Wednesday, June 9, 2021

Blue Blazes

 

Single blue blaze = side trail, go straight. I remember seeing these on the Appalachian Trail; it's kind of amusing to find them in our little neighborhood park. (There are no white blazes there. Zen koan: can there be a side trail, when there is no main trail?)

Well, it's good to know that, if I keep my wits about me and follow the signs, I won't die of exposure, lost and alone, and be eaten by the crows and feral cats, a hundred yards or more from the nearest road.

5 comments:

The Dude said...

Beech trees are beautiful and I wish people wouldn't carve into their bark.

chickelit said...

Beech trees are beautiful and I wish people wouldn't carve into their bark.

The people from Buchenwald agreee.

chickelit said...

My dad to say “it’s hotter than billy blue blazes” whenever it was exceptionally warm. I have no idea where that idiom cam from.

The Dude said...

The cats eat your eyes,
The crows nibble on your toes,
Snow falling on pines

Calypso Facto said...

I never really knew anything about beech trees, since they only exist (naturally) in Wisconsin near Lake Michigan. But my wife's parents have a beautiful woods full of them. You over on the "Eastern coast" somewhere today, Chick?

The blue paint is at least better than the original trail-marking "blazes" made by cutting a patch of bark off the tree.

I always thought "blue blazes" was a curse euphemism for "Hell", where the fire from sulfuric brimstone of course burns blue. Can't say how Billy got in there though.