Weekend Getaway - Final Part

Alright, it's about time I finish this series before I forget. So, we went up to Reddish Knob to watch the sun set about 10 1/2 years ago. When you are at the top of the mountain after the sunset, you can look to the west and see the night; then look to the east and see the end of the day. So we really wanted to try and experience this again.


Brian couldn't remember exactly how to get there so I did a search on the Internet (because we all know everything on the internet is TRUE) and found some directions for us. So after a filling dinner at Outback, we headed out to find Reddish Knob.


The directions seemed to prove true as we took the first few steps of the trip. The directions said to stay on a certain rural road (6-hundred something, well, it didn't actually say 'hundred something' but I just can't remember all of the numbers now) until we run into a different road (9-hundred something) which takes us to the ridge. Well, all of a sudden, a street sign says that this 6-hundred something road makes a sharp left and you have to turn to stay on it. If you don't turn, then you are on a 2-hundred something road. So of course, I thought we should follow the turn and stay on the 6-hundred road. But Brian said, "honey, that's going away from the mountains, we should stay this way and go towards the mountains." (Me - yeah - whatever.) So after a few minutes we see a small country store and I beg Brian to stop and ask them directions so we won't miss the sunset.

He comes out from the little store and says that the man inside said the directions were wrong. He said we were going the right way, all we had to do 'was to stay rite thar on that 2-hundred road til you come round that yonder mountain, then take a sharp left and you're thar.' Oh - OK.

So we go round that yonder mountain and it was hard to find a real sharp left. I thought there was a sharp left but Brian didn't think that was it and saw a different sign to follow. I didn't actually see the sign he saw but he promised that it had "Reddish Knob" on it with an arrow. But which way was the arrow pointing, I wanted to know?

So we keep winding and winding on this lonely, narrow road. At times, I thought we were even going down. I kept asking if this was the right way ... are you sure ... Well, then we started going up ... and up ... and up. Let me just inject here, that I'm not that big on heights. I don't like to fly (more like won't do it because I'm scared), I don't like high bridges, I don't even like the shaky stairs on the big slide at the County Fair because it has a teeny rail that I could just flip over in a secon if I slipped the wrong way.

But anyway, as we're going up I look off to the side of the road and there is nothing there but the tops of trees. Ohhhhh! I can't even see the bottom of the ravine. Just one slip of the wheel and we're toast. Those teeny old trees won't stop this car! I keep asking him to slow down (although he's already going really slow, or so he says but I'm too sick to get a good look at the speedometer) and then I had a serious thought. What if this isn't the right way? There are no turn arounds here and there's nowhere to turn this big ole car! I ain't going down this steep mountain backwards! If we are in the wrong place I'll just have to walk down and meet the car at the bottom.

But since we can't turn around, we just keep going up and up. And I start feeling sicker and sicker ... I kind of lay down so I can't really see where we're going anymore. Then I sit up and look out in front of the car and all I see is the sky. What? Just the sky? There was this surreal feeling like we were flying (which I hate) but we were in a car (which is worse than a plane if you're in the sky). I just laid back down and closed my eyes. I don't remember all of this drama from before but I guess I have just gotten a little more skittish as I have gotten older and gotten life insurance, ya know?

But finally we made it to the top and I got over the sickness and was able to enjoy the beautiful view. Brian captured some pretty shots of the sunset. It was a wonderful to spend the evening, once we got up there! And I will have to say that the trip down was much more uneventful, probably because it was dark and I couldn't see the danger we were in ...