The View From Here: Forgetting the beauty which lies all around
Somewhere between work, family and other commitments and distractions, I lost track of something I said I never would.
After moving here five years ago, I drove up Highway 30 and looked at that scenery on the way to Fall Creek Falls and then drove down to the sand bar at Rock Island to take in the massive rock wall, then the falls and the gorge, and I thought I was the most fortunate person on Earth. That’s the way newcomers see the area, and I was so one of them.
As I looked around the community and learned about people here, I immediately noticed many people didn’t necessarily know what they had, or that at the very least, the “wow” factor was not so extreme for natives.
While it makes sense to become tired of your surroundings, I said I’d never do that – would never try to take for granted the beauty of this place – but when I learned my extended family wanted to visit here for a quasi-family reunion this year, I realized that’s exactly what I did.
Being the type that likes to travel other places anyway, I worried that some of them, who live in big cities who would complete 10 and 15-hour drives to get here for their first-time visit, would be bored, and that my vacation wouldn’t really amount to a vacation.
And having six bored children and eight similarly-bored adults is not a good thing to have if you ever want them to come visit again, especially if you know they’ve spent one vacation day off work coming here and will spend one more vacation day driving home. Plus, who wants to take vacation in their own back yard? Or more accurately, who can relax on vacation when you know the yard, the house, work pressures and the same old faces are so near?
I wanted to immediately size up what I know about this area compared to the family vacation at a crystal clear spring canoe trip last year, and I didn’t think this trip would impress.
But none of that boredom happened. Instead, I found activity, peace and beauty all at the same time when 17 immediate members of the family met up at Rock Island State Park last week to camp, while some holed up in one of the cabins.
And somewhere between the expert-guided tour through the gorge, thanks to the park’s “Henry,” swimming in the ice cold water on what had been the hottest day of the year so far and canoeing up the river to Great Falls, I realized I had done exactly what I was so critical of not so long ago. I took this place for granted.
Down at the gorge on day two, with family members confident enough to go there without the guide, I met someone from the Midwest – my other home – who said they’d come to Rock Island after reading about it in Southern Living magazine. I had forgotten people do that too.
She was telling me how wonderful the park was and I realized that same current of feelings was running through my family. There was no need to worry about boredom. This place was still as magnificent as it always has been.
And the best thing was, I could go back with relative ease.
It’s funny how they say familiarity breeds contempt, or a slightly less aggressive version of it in this case. I resisted a family vacation here for a variety of reasons, but by some miracle, Rock Island was like a tonic for the harried soul.
Blue skies, birds chirping, a fire going every night and a place to cool off at in one of the most gorgeous areas I’ve ever seen – how could I have been so far off?
I lost track of appreciating these surroundings, and now that I know it, I’ll try not to do it again. I’m thinking I could talk them all into a repeat visit, and the park is one of the reasons they would make the long drive to come back.
(Amy Satterwhite is a reporter for the Standard. She can be reached at 473-2191 or by e-mail at [email protected].)