the adventures of pen pen: Adventure #108: Natural Bridge, Virginia

I was making good time up through Virginia when the skies broke out into the first blue I've seen since I've been on the road. Immediately my brain filled with fantasies of finding a body of water to sit next to and read, now that my participation in Neal Stephenson's ode to the tedious experience of reading The Silmarillion also-known-as Anathem has transitioned from stubbornly reading it because I started it dammit to actually enjoying this 1,000 page math and physics textbook with a narrative and a few characters tacked on to give it some momentum. It's great. Everyone should read it. Then the sign: Natural Bridge! Cave Mountain Lake! I love all those things! The fantasy now involved checking out a cheap tourist trap before going off on an adventure in caves and then capping it off with an hour of book time. The little effete British voiced person in my head (we'll call him Reginald) cheered at the prospect of this new adventure! Hooray! Hoorah! We're having an adventure! This is Pen Pen rejoicing with Reginald.

Well, it turned out the cheap tourist trap wasn't so cheap, and seeing as that was easily the least important part of my adventure, I quickly adapted the plan: Cave Mountain Lake. First hike the Mountain to the Caves, then cap it off with some book and Lake time. So I pulled out of the Natural Bridge Gift Shop and Entrance parking lot and headed off. Hooray! Hoorah! We're having an adventure! Reginald announced. This is Pen Pen helpfully getting gas for the adventure.

The road took me through the kind of land my Brooklynite dust bowl fetishists sing about while decked out in suspenders, page boy caps and meticulously coiffed so-as-to-appear-unkempt facial hair. There were none of those things anywhere I could see. Mostly it was just a lot of stark economic disparity: pristine white houses lined with brick accents beside fields of horses high on elegant rolling hills while clutches of burned down and decaying houses jut out of wooded areas across the street. Trailer parks crowd around a fenced off dirt road. Confederate flags hang contradictorily next to slightly smaller American flags. The remains of farms stand next to open untended fields. Antique stores are everywhere and classic cars deck their lawns in varying states of repair. The church placards each remind us to keep Christ in Christmas through assorted wordplay. Older men sit out on the porches and wave as I pass by. As is usually the case, my overwhelming sense that I don't belong here is subdued by the sincere friendliness of strangers. My lizard brain says “look at those bumper stickers: these people are Trump supporters.” My lived experience says “Who cares? They're just people trying to make what they think are the right decisions for themselves and the people they care about. Besides, don't make generalizations. You're just as much a stereotype of the effete Northern Liberal...” Reginald says “Hooray! Hoorah! We're having an adventure!” This is Pen Pen two blocks from a trailer park.

I pass by the sign for the National Forest, which helpfully informs me it's closed for the season. No problem! I just need to find another way in! So I drive on for another half mile, at which point the road just ends. So I do what any mature, responsible adult who drives a 2004 PT Cruiser they can neither afford to repair nor replace would do: I turned left onto the unmarked dirt road and turned off my GPS. I'll find the damn caves and lake and mountain on my own thankyouverymuch. Reginald became overjoyed. This is Pen Pen certain this is a Very Good Idea.

2 miles of upward climbs and sharp switchbacks before the road stables off for a minute, and I find a small clearing with tire tracks and what looks like a trailhead running further up the mountain next to a small creek. Clearly, caves are that way. Hooray! Hoorah! We're having an adventure! It wouldn't occur to me until much later that the trail is headed in the exact opposite direction of the actual entrance to the Cave Mountain Lake. This is Pen Pen still certain this is a Very Good Idea.

After about 100 feet, the trail becomes a lot harder to follow. Dead trees block the path, eventually converging into a pile that can only have been left intentionally as a defacto “keep out” sign. Well, if they really wanted to keep me out, they'd have put an actual sign up. Climbing over the trees, I find the path is now completely obscured by brier bushes and dead trees. So screw it. I make a b-line for the ridge. Ominous low rumbling resounds through the forest, which if a lifetime of sound design has taught me anything, it's that it's usually a good sign. Bears don't sound like that, right? I realize that despite having spent the majority of my life doing sound design professionally, I have no idea what bears sound like. I should fix that. I look up: airplanes. Oh right. That's the sound airplanes make. Finally, I crest the hill and sit down to read. Life is good! Mission accomplished. That's when I hear wolves. I definitely know what those sound like. Hooray! Hoorah! We're having an adventure? This is Pen Pen discovering it's surprisingly hard to concentrate on dense metaphysical tomes when you're in the middle of nowhere with no cell service and can hear the sounds of wolves in the distance.

I make it back to the car; no caves, no lake, hardly any mountain and very little reading, but happy to have gotten to enjoy one last trek through nature before winter swallows me whole. Then following the impeccable logic that brought me to this point, I continue forward, assuming that no-one would make a road that doesn't lead somewhere else. As the road continues to climb upwards and I realize that the banks are too steep to attempt to turn around, Reginald is suddenly replaced by the robot from Lost In Space. Danger Will Robinson! My car whines on the dirt road, each bump shaking the tambourines in the back. I'm feeling very grateful that I finally got my suspension fixed. At the top of the hill, I see a truck. Oh good! Maybe they're park rangers or something. They can tell me where I am and how to get back. Then I see 3 more pickup trucks. Then I see guys in cammo with guns, while the radio mockingly plays “Another One Bites The Dust.” Et tu, Freddie? Forgive me for making a massive generalization about white Christian super-hetero dudes with guns, but that's the point at which I say screw it, pull up behind the first truck, pull a quick U-turn on this dirt road halfway up a goddamn mountain and bolt. As I pass my trailhead on the way back, I laugh thinking that for all the silent judgment I've passed on the Trump stickers and Confederate memorabilia I've seen, at least they're not the kind of dumbass Northern Liberal who thinks it's a good idea to drive a damn PT Cruiser with 223,000 miles on it up an unpaved mountain road with no way to call for help. This is Pen Pen conforming to every stereotype.