Dark Hollow Falls

The fog was not so profuse in the forest.  We could certainly see the hollows where the creek flowed into the falls.  The cuts into the land were beautiful and the sound of the water rushing past was stimulating and soothing all at the same time.  The fallen trees and dense foliage were so gorgeous, with all shades of green and earthy browns like a beautiful wall paper and carpet around us.  

 We hiked down down down spiraling around following the path of the water until, at last, we came upon the falls.

 

  They descended beautifully as a reward for our little bit of effort to get there. 

 

 

Hopeful1 and I hiked a little further down the trail, but I told her I didn’t want to use up all my energy so that I’d have trouble climbing back up.  I went back and joined my brother on a rock by the falls.  She climbed a bit further then joined the two of us. 

Several times during our hike my brother stopped us and told us to just listen to every sound we could hear, count them, identify them (he reminded me of the dad in my Muffet diary – on the Grand Canyon trip LOL).  And there WERE wonderful sounds, drops of water on leaves and all different kinds of birds nagging, singing, cajoling. But the overriding sound was that of the water, rushing to the falls then spilling over and crashing onto the rocks.

 

In many ways, for me, the climb back up was easier than the climb down.  In all that dampness, my knees were really sensitive to all that downward motion.  After these weeks at Starbucks rushing around in the mornings and hoisting full coffee urns etc, I had no problem hiking up the steep trail.  For the first time in my life, I found myself able to do something physically taxing more easily than my brother! That had absolutely NEVER happened before.  This is a guy who ran to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and back up again in eight hours flat! BUT, he has been working 18 hour days lately with no time at the gym.  He’s put on a few (very few) pounds, and I’ve taken off quite a few, so this amazing thing has happened.  I’m sure it won’t be long before he’ll be outdoing me again.  He’s pretty competitive and has a solid foundation of fitness.

 

After coming back from the hike, we each showered and cleaned up, then we checked out and hopped in the car to head back towards Solomon’s.  Of course, the fog had slightly lifted and we could actually see the area as we were driving out, unlike the way it looked when we had driven in the night before.

 

We stopped at a cute little antique and gift shop and bought a few things for the folks back home.  We bought pumpkin butter and apple candy and super hot bbq sauce along with some hand painted earrings, a teddy bear, and some apples to munch on in the car.  Then we started driving in earnest.  We knew it was going to be a long drive and we didn’t want to be too late for our boat ride.

 

The drive started out fun, with lots of chatter and catching up.  After all, we hadn’t all been together since December when we had our little excursion to Key West, so we had lots to talk about.  Also, the area was so beautiful, once the fog lifted a bit, there was so much to see.  Unfortunately, however, several hours into the trip, the traffic got really bad… rush hour outside of Washington D.C. on a Friday is UGLY!  That made us all about cranky and frantic PLUS we all had to go to the bathroom.  We finally pulled off, got some gasoline, used the restroom and stretched.  The sky was black, the rain was falling.  My brother got on his cell to call about the boat ride… it wasn’t going to happen.  The wind was howling on Solomon’s.  It wasn’t going to be safe to take a boat out there this evening, much less wine and cheese! *sigh*  We’d still be staying in the lovely bed and breakfast he wanted us to experience, but at least the pressure was off on rushing through this traffic.  That lightened our mood a bit.

 

We calmly got past some drawbridge section of this drive, which seemed to be the biggest hold up, I guess some car was disabled there and caused it to be brought down to one lane.  Once we were past that point, things sped up and we were off again.  After great lengths, we arrived at the Blue Herron Bed & Breakfast.