Fall is definitely here now. Last week the leaves were all yellow, brown and a few flaming red. It was lovely to just drive around Charlottetown which saved me the bother of driving to Vermont or Cape Breton to see some fall color.
I decided to explore dirt roads to see the fall colors. A Suburban from Iowa was driving slowly ahead of us: must be looking for the Jack’s Road as I was. The road was pretty cool – trees hanging over the road with a canopy. Someone has clear cut the field to the north which took away from the hidden feel the road used to have.
Emboldened, I looked for another dirt road to travel and found one that joined two paved roads – that one was narrower and even more rustic – closer trees and deeper forests on either side, the Caledonia County Line Road. This was fun.
At the end of that road, I saw an even smaller road, called the Lewes Road that I had taken 20 years ago so I drove up. Lewes is famous for two things on PEI: 1) Angus MacLean a Federal MP, Premier and veteran homesteaded there and started the blueberry industry on PEI and 2) it was the home of the US draft dodgers from the Vietnam War in the 1970’s. Things were interesting in Lewes back in those days. It was the place where Woodstock stayed alive for ten more years and I was the accountant to the hippies. Had a full bushy beard and wore sandals to work back then: you wouldn’t know me now but I have the pictures and memories to prove it.
The Lewes Road was even smaller again. The branches were brushing against the side of the car. It was bumpy and climbed up a steep hill. And then I saw the ruts on each side of the crest in the narrow road. The rain had washed deep enough to swallow each car wheel. I stopped. My heart is pumping. I don’t want to go back because it’s to narrow to turn around but the road ahead is impossible. The middle of the road are more than a foot higher than the side. The two ruts for each wheel seem impossible to miss. If a wheel goes down into a rut it’s like a canyon. The tire would get stuck. The car feels wider than the road and the road is too narrow to navigate.
It’s the middle of nowhere and I feel like the forest is rushing at me even though the car is at a dead stop.
My head is swimming as I stop trying to decide. I have to go on. I never turn back: it’s a way of life. Slowly I start the car in first gear. I stay to the edge and immediately one wheel falls into a rut. I apply the gas slowly and the car keeps moving. Lights flash on the dashboard but I can’t look. No the wheels are spinning. It’s getting stuck. The hill is so steep and the car is stalling. No, it’s moving forward. My blood is pumping.
Hannah is screaming in the back seat: “we’re gonna get stuck! We’re lost! Turn around!”
I twist the wheel this way and that way trying to avoid losing my tire in the deep holes. Branches scratch the car doors, slapping the windows. The road gets worse, narrower, deeper ruts. The road disappears as I inch up the hill and turned right. Now I am driving over alder and brush. No one has been on this road for years. My mind races with exhilaration. Oh my God, the paint on the side of the car will be wrecked to pieces with these tree limbs.
And then I see the end. It’s over, I made it. I conquered the forest.
I stopped and went outside and the car was all mud and scratches. I might need a paint job on the doors – there are long scratches from the front to the back. I should have kept the 4 x 4.
