Shrinks couch? Or Motorbike?

It's been to cold around here lately to ride to work. Since I have a two hour almost commute, and I work rotating shift work, at some point during the day I'm going to be looking at temps in the 20's and that is too hard on this old man for that long. So I've been looking for any excuse to get out on my days off and just ride.

The snow is still on the ground, but the roads are clear. There is some sand/salt left, but it's not a real problem. I've been riding down toward Spotsylvania National Battlefield park, then thru the park and back home the long way. I keep forgetting to take a camera. Note to self. Take the camera, dummy.

There are a number of monuments to the various units that fought in the great War of Northern Agression scattered around the battlefields. Most of them are to Federal units it seems. I assume this is because after the war the people in the south didn't have a lot of money to give to putting up monuments. Several of them are really pretty. Some are just plain and unadorned.

As I stood yesterday, at the site of "Bloody Angle" in cold, grey of a Virginia December day, I was struck by the lonelesness of the place. How fitting it seemed after what had happened there 130 odd years ago. I found myself wispering a quiet prayer for those who had been here that dreadful day. As I turned to walk back to the bike, I stopped and looked back over the field and said, "Sleep well Billy Yank. Sleep well Johnny Reb."

There is a haunting beauty to these old battlefields that I feel can only be appreciated in the wintertime. Today of course they are grown over with forrest for the most part. Forrest and broomstraw fields. An occasional cannon, or a marble monument dot the landscape. The earth is healing herself, where 130 years ago, men frantically dug trenches and artillery pits with bayonets, mess plates and their bare hands. Places where the bodies piled high on top of one another and the water from the all day rain ran red with blood are filling in. One day there will be no evidence that anything happened here at all. Only the ghosts will remain. (For a summary of the battle go to http://www.cr.nps.gov/hps/abpp/battles/va048.htm )

Back on the bike, and a few miles down the park road, a wild turkey crosses my path. I watch as she runs with her head bobbing up and down, rushing up the hill and into the woods. Four whitetail deer are in the next broomstraw field. I think they don't know what the bike is. It's not as big as an automobile, and the sound is different I'm sure. They look up, run off a bit, stop and look back to where I've stopped. After a few minutes of watching, one of them snorts indignantly and flicks her tail, and they all four dash into the trees.

Exiting the park, I think. I couldn't have gotten that therapy on a shrinks couch for any ammount of money.