Stir Crazy, Stir Crazy

Whenever I can't get away to the mountains or down to Florida to swim and paddle in one of the glorious freshwater springs, I tend to get really, really stir crazy. I've never made it a secret that I don't like crowds and I don't enjoy living in a city. I can only stand so much, and then I can't stands no more.

So for the past few weeks I've been daydreaming constantly about getting loose from Charlotte and into the woods. One place that's on my list of probables is one of the parks Carole and I most enjoy:


Blackwater Falls State Park in West Virginia. Recently, it was announced that this area is now under consideration as for National Park status. It will be called (if it happens) The High Allegheny National Park. Of course energy corporations and timber companies will fight it to the death. They will do anything and everything--up to and including murder (of that I have no doubt)--to keep this dream of a new National Park from ever becoming reality.


But if any place in the eastern USA deserves National Park status, it's this area. Let's hope it comes to be.


In the meantime, I'm thinking maybe a January or February trip is in order. And hopefully, as this past February, Carole and I will encounter deep snow and we can go sledding on the sled run inside the park.


We'll see.

Embiggen these photos, but especially this one. Taken from the western end of the park.

Self-portrait at Lindy Point, this past February.

Very close also to Lindy Point.

What Miss Erosion and Mr. Gravity do to the mountains.

This the Blackwater Canyon Lodge where we like to stay. Carole standing on the other side of some friendly does who are obviously into pandhandling.