Little Bang Theory

A Walk In The Rain. June 20, 2009

Got rained out of work on Thursday, so I took a walk along the railroad tracks near the Hoosac Tunnel.  It was a strange mix of natural beauty and post-industrial destruction, with the cleansing rain putting the best face on the scene as softly furred mullein and optimistic daisies reclaimed an abandoned rail:

Sometimes the two plants seemed to be conspiring in their effort to affirm the power of beauty to confound our headlong rush toward its dissolution:

Then I took a drive up into the clouds to see what was happening up above.

The air was heavy with blowing fog, and every surface was bathed in fine beads of glistening dew.  I parked at the end of a woods road and made the short hike out to the Raycroft Overlook, a CCC Work Camp project which is itself being reclaimed be the inexorable processes of nature.

The walk along the narrow ridge was magical, with the northern slope dropping steeply off into the clouds:

…to the old stonework vantage point from which the Deerfield river can usually be seen a thousand feet below:

On this day the “river view” dissolved into the clouds, leaving only the insistent red clover under foot to demand its mountainside back from us arrogant interlopers:

Wrapped in a raincoat and photographing under an umbrella, I was lost in the surreality of the feeling of helming this great stone ship through the swirling clouds.  The experience was cleansing, and convinced me to venture out into the rain more regularly.

I hope you enjoyed these.