Belinda's Wednesday Writerly Challenge

New Hope Road I now live 10,000 miles away from the New Hope Road, but I still go there often in my mind. New Hope Road is a red clay road that wanders for miles through plantation land in a rural area of South Georgia. It has long been a place of refuge for me. As I drive very slowly down the road, with all my windows down, the sights and sounds that reach me are a balm to my spirit. The land is covered with many varieties of trees; the ubiquitous tall-standing pine tree, great spreading oak trees that call for you to climb up in them or picnic beneath their low hanging limbs, dogwoods that bloom each spring little white clumps of white showing through the woods and magnolia trees with their big flowers drooping down from the branches. At one point in the road, someone long ago planted oak trees in a row along each side of the road and now they arch over and give you a canopy to drive under. One day I would like to spend the whole day traveling down this road in a buckboard, pulled along by an ole floppy-eared mule. In the spring there is the most beautiful vibrant green of new leaves set against the backdrop of that dark red clay, a sight that always give me such sweet joy! I don't know why it touches me so deeply. Sometimes when I try to explain it to people they just look at me like I'm a little off. I grew up in Miami but spent every summer at my Granny's house which is near the New Hope Road. Every summer I would take home an empty Nehi Orange bottle that I had filled with red clay from that road and keep it on my bedside table until the next summer. Even as a child the road had a special hold on me. There are literally thousands of acres of woods, plantation and crop land along this road. If you get out of the car and walk along you will hear the "bob-white" call of quail and the "rat-a-tat-tat" of huge pileated woodpeckers. You can spot a big red-tailed hawk sitting on the lone dead limb of a lightening killed pine watching vigilantly for any small movement of a critter in the high grass below. If it is a really good day, you might catch sight of a bald eagle soaring effortlessly way up in the blue, blue sky! You can watch over-sized gray fox squirrels cavorting through the trees chattering away at each other. There is a swampy area where you will see much evidence of a family of busy beavers. One fall evening years ago, right at dusk, my nephew Daniel, and I were slowly tooling down the road and suddenly spotted a group of 15-20 deer way back in one of the fields. It was an amazing sight! We got out of the car and slowly and oh so quietly tried to sneak up on them, but did not get very far. They are so aware of everything around them, their heads popping up and down constantly as they graze. They scattered, running and jumping gracefully through the woods, their white tails flying at attention. Daniel and I still talk of that evening drive and the deer we encountered. Daniel now works on one of those plantations that border New Hope Road and I like to think that our many drives together down red clay roads generated some of his love for being outside on the land. Whenever I am able to get back to South Georgia, one of the first things I do is head for "my" road. If you are a friend who has ever visited me when I am there, you have been down New Hope Road. When I retire back to South Georgia I am praying that the Lord will somehow provide me with an acre somewhere down that road that so pulls at my heart. As you can see in the picture below, as I sit at my desk way over in the Philippines, I keep my road close - it is the wallpaper on my laptop. As I look at that picture, I can, with my mind's eye, slowly traverse that wonderful road and be comforted with the beauty and splendor my Lord has put there for me to enjoy.