The Arabia Mountain Trail

        As much as I would love to pack up the car and head out to Idaho in true Joad Family fashion and never look back, I am grateful to live in a state that has a little of everything. We get a little of each of the four seasons except summer and we get a double dose of that. We have beaches, no, not good Florida beaches, but enough to wet your whistle if you just need to smell the salt air and feel the sand between your toes. We have several big cities if that's your thing. No, not NYC of CHI, but enough traffic, commuter trains, impatient people, over-priced everything to satisfy that craving. I personally never have that specific one, but some do. And we have mountains. No, not the Rockies, but we do have the foothills and the beginnings of the Appalachians. And lastly, we have paved bike trails. No, not the seemingly endless miles of trail like Chicago and Boulder, but we do have several hundred miles of trails throughout the state. And we here at HTH love bike trails.

    Two weekends ago, I had Fall Break. It went by too quickly and we had a XC race jammed in between the two free days and Mel second shot a wedding while I watch Fordzilla, so there wasn't exactly the time or space for us to head to a vacation destination. My last day off, I woke up and got FH something to eat and the coffee going and hatched my plan to Mel. If you don't pray for Mel, you should. I am so bad about not mentioning my plans to Mel and then throwing them at her with no warning and then expecting her to get on board with a smile. And most of the time, she is highly accommodating. This time was no different. My original plan was to snatch FH up, load the truck with our chariot, drive north, hit the trail, tire out FH, and then head home. I knew Mel had piles of things to do with items to sew, emails to send out, and a baby shower to plan and a 17th month old and a cooped up husband never make those things easy. And FH and I were halfway out the door when Mel surprised us and said that she wanted to go with us. We both jumped for joy, loaded a second bike, and loaded the truck, moved the car seat over, Mel downloaded the directions to the trail, and we headed off. Our destination was the Arabia Mountain Recreational Trail.

Pumping up the tires with a snarky and suspicious FH.

      Arabia Mountain Recreational Trail is a part of the Path Foundation's 10 trail system that is composed of several rail to trail sections and several private and state trails. The longest of these is the Silver Comet Trail which is 61.5 miles and stretches to the state line where it connects to The Chief Ladiga Trail. Arabia Mountain Trail is not apart of the Rails to Trails system so the elevation changes are much more extreme. I chose the AMT because it was only a little over 70 miles from our home and offered over 20 miles of trail; while the other trails were much farther away, or were only a few miles long, or were a little of both. Arabia Mountain Trail is now at 15 miles or so with the possibility of connecting to other trails and offers some great views for runners, walkers, cyclists, hikers, and skaters.

Getting by with a little help from my friends. FH loves work. He could watch it all day. 

            We had a great trip up to AMT because FH loves riding in the front of the truck. I understand this. He is now part of the action. It was fairly easy to find, but I will say that the directions off the interstate were all good and fine, but if you relied on landmarks to find your way, it would be very hard to find your way back because everything begins looking the same. We relied on Mel's phone on the way there and it was spot on, but on the way back, we didn't catch a good signal and so we relied on those "landmarks" and made a lot of signature "Dark" turnarounds. We did make it back, but at times between the turnarounds, the people honking at us, a cranking, tired, and hungry baby and parents, we had our regrets as we attempted to find our way back to the interstate. 

        Our little family had a very fun part of the day getting to be out on the trail. We love family bike rides and getting some good outside time always seems to make everything a little better. I attribute it to the good clean oxygen. We rode a little over 10 miles and got to see a lot of great sights. We stopped for some snack time and even got to ride through a covered bridge. The trail elevation was a little harder than we expected, but at least the declines were fun. We climbed close to 1000 feet in less than 8 total miles, which may not sound like that much to you Tour de France riders, but for us that is a lot. The trail wasn't very busy, but that wasn't surprising to us. The free outdoor places are never crowded. I will never truly understand this, but then I do. Here are some pictures. Hope you enjoy. 

Gasing up our bodies before our trek.

The Arabia Mountain Trail runs through and is apart of the Davidson-Arabia Mountain Nature Preserve. You park here to officially begin the trail, but there are many other points of entrance. The nature preserve also has many other items of interest for visitors besides the recreational trail. 

One of the many helpful signs along the way. This was posted at the beginning and lets you see where the trail goes. 

A view of the summit of Arabia Mountain. We rode beside it on a boardwalk and then rode down to the entrance of the trail to the summit. We plan on hiking to the top on our next visit. 

My partners in crime stopping for a quick photo on one of the boardwalk sections of the side trail to the base of Arabia Mountain. 

About 5 miles into our ride, we got to pass through this neat covered wooden bridge. I can't explain it, but there is something very neat about passing through a wooden bridge. It makes you feel as if you were living so many years earlier. This portion of the trail heads to Panola Mountain State Park. 

FH and Mel taking a much deserved break from time in the saddle. Arabia Mountain Trail is a great little trail, but the inclines and declines make for tough cycling. The declines were fun and fast, but you always knew that it meant you would have to climb them on the way back! 

A pic of our trusty steeds beside the trail. They needed the break and we needed a snack! 

You can't hang out near a stream and not at least try to explore the rocks and the water. This was one of my favorite things to do when I was younger. No, strike that, it is one of my favorite things to do now! I brought FH along because I know it will be something he will love to do too! It took everything in me to keep him out of the way and the algae.

A shot of further up the stream. I/we could have stayed at the stream much longer. It was so peaceful and the weather was just right. It was a beautiful little stream. Next time, may we'll go when it is a little warmer and we will have to wade upstream and downstream. 

A miniature cascade. I love being next to streams. I read a quote a few weeks ago and it was something about how moving water always gave the author peace because it pointed to the fact that the world was moving, the world was working, the world was existing. I get that. 

Nothing beats snack time! Nothing! 

A shot of my copilot. I think in an airplane where the copilot sits behind you, he or she has a multitude of tasks; everything from navigating to stearing. My copilot on the other hand replicates animal noises, tries to tickle me, tries to lift my shirt up, points to things, sways to music he hears, and about 20 other things. 

A smile this time!

We rode about 5 miles one way and then rode the 5 miles back to the parking lot, but FH and I wanted to see a little of the trail in the direction we didn't ride, so we rode a little ways that way and came upon an old farm that had been made part of the nature preserve. I love open fields and old farms and this was a very picturesque one at that. And you can see the trail as it heads north towards the city of Lithonia. 

A pic of the trail heading south of the old farm.These trails really are nice. The paving is flat and about 12 feet wide with lines down the middle. It beats sidewalks and busy city streets sevens days a week. I wish every city had miles and miles of these trails. I feel like they would pay for themselves fairly quickly. Heck, I wouldn't mind paying a little each time I rode or ran on one. 

FH giving me the "Hey, Dad, we all love this trail and the bike riding thing as much as the next guy, but we've got to go home soon, or things are going to head south much faster than you want..." look. 

The old barn. Very cool. Next time, we will hike to it!  

A view south back to the parking lot through the old fields. 

A neat and very useful tool that each of these trails has are large mile markers. This may not sound useful, but it does help you gauge your ride, walk, run, etc. It also helps you know where about you are on the trail map. And they are also accurate as far as each mile being exactly that far away from the previous one and from the original one. In a day when it seems every race course and trail is either too long or too short, it is nice for these to be spot on. Which is weird because we live in the age of GPS and other scientific devices for measuring distances and yet they are incorrect. I will stop there. 

Never trust your key shot to a stranger who has to pause their cd player (yeah, you just read that) to take the key picture. It will be rushed. It will end up like this. You will say it is fine because in the time he took to hand back the camera and you to look at the blurry picture, he has already pressed play again and is headed off. No good, but if you squint really hard, we look cute! 

Get outside. Enjoy this Fall weather. Find a good bike. Find a trail. Head to it with your people.


Happy Riding,

    DAVID

American Kid--An Album Review

      I have been a Patty Griffin fan now for a little over a decade and am so glad that she continues to put out music that doesn't stray far from the items that drew me to her in the first place. This doesn't mean that she hasn't or doesn't try new things or that all the albums are merely copies of each other with only new words about the same themes, but rather it seems she has stayed true to the elements that make a song what I like to think of as a "Patty Griffin" song. I won't take credit for finding my own way to her, but will give credit to a conversation I had with Sandra McCraken that I'm sure verged on half creepy and half awkward/stalker, but she was kind to me and suggested that I check out Patty Griffin and then I made some very bad joke about Andy Griffith which went over like a lead cloud and then her husband came up and then they went away. If I could see them again, I would thank them for the suggestion and apologize for being me. I would like to say I've changed, but I have only toned down the odd awkwardness during business hours and I'm sure my students would heartily disagree.

   I was excited when I read that this album was coming out because it is her first regular album since 2007. She released a pseudo-Gospel album in 2010 (Downtown Church), which was good, but Gospel is not her normal genre and the album was lacking in the things I normally go to Patty Griffin for. For me and this will only further show my lack of musical knowledge, but when I listen to Patty, her songs are like getting to listen to a musical written by Sherwood Anderson and he's one of my favorites. Each of her songs takes you to these moments that seem so real that it is almost as if they happened in your own life. Her songs have been called a "roadmap of Americana" and I'd agree with that. And American Kid doesn't let you down if this is what you listen to Patty for.

  There are 12 tracks on the record and each one is strong and each one seems to stand out, but also it seems to fit with the others. Or at least, that is how it feels to me. However, my favorite part of the album are not the songs, but rather the short eight or so minute video that has Patty Griffin talking about the album. I am so interested in how others write and the way she speaks about the songwriting process is worth the $12 that I paid for the album. I don't want to ruin the experience of listening to the video, but in it she talks about how the majority of music that is coming out now is too perfect and it is hard to listen to it and imagine that real life humans are behind the instruments and the voices. I had never thought about that before, but it made me think about where that train of thought goes and it bleeds into seemingly all things. We do live in a world where everything looks so polished and perfect and all the while everyone is walking around very unhappy and wondering where all the perfection is in their own lives when in reality, it doesn't exist anywhere, but rather the world is covered with people and events broken by our humanness. She goes on to say that she desired to make a record where everything wasn't perfect and where they just sat down and sang and played like real people and where the voices cracked sometimes and the instruments went out of tune. She said the old records sound like that and there is this great beauty in the brokenness of the songs, the words, the instruments, and in the voice of the performer.

   The other item that stands out in the video is in her discussion of where the imagery for the album came from. During the time she was making this record, her father was dying and she spends some time talking about that and how the album is not necessarily about his passing away, but the album was written from this place and the songs are what she did to deal with his passing and in listening to the album, you can hear that. There are a few songs that seem to be about her dad, but mostly the album seems to be about the America that surrounds each of us. No, not what is going on in the news or the latest manufactured crisis of Washington, but what is actually happening on the street you live on, with the people you move through the day with, with the people you share dinner with, with the people who were once apart of your life, but now live some life away from you and you away from them. And I guess, this is what each Patty Griffin album is about. It is about people and that's why it is so good, so real, and so relevant because people never change, only the times change, but humanity is linked throughout time and the things that are important in 2013 were important in 1513. They looked different, but they were rooted in the sameness of the human experience.

   Buy the album. Listen to each song slowly and more than a dozen times. Listen to the video. Roll your windows down and feel the words and let the music flow through your hair. And turn up these tracks: "Go Wherever You Wanna Go", "Don't Let Me Die in Florida", and "That Kind of Lonely". The second suggested song made me really think about my granddad and how he so desperately wanted to die in Oklahoma, but rather passed in North Florida. I did not understand that then, but I am beginning to understand this connection with the land and place that is apart me and starting to make me wonder about so many things. I do wish so badly that he could have died in those barren hills and been laid to rest in that dry, red dirt. His cemetery would not have been as nice and his funeral as nice, but I think there is something about Adam being made from the dirt and then us going back into it and the need for dead, organic matter in the growing of new things. But I do wish you could be buried in places where you loved. I wish that my granny could have been buried in that place where the salt water laps the sand and where she so love to just sit, but she is buried inland, so very far from the beach. I know this is not realistic, but so much of what we've made to be"real" life is manufactured and we've limited the freedom of this life with rules and laws and made ourselves live by them as if they were real. We made up the 40 hour week. We made up the 5 day work week. We made up the need to go to college. We made this distinction between respectable, honored jobs and those that aren't when all honest work is to be respected. We made up the days of the week and the way we feel about them. We made up daylight savings and the IRS.  We created ways to kill off the living. We have made all natural things to be awkward and strange when they are real and beautiful in their own ways. I will stop here. Sorry.

Happy listening and thanks for reading,

  DAVID