Monday, May 5, 2008

I was absolutely determined to hike at Radnor Lake Monday late early this evening, but I was running late; I had taken an afternoon nap I did not intend to take. Usually, upon waking from one of these, any question of hiking is immediately put to rest – I’m just not in the mood. For whatever reason, I really wanted to get out there.

Sunset was to occur at 7:40pm, which meant that darkness would overtake Nashville thirty minutes later. It was approaching 7pm already. I decided to go anyway, so I quickly packed my Camelbak and drove toward the Purple Cow.

I was driving a little fast, so I actually screeched the tires a bit when I slammed on the brakes. A policeman suddenly appeared in the middle of the road as I rounded the curve – the deadly curve after Tyne Boulevard but before Otter Creek, the section where Rad Stewart has a fatal accident a few years ago – and he was waving me into the subdivision on the curve; Granny White was closed.

I turned around and went another way. I came very close to scrapping the hike, for it was getting very close to sunset; however, I remained determined. I drove a long way around – all the way to Hillsboro on Tyne, and then left onto Otter Creek, and parked in the church parking lot next to the Purple Cow. I positioned my armband-bound iPod, started listening to an audiobook I purchased the other day (The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle), but on my boots, and walked up Otter Creek Road to Radnor Lake.

I passed two park rangers near the start of my walk, half-expecting them to ask why or how I was planning to hike when it is so close to closing time (“dark”), but of course they did not.

At first it was a wonderful walk. I loved the whole time between sunset and darkness; however, once I reached the back side of the Lake Trail – after the Ganier Ridge fork but before it curves back around to Otter Creek Road – I actually started to frighten myself a bit with fleeting thoughts of random weirdnesses.

But the only time I actually jumped and felt a surge of adrenaline was when, for some strange and embarrassing reason, my own shadow scared the crap out of me…sad, but true!