Actually ... it was a bolt of lightning. OK kids - what lesson did we learn today?
Don't go hiking in the wilderness if you don't know where the thunderstorms are!
It was a simple game plan, really. I would take off early from my architecture practice; head with my three dogs up into the higher elevations of the Chattahoochee National Forest where the summer temps rarely get above 80; work up a big appetite from going up the old logging trail on Rich Mountain; and then pig out on a one half barbecued chicken at the Pink Pig Restaurant in Cherry Log. Who knows, Jimmy and Roslyn Carter might even be there. Their mountain home is nearby and Jimmy LOVES the Pink Pig's barbecue.
I noticed a smallish thunderhead to the west over Scarecorn Creek, but I was headed northeast toward the headwaters of the Ellijay River. NO PROBLEM!
We started up the old trail. The dogs were estactic because the temperature was about 70. I noticed there was less and less light, but deluded myself into thinking that the cause of the darkness were the giant virgin hemlock firs that paralelled the trail. Then, I started hearing boom - boom -boom from a thunderstorm to the south. It was at least 10 miles away on Talking Rock or Talona Creeks, I thought!
I thought wrong. Suddenly, violent vertical winds gusted up to 50-60 miles an hour. Small tree limbs and rhododendron blooms swirled everywhere. We foolishly kept on walking. For a second, my hair stood straight up, then there was a blinding light and a deafening boom. Lighting has struck an ancient 200 feet tall Poplar about 50 feet in front of me. Fortunately, I happened to look up at the right moment - for down came tumbling a large limb. It stabbed the ground about four feet in front of me as I was jumping back. My three dogs jumped up into the air in terror and ran to be next to my legs - like that would do any good.
This was TOO MUCH like a scene in that scarry movie, THE OMEN.
I hollered to my canine companions, last one back to the car is a over-cooked hot dog. We raced back and jumped into the Explorer just as torrential rain hit. I made it over the wooden bridge at Big Creek just as the water was about to go over the boards. When I got to the Pink Pig, the restaurant was closed for the day - with no explanation. To salve our unfulfilled expectations, I bought two pounds of chicken livers for the dogs at Ingles in East Ellijay, and a big steak for me.
Oh the joys of roughing it! Salivating over baked potato cooked in the oven. Chomping a steak cooked over an open gas flame and watching an oldy but goldy DVD in the bedroom as my dogs meekly crouch at my feet, hoping for a morsal to drop. This is the life.
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