Day: August 7, 2025

I was thinking how many things have changed since I was a kid coming up here along Partridge Run Road with Grandpa in his AMC Eagle and later my Plymouth Sundance upon graduating High School and into college. More and more roads washed out, gated and closed, especially after Hurricane Irene.

I do miss driving back here though it makes for quieter walks and now with the mountain bike I can ride about as fast as you could ever drive the old road. And it’s a lot easier to stop wherever you want. Spent a lot of time reading and thinking by these waterfalls, some good times and bad getting my car and later my truck stuck up here. Days skiing and hiking, riding and exploring all there is to be found in the woods. Truth is this country is a lot of who I became.

Spent many of my younger years in the Plymouth Sundance and later the little Ford Ranger exploring these back roads. Some to spot burn barrels and rednecks burning their garbage but also to see what is out there. The old rundown trailers with the goats and hogs penned up out back, the junk cars and other debris. The deer hanging from the tree, the smell of silage and kerosene in the winter. Not too different than the neighborhood I grew up in. I don’t think there is a dirt or country road within twenty miles of Partridge Run that I didn’t drive seeking out that special place or flicker of a fire around dusk as those wrappers melted away with that pungent smell.

Truth is that I should get out to the hill towns a lot more then I do but my big jacked up truck is expensive to drive and I often prefer to go to the Adirondacks or other more remote country. I’ve certainly studied land and houses out this way to build my off-grid homestead as I like the country but it still seems a bit too urban and densely populated as, I’ve discovered more wild country Plus you all know my thoughts about the laws and policies of New York State. And the environmentalist culture that seems so distant from the actual wilderness.

Partridge Run and the Heldebergs really are a small part of a much larger world all around us.