
When I lived in the UK I had an annual ritual of disappearing off on my birthday for a day’s navel introspection. It’s not something I’ve done since I arrived in the US, and it wasn’t something I had planned for this year either.
Plans change. Ginger and Lanie were booked to help out at Vacation Bible School, and Ginger was also committed to help out with Youth Group. Any chances of us both getting away for a day or two to celebrate my birthday were sunk without a trace.
Then we had the idea of me going off and sitting by a lake on my own for a couple of days. As we only have one vehicle, the logistics of getting me to and from the nearest lake would involve a couple of hundred miles driving. Momentarily stumped, I came up with the idea of going solo backpacking for a couple of days at Busiek It’s only 18 miles away so it wasn’t a big deal getting me there.
And that’s how I managed to end up swimming in a creek in the middle of Busiek State Forest on my birthday.
I was crossing the dry creek bed of Woods Fork when I noticed a couple of pools, so I decided to investigate further. I already had a theory that the creek was still running, but it was just running under the gravel and rocks of the creek bed. Sure enough I could see the water running into the gravel at the lower end of the pools.
The temperatures were in the low nineties and I was carrying a fair bit of weight so I decided to try the water. I found a reasonable sized pool, checked for snakes and had a surprisingly cold but refreshing dip.
Copyright © 2012 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.