Again with the "Road Less Traveled" Theme...
Backroads To Danger
Eric Renderking Fisk - April 20th, 2011 
Before I write my rant about The Brooks House Fire and how It’s
affected me and my home town, I wanted to present some visual sorbet for
the intellectual palette.
If there’s only one message I want people to take away from The Fedora Chronicles is this: Shut off the computer and put the Smart Phone in your pocket, Get off the couch or chair in front of your computer. Put on your fedora and coat, grab your camera and go out there and do something worth posting about. If you insist on bringing your smart phone like I do, be sure to commit to only using it to take photos and notes and contact the rest of the world in the event of an emergency. Smart Phones are the best way to get information about what you’re doing out into the Internet quickly so you can share your adventures.
Go out and do something and report back what you did and prove to the
rest of the world that there’s a reason why our site is called “The
Fedora Chronicles.” Find those exotic locations that I know are in our
backyards or forgotten corners of our home towns.
After taking pictures and notes about The Brooks House Fire in my home town of Brattleboro Vermont I was in a race with my wife to see who would get home first, both of us coming from almost opposite directions. After getting off the highway and on to Putney Road, I knew that the way through town was blocked thanks to the fire trucks who were still performing their vigil on Main Street a few miles back down the road. I started to take another route back home that would have taken me on roads I was already familiar with. I turned off a strange road I hadn’t been on in over twenty years right after I crossed the Connecticut River and I told Garmin to take us home the shortest distance.
The results were pretty sketchy since we drove down roads that were slick with mud and rarely maintained. We passed by water falls, streams, forests and vast fields that I don’t think I’ve ever seen before, and I had lived in this region most of my life. There were sections of the roads we traveled hadn’t seen a laborer's hand or chainsaw blade in decades or even a century, this is what this region might have looked like when the first English speaking explorers ventured out this way. There was the adrenaline rush knowing that if anything happened the chances of finding help immediately were pretty remote, help would come but maybe not fast enough.
Being out there on this new-to-me road helped ease some of the grief I felt after seeing the remains of a fire, and made me feel more alive than I've felt since I broke a bone in my back almost 2 months ago. Travels and adventures make me feel more like normal person and more alive.
All of this adventure and it was only a couple of miles away from the nearest pavement and where I called home. Most people are under the mistaken impression that they have to go to other parts of the country or even the world to find exotic locations and to feel more alive, I say that for the most part that’s false since I found this road that was unexplored by me until now.
There are adventures to be found everywhere, historical land marks, abandoned villages, or just shops and ethnic restaurants you didn’t even know existed mere miles from where you’re sitting now. If you doubt me, try and prove it; I’ll bet you’ll be surprised. At the very least you’ll be getting every ounce of life out of the region where you live if you just branch outwards.
What’s waiting for you? I hope you’ll get out there and find out.
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