Once upon a time, I sold children’s books. Not quite door-to-door, but still small-town elementary school to elementary school: Honaker, VA, Whitebridge, TN, Robbinsville, NC, and dozens of other hamlets off blue highways. It was the perfect job for someone who took himself too seriously post-military service. During these excursions, I discovered the colorfulness of motor court conversations, the delicacies and dangers of down-home cooking, and the fecundity of local curiosities.
Those years of roaming the forgotten byways of the southeast gifted me with visits to the wild ponies of Mt. Rogers, VA, the monks of Gethsemani Abbey, KY, and even the old footpaths of the great Cherokee leader Junaluska near Cheoah, NC. The habits of always keeping a pair of hiking shoes in the back seat and asking, “Where’s a good place to hike around here?” paid dividends for the rest of my life.
A day trip to Hemingway’s grave turned into an alpine jaunt in the Sawtooth Range worthy of my own SNOWS OF KILIMANJARO. A morning coffee with a Big Bend Ranger resulted in directions to the unmarked Cattail Falls, and an idle conversation at Radio Coffee in South Austin led to a close encounter with a wild robot.
Even in a world full of QR codes and All Trails apps, it pays to talk to locals. Lots of us head to Austin to hike the Barton Creek Greenbelt or McKinney Falls State Park, but this year, as you head to the Evangeline Cafe for Mardi Gras, check out the nearby Stephenson Nature Preserve.
The 160-acre nature preserve resides next to the Kincheonville neighborhood of South Austin, named for Thomas Kincheon, a formerly enslaved person who established an integrated neighborhood all the way back in 1865. Longview Park serves as the primary entrance to the trails while also offering a small playground, a fair basketball court, and a fantastic dog romping field.
Entrance trails abound by the playground, behind the backstop, and on the far side of the open field, yet none of them are officially marked. In fact, there are no trail markers at all in Stephenson Nature Preserve; you simply have to wander in and see where your feet take you. This unmarked nature can frustrate at first, but as you meander deeper into the preserve, a true sense of wildness prevails, a rare and welcome quality these days.
Finally, as you wander in this urban wilderness, keep your eyes peeled for little works of wonder. A park bench stands alone like a lamppost in Narnia. A sprocket cross memorializes a fallen mountain biker, and a wild robot roams the trails, bringing a sense of magic and delight to all who pass by.
