The Rumor About the True Things

In other news, Damien is back in town from the UAE, if only briefly. This past weekend we had a gathering of the whole clan up at his parent's house in Westchester. Like all such gatherings, the activities vacillated between the extremely civil (delicious food, delicious wine, many toasts, white linen shirts) and the bacchanalian (3am wrestling matches by torchlight, delicious whiskey, dancing until four), punctuated by moments of pure childish fun, like swimming out to cliffs and jumping into the river. D leaves for the middle east again soon, but its very good to know that they heyday of these sort of family gatherings is far from past.

The next day, Kay trained up to join me, and she and I head out solo to an old hiking spot that D and I used to do once or twice a year, called Breakneck Ridge (technically we do Mt.Taurus). It's on the
Hudson River, on the border of Duchess County, a few miles north and on the
other side of the river from West Point. Lots of fun rock obstacles (its an absolute blast to do with a set of climbing shoes) and a phenomenal view of the Hudson river. You know, grab some sandwiches, ditch the car on the side of the road and just go. Kay and I went a little off course on our way down and found the
remains of an old set of cabins in the woods, and these strange stone buildings from the 1910's. Walking along a trail that had been partially rerouted due to an avalanche a few years back, we came upon a stone wall that D and I hadn't found before. It'd been breached by one of the boulders in the avalanche, creating this great post-apocalyptic affect (We've been watching too much battlestar galactica). So naturally we go through the breach and through a field up on to an elevated mound, like the kind you'd build to put a railroad track on, except this one is overgrown and has tire ruts. So Kay and I hop up onto it and follow its curve into the forest. After a few minutes, we were face to face with an arcane stone building, bricked up and sitting in the middle of the elevated right-of-way, in the middle of this forest. We're approaching it from the rear, and suddenly the whole forest seems eerily silent. We get to the building and work our way around the side. There's a bricked-up window with bars over it, only the bricks have been blown out, by the looks of it from the inside. That's when I started thinking "this is the point in the movie where no one hears from us again." We edge around to the front of the building, where there is a metal door. Above the metal door is a coat of arms involving some beavers and windmills (*not* swastikas, as Kay would later insist)and above the coat of arms is emblazoned "ERECTED 1913". The door itself is the most interesting part--It's clearly missing several locks, and has a bar welded across it. on the bar is a small square of metal, painted bright red, on which was welded "15". It was inexplicably creepy. Definitely unspace. We continue on our way at a quickened pace, past a closed gate at an intersection in the right-of-way, where there are fresh tire-tracks. We duck off the right of way and find our way to a trail system that I am familiar with. Somehow, we still manage to stray off course a fair amount, and find ourselves on a very well-maintained trail through some dense forest, surrounded by the remains of old stone farm buildings. We finally make it back to the road, about a mile south of the car, and hike along the side of the road, tucked close against the shoulder as cars speed by us doing 65, 75 mph. All of a sudden we hear this snarling growl-bark-snort of some creature from the reeds next to us and we jump back into the road, and start running, leaving the beast behind and contending with BMWs on the open road.

I am sore and it was awesome.