Dilapidated

We spotted this old truck at the end of a nature trail in the Smoky Mountains when we were there at the beginning of the month.  It has been parked in this clearing for 6,532 years, although carbon dating places it closer to 7,000.

Wait.

Maybe that's a stretch.

In any case, it's been there a long time.  Long enough for moss to grow on the windows and headlights.  Long enough for the frame of the pickup bed to have rusted away from the cab.  Long enough that the tires are actually planted into the debris-covered ground.  Long enough that the original color is a mystery - everything having changed over to a nice uniform rust.

I imagine that entire chipmunk families have been raised in that truck, returning each year for Thanksgiving feasts of stored acorns, vowing never to sell that property, no matter how high they raise the taxes.  I imagine that the worm colony underneath it reminisces about back in 1960, when the compost layer was only an inch thick and how hard they had to struggle to eat all that hard dirt and turn it into fertile soil and you kids today don't know how good you've got it.

My imagination tends to run away with me.

I'm feeling a bit like this truck today.  I gave my folks and my niece the whirlwind tour of DC, as many stops as possible in as little time as you can manage.  My feet are walked out, my voice tired from talking and directing, my energy waning. 

What I really want to do is pick up a pen and sit down and draw something insignificant and small, and make it larger than life.

So.

That's what I'm going to do now.

Right after my nap.