When I asked FB for the best location to watch the sunset near Staunton, VA, where we spent our summer holiday, the collective mind told me to go to the McCormick Gap on Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park. The 105-mile scenic stretch runs along the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
By day, the road is twisty and vertiginous and thrilling for its sense of perpetual wonder.
But what it would be like at night for transplanted city folk who’ve been living on a mountainous ridge 20 years – though still within the realm of suburbia? We knew we’d travel to the overpass in waning daylight but wend our way out in total darkness to get back to our inn.
By 5 pm, trees were bending and swaying at 45-degree angles, and the rain was pelting the windows at the inn. Lightning cracked in the gun-metal sky while thunder rumbled though the valley. Determined to watch the sunset that night from a beautiful vantage point, we tracked the weather. Within a couple of hours, it had blown through and we were packing sandwiches, camera equipment, a flashlight and blankets, just in case. You’ve seen those documentaries where people get stuck in cars and no one rescues them, so they burn the rubber tires to keep warm and…okay maybe my imagination was running away.
Twenty minutes along the highway, GPS lady told us the exit we needed was closed; instead, she rerouted us through Waynesboro, taking us down one local street after another, until finally, turning us onto an unpaved dirt street. My husband slammed on the brakes while we squinted at the sign: Do Not Trespass. Live Guns in Use. Okay, Dorothy, we were in Kansas. I was tempted to say I didn’t believe it, maybe it’s just a scary sign to deter people cutting through Elmer Fudd’s patch. But my husband, who possesses a weirdly Rain Man GPS ability of his own, unwound us back to the highway and drove to the entrance of Skyline Drive at Rockfish Gap in Afton. A passenger leaving Skyline Drive rolled down his window and said, the road’s open and passable now, but it had been closed because trees and branches had fallen across the narrow path during the storm.
We looked at each other and without speaking, motored on. For the past 18 months, I’ve been crouching in a state of fear, worrying daily over what Donald and his regime are doing to our country and directly to me and my loved ones. I’m not sure what rock you’d need to live under to be unaware of how much fundamental damage has been done. I named this very column “WhatNow?” because I knew every day I’d mutter those words before opening my screens and the newspapers. Some people have better coping mechanisms than others to navigate frightening times; they tell themselves and their anxious loved ones it will be okay; they calculate risk; they change the channel.
In the gloaming, I felt some kind of delicious fear coursing through my veins – almost as if to say the tense sensations were a welcome change from the constant fretting I’ve felt for nearly two years. My husband continued driving, circumventing at least two fallen trees and bumping the car over felled branches. We didn’t see another car; but made it to McCormick Gap and parked. Lights in the rolling lowlands of Waynesboro began to twinkle while a light fog settled between the mountain’s peaks. But the sky lit up with streaks of pink and orange light that promised a surreal sunset. I kept wishing another set of sunset chasers would join us on the mountain – while wondering if we were going to have a tough time finding our way out of the darkness. Nobody else showed up but the beauty of the fading light, ravens filling the sky, the cacophony of crickets and frogs filling the air, stowed away fear and fretting for long enough to recall what rapture feels like.
As darkness descended, my husband started the motor. He drove slowly and deliberately but to our surprise, the road from the Gap to the entrance of Skyline Drive had been cleared of the felled trees and debris. We talked about how beautiful the sunset was but also how exhilarating a bit of danger can be. How alive you feel when you’re plucked from a more predictable or familiar set of circumstances. It reminds you that man and woman are resilient.
Two nights later, we headed back to McCormick Gap to watch the Perseids meteor shower, which takes place annually in mid-August. This time we drove onto Skyline Drive in the dark, but with a little more confidence. Four cars were parked. Three people from the pickup truck next to us were sitting in lawn chairs. Another car pulled up with a young guy who spent an hour or so looking at his cell phone in his car and left. I was brought up in Brooklyn in the 70s during the Son of Sam summer so, yeah, I’m thinking the lone guy in the car could be a serial killer. It took a bit of breathing to let the star-studded sky engulf and absorb me fully. Cars came and went but after a while there was only the vast sky and the wishful attention to spotting the shooting stars. Everything else melted away. An awesome phenomenon was bigger than the fear of navigating back through the night or some unforeseen natural or manmade event that could undermine the pleasure and wonder of the experience.
I’ve always known spending time in the natural world is a balm and often the best ointment when I’m stressed or rattled. Living through this era of uncertainty – constant FDA recalls, threats to healthcare, abuse to journalists, the breakdown of the rule of law – feels unbearable to so many of us. What’s worse is that we do not understand why so many have traded sanity and the sanctity of humanity over a power grab. But sprinkling in a dash of danger to watch a sublime sunset or a celestial meteor shower reminds me that we can buck up against our fears, experience something existential, and find our way out of the murk and gloom.
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