Roadblocks

What Martha had heard yesterday on Facebook is indeed true.  When I drove up the Walhalla Road this morning to go to the Post Office, there was no sign of any roadblock, but on the way home the Town Police had set one up.  The young officer waved me through (since I was leaving Town), but I recognized him and I rolled down my window to thank him for doing a good job.

The road to Town had been eerily devoid of traffic except for two or three trucks heading south, bound for the County landfill on Rich Gap Road.  Main Street, too, was almost empty except for some vehicles parked in front of Reeves Hardware again.  The construction businesses is just about the last remaining commercial operation in Highlands, so it makes sense to allow workers to buy building materials.  In the same way, Tate Landscaping was busy all over Town, mostly placing pine straw around trees and shrubs.

The pollen level today is back up in the high range for this entire area, and I could feel it in my lungs when I was working outside yesterday.

But I thought it might not be as heavy in Town as it is in Clear Creek since the oak trees are not yet showing signs of greening up.  That seemed to be the case as I parked across from the Nature Center and began walking up the road to Sunset Rocks.  There were no other cars in the parking lot.

The Town made a good decision a year or two ago when it decided to stop maintaining this road, a roadblock of another kind.  It has deteriorated even more since my last hike up here; an adventurous 4 X 4 could make it, but gone are the days when SUVs from Atlanta could drive up here.  Nothing was more annoying than being forced to step off the road during a pleasant Sunday afternoon hike to allow a big Suburban containing healthy young people to bounce past in a little cloud of dust.  We all have our pet peeves.

But I was not feeling peevish today; I had the road entirely to myself, passing not a single person all the way up to the summit and all the way back down on this unusually warm day.

It was so warm, in fact, that I realized I was a little overdressed.  The Asheville forecast this morning had predicted that this would be a record-setting day, hotter than the previous hottest day on record in 1907.

Just as I was leaving the parking lot, an SUV pulled in beside me containing four young people.  The driver rolled down her window, and I said, "There is absolutely nobody up there!  Enjoy your social isolation!"  They laughed and climbed out, wearing hiking boots.  I would like to think that they had planned to hike even if the road had been in better shape.  I would also like to think that they were not from New York or New Orleans, the latest epicenters in the pandemic.