From Evansburg to Teotihuacan (and back)

On Tuesday evening, I got finished at work early so I decided to head over to the Evansburg State Park and walk somewhere different.  Just for a change of scenery.

I parked at the trail head and walked west on the south side of the Skippack Creek.  The trail went though a field overgrown with cattails and whatever this purple spiky flower is…  I could barely see the trail – and this should have been a warning to me.

 

The dirt path felt really good underfoot, giving my sore feet some relief from the hard gravel, asphalt and concrete I have been walking on.  I looked at my walking chart and saw I’ve covered 83 miles so far this month.  Ah, dirt!

 

 

The pleasant meandering path winds its way down the Skippack Creek, sometimes close by and sometimes not so close as the creek cuts its way through the soft red rock of southeastern Pennsylvania.

 

Up and down the bank of the creek I went.  I had forgotten how much of a workout this looping trail was.  The footing gets rocky in places and the slope pitches steeply up (more often then it did down it seems.)

 

 

Keeping my eye peeled for the white diamond blaze markings found on trail-side trees every hundred yards or so.

Surely there could be nothing to make the casual stroller think, “Lions and Tigers and Bears! Oh my!” and soon I would turn around and head back to the car, having walked a comfortable three or four miles.

 

 

And then I, umm, I ran into some difficulty and misplaced the trail I was following.  Apparently it slips around this tree and heads off to the left.

 

 

 

Unaware of my predicament, I strolled onwards.  Through Tennessee, Arkansas and Texas (it seemed.)

 

 

I eventually found my way back to the creek – or was it the Rio Grande?  I wasn’t sure so I pulled out the trail map and looked at it.  And looked at it.  And looked at it some more.

 

 

 

 

Ah, apparently I made the wrong turn in Albuquerque.  But which way to go?

 

 

 

 

When my legs felt as if I had walked to the pyramidal structure of Teotihuacan in central Mexico, with its strange bird face hieroglyph, I discovered I went the wrong way, again.

 

 

Even the blaze that marked whatever trail I was on seemed to be a questioning itself.  I began to become a little… concerned.

 

 

 

 

 

I had my map, my pedometer, car keys and cell phone as well as my camera.  MacGyver probably could have made a all-terrain vehicle out this – or perhaps even a lightweight airplane.

 

 

 

 

But not I.  I looked for shelter and food – there was plenty of water to be found in the creek – even if the fish that swim in it poop in it. And I like mushrooms.

 

 

My legs wobbled and buckled.  Darkness started to creep over the wilderness.  When suddenly I heard a car somewhere off to my right – somewhere just beyond a dense stand of trees.

 

 

 

Finally after a few miles more than the four miles I had planned on walking – I stumbled out of the darkening woods and into the parking lot where my car awaited me.

 

 

Next time I’m going to be smart.  I’m going to take a sharpie and write on the tag of my tee-shirt, “If found, please return to Norristown, PA” – that ought to do it, you think?