The strangest thing happened to me today.  The weather was perfect for a walk in the woods, and I wanted to see Pike’s Creek adorned with its cold weather regalia.  In winter, the banks of the creek billow with untouched snow, waiting for some thirsty animal to tear through the white powder like a detonator.  The creek itself, the color of New Age silver, powers forth like the 21^st Century too determined to be held still.  In its corners it harbors ice.  These slow movers are shrugged off to the side of the current like society’s thinkers who question the rapidity of the route and whether the end is something worth rushing toward.  Somehow, the river seems as if it doesn’t acknowledge the ice as part of itself.

                This morning I set off toward the creek's dam.  I’m not sure what the purpose of the concrete slab is, but water cascades like silk over it into a still pond.  If you follow the top of the ravine on the western edge of our property, you will run into the creek somewhere upriver from the dam.  Walking the valley of the ravine will take you right to the dam.  For some reason I decided to leave our house and beeline for the creek which would put me just east of the dam.  When I left the house it was midmorning, and the sun was out.  An epidermal crust had formed on the snow, allowing me a relatively brisk pace.  Aside from my crunchy footsteps, the woods were quiet and hollow.  All the birds were at our house, crowding the feeder.  The bear were hibernating.  The deer, being nocturnal creatures, were sleeping.

Not long into the hike, I changed my course slightly so I was heading a few degrees west.  My thinking was that I would come out of the woods on, or very near, the dam.  But my calculations were off or affected by some higher influence.  It didn’t take me long to reach the creek, but I wasn't where I thought I would be.  In the bright noontime sun, the water flashed like a blade.  There were no recognizable landmarks to be seen, so I walked west, assuming that I was downriver from the dam.  After a half mile hike through the stubble that lined the creek, I came to a wall of ashy cliffs.  The steep clay face exposed a smoky red color, as if its snowy skin had been scraped away.  The geography surprised me because I knew that the only cliffs on Pike’s Creek stood far west of the dam. Apparently, I should have walked downriver. Frustrated but determined, I decided to backtrack until I saw the dam and then I would head home.  I was already exhausted from struggling through the deeper snow, and ice was forming at the rim of my boot so it ground against my calf with each step.

                Forty minutes later I still hadn’t found the dam.  I was standing under the bridge that led Highway 13 over the creek, listening to the thrum of cars going by.  My body was warm from the movement, but my fingers were stiff.  Half of my mind said I should accept defeat and step out onto the smooth pavement.  The highway would take me back to Ski Hill Road and eventually to my house, a roundabout but faster path than navigating uphill in the snow.  My obstinacy overwhelmed me, however, and without a second thought I set my feet to my tracks and walked back along the creek.

                I never came across the dam.  My search spanned a good distance along the river, from the highway to the tall clay cliffs three miles west.  It was as if the dam had vanished.  I did stumble across a small wooden hut I had never seen before.  It was large enough to house an impoverished family, and by looking through a window, I could see basic utensils like pots and leather harnesses hanging from pegs inside.  Someone had lived there.  And judging by the good condition of the untreated wood, the inhabitant must have abandoned ship not long ago, which means they were trespassing.  I made a mental note to ask Dad about it.