the sign then. It had been there for “years” I believe we remarked later. We drove on just about another half a mile and turned into the family property and pulled in to our “camp site”.