On my many trips across Kansas over the years, I've taken note of a handful of Frontage Roads. But it wasn't until this trip, until seeing dozens of Frontages across 14 states, that I finally looked it up. Why Frontage, world?
A frontage road is a local road running parallel to a higher-speed limited-access road. It is a road that allows those living off a highway to get safely to their homes, beginning at interchanges and branching to driveways, farms, stores.
Frontage gets you home.
Day 2 of the trip was the first long day, from Knoxville to Indianapolis, and it was hot. I was already sunburnt, mostly on my left arm and shoulder, from the first day's drive and sun pelting through the open window, my arm rested on the door for ventilation. Scooter was in the back panting, sleeping, burying his nose in the corner of the seat. I needed to stop. I needed to wander. I needed water.
Near London, Kentucky, I saw a sign for lakes, for recreation areas, and so I exited. I curved down country roads, listened to "Queen of California" on repeat. I didn't know how far it was to the lakes, but I told myself I would drive for ten minutes. Before ten minutes passed I saw more signs and decided to keep going, to arrive at some body of water in a place I had never heard of. It only seemed appropriate, going off the map and even off the grid, as there was no cell phone signal out there. The road curved. The houses moved back from the road. The trees closed in, and we entered Daniel Boone National Forrest. The road curved past broken boats and white shacks stenciled with BREAD on the side.
It was about 19 miles to Laurel Lake, the first, and the parking lot of the marina was packed on Memorial Day weekend. I changed to flip flops, put Scooter on the leash, and walked the length of the pavement to a ramp down to the water. People, boats. No beach. We looped the ramp back up stairs and beyond the marina to a little dirt trail down to water. No beach, but at least the water would be at our feet in a few more steps down. Scooter hung back, eyed the lapping water, moved into pointer position at a boat just beyond. And he barked. He barked like the boat, the water, what we had come for, was a monster, and he scrambled to go back, up.
I laughed because of course Scooter was afraid of boats and water in the ninety-some-degree mid-afternoon. We left without so much as a finger in the water, a small splash on our baking skin.
Yesterday I took Scooter and my Little Sister Geana to the Cottonwood Trail in Spartanburg. Geana wanted to get her feet wet, so we waded and watched as Scooter ran the length of the sandbar and back, trying to figure out how to get to us in the middle of the water. One foot in. Two feet. I could tell he wanted to join us, to feel what we felt, to lick our sweaty hands. He went ahead, leaped from one sand heap to another over 6" of water. He kept going to one point, looking 15 feet beyond at another larger sandy spot, and tip-toed out to his knees. He looked back, for reassurance. We said go! He backed up and ran toward us, leaping again. He will only go so far, even with encouragement.
In Hutchinson, Scooter and I explored Sandhills State Park for the first time. It's only 10 minutes from the home I grew up in, but I had never been there. I asked my mom why she never thought to take us there, why there was this 1100 acre preserve in our backyard that I had never explored. She said she thought it didn't even open until I was in high school, but it's been there since 1974. I got off the highway onto a bumpy dirt road and parked, discovered new land. No trail maps, but I followed the green of the Prairie Dune Trail through short trees and out into the open prairie, my shoes absorbing grains of sand.
Scooter and I were alone on the Wednesday morning. I let him off his leash to make his own way, trusting him to come back. He cut paths through low bushes, bounded through tall grass, paused to inhale berries covering the ground in black dye. We looped through more trees, a Kansas version of the woods I know in South Carolina, and back out. Shade, then full sun. More berries, then all sand and green. We climbed a hill, steep and slippery with sand, for perspective of our path. Though I couldn't see it, I knew the highway back to Hutch was less than a mile west. There, on that hill, I felt more at home in Hutchinson than I had since I was a young teenager and still in awe of the little creek cutting along the Sunflower Trail, my bike parked on a little summit and the water black and pooling below. Then, all I wanted was to follow it out of its constraints. I wanted to empty with it into the Arkansas and trickle, however slowly, out of Hutchinson and south, to something larger, more.
But sometimes all paths you follow lead back where you started, changed, with an understanding of other landscapes. And it's not the highway that brings you back.
No comments:
Post a Comment