Newton Trails

I received an email this week with an interesting link to a pro-bike story from an unlikely source (someone on record opposing a rails-to-trails project in Newton County).  And, I enjoyed the piece so much, I wanted to share it with readers of the Trail Talk Blog.

In The Real Reason Why Bicycles Are the Key to Better Cities, Kasey Klimes sets aside typical talking points promoting cycling -- such as public health, economic impact, or environmental conservation.  Instead, he writes about the very different intimacy one experiences biking through a city vs passing in a car.

"On a bicycle, citizens experience their city with deep intimacy, often for the first time, Klimes writes.  "For a regular motorist to take that two or three mile trip by bicycle instead is to decimate an enormous wall between them and their communities."

For me, he nailed the one aspect of biking (and walking, for that matter) I have never managed to explain clearly to a non-cyclist.  And, I would expand his assertion to include not just cities, but the suburbs and rural countryside as well.  I often tell people I am not from Newton County, but I feel I know this place with an intimacy unknown to many born and raised here.  To travel through the towns and rural farmlands of Newton County by bike is to see, hear, feel, smell, and (almost) taste this place.  I've found old home places at the end of dirt roads off the end of other dirt roads that most people don't know exist.  I've had close encounters with life both wild and domestic.  My wife is a native born of multiple generations in this county, but I tell her about roads she could never find on a map or in a car.

Traveling by bike is also a trip into the past.  You experience the landscape at a pace and with an immediacy seldom felt since we started wrapping ourselves in cocoons of steel, plastic, glass, and leather before making any journey.  You get to see people, hear people, and talk to people.  While perhaps not physically, in many ways you touch and are touched back by those you meet along the way.  A wave, a smile, a friendly greeting, and sometimes a real conversation.  These are gifts seldom if ever found from the confines of an automobile.

I wonder, sometimes, if that allure for me is also what repels others?  Is eye contact such a rarity these days, that much of our society is now fearful of it?  Are we so isolated from nature in the 21st century, that the idea of being out there with only a bike frame and skinny rubber tires between us and Mother Earth is a frightening prospect?

It both hurts and frustrates me when I realize how sincerely some "old-timers" fear and loathe those of us who want to see more places to walk and bike in our community.  I know in my heart that I love this place as they do.  It is a deep, knowing love born of special moments spent up close and personal, immersed through a bike ride into the natural, cultural, and human splendor of Newton County, Georgia.  My relationship with this place is meaningful to me, because of the time invested in "getting to know each other."

Thank you, Nat Harwell, for sending me the link.  And, thank you, Kasey Klimes, for bringing me back fully to some really special memories of treasured moments.

Dear readers, if you haven't ridden a bike lately and are capable, get out and give it a try.  You'll be amazed by the wonders laying ever beneath our noses!

I hate when I get too busy to blog.  I miss it.  Still not much time today, but I wanted to share some thoughts from last week's meeting of trail builders in the Northeast Georgia Region and our tour of the North Oconee River Greenway in Athens.

Sharing an afternoon with public officials and private citizens involved in building greenway trails around the region, it was invigorating to hear so much passion and commitment to the cause. It was also encouraging to hear the success stories from the Athens greenway system and the Sandy Creek Nature Center.  Ours is a region with so much untapped outdoor recreation potential just waiting to be harnessed for the health and economic well being of the region's 12 counties, 54 cities, and more than 635,000 people.  And, all of that natural beauty was in full display along the greenway.

The North Oconee River Greenway incorporates Athens-Clarke County's Heritage Trail -- a series of over fifty interpretive panels along the trail describing historical features such as the former Cook and Brother Armory, Chicopee Mill, Dudley Park, and the railroad.  I can so readily imagine similar panels along a rail trail in Newton County, commemorating our agricultural heritage, civil war history, and the glory days of communities like Starrsville, Hayston, and Brick Store that once dotted the landscape.  It's a vision we need to continue to share every chance we get.

Visit our Facebook page to see more photos of the Sandy Creek Nature Center, the North Oconee River Greenway, and the Heritage Trail.

On the southwest corner of Dixie Rd and County Highway 213, in the heart of the historic  Starrsville community, sits a small rock few have probably noticed.  Standing at the edge of an overgrown pecan grove, alongside a busy highway, this small boulder bears a weathered bronze plaque commemorating the site of the Old Starrsville Store. Built in the early 1830s, that building stood until its demolition in 1992.  As the plaque placed in 1995 retells the story, the store passed through many operators, was home to a US Post Office, and hosted numerous historic gatherings.

When out bicycling through the pastures along Dixie Rd or Hwy 213, I often pause to rest upon that rock.  I reflect and imagine what this crossroads might have looked like in the early days of a bustling mercantile business.  I think about a time when Starrsville was a thriving community, and I consider how far it must have seemed from the rest of Newton County when travel was by foot or horse-drawn carriage.  Today, that busy highway is sadly littered with trash thrown carelessly from  windows of passing cars by people in a hurry to get somewhere or another.  On my last visit, an empty cigarette pack lay right beneath that marker, and beer cans dotted the grasses.  Sitting there, I often wonder who among those hurried passers-by has ever noticed this marker, much less paused to read its message from another time?

That's the beauty of getting around by foot or by bike...  You actually get to see, hear, smell, feel, and even taste the places through which you travel.  For me, a walking and biking trail is a meaningful way to preserve and protect the rich heritage of places like Starrsville, Hayston, High Point, Almon, Oakhill, and Brick Store.  I close my eyes, and I imagine a family from town, a boy scout troop, or visitors from another state or country rolling or hiking through that pristine landscape.  I see them pausing to read our markers and wonder.  I hear them experiencing our history and our heritage the way our forefathers did:  at a slower, less hurried, more reverent pace.

I know for some, a walking/biking trail seems like yet another intrusion of our modern world into this landscape steeped in history.  But, to me, it's much the opposite.  To experience this land and this heritage not imprisoned in an automobile at 55+ MPH is to experience it the way it was meant to be.  And, the way it always will be in the imaginations of those of us who take the time to travel slow and savor the experience.