Holding my phone camera to the passenger side window of Betsy the Nissan pickup. See the side view mirror. That’s straight down about 500 feet. You have to know that the trees here are abnormally tall, often 75-100 feet, with White Pines easily growing to 130 feet. The purple stole you see in the reflection of the window is extra long, which I had made specifically for exorcisms. It has the JPII Cross and M. Here’s the same place looking ahead:
And here’s a close up of where not to put your tire: just air for 500 feet.
A car passed at this curve and I overheard, “Don’t be scared!” I love it.
Before this point, there’s this, most of the way down, but still two miles so steep there’s a mandatory truck info pull off at the top and a number of emergency truck ramps on the way down.
Meanwhile, Betsy the Nissan Pickup was overheating repeatedly. That was fixed by my neighbor when I met him in town. Thanks!
On the way back, there was this, worse than ever. You know it has to just collapse and avalanche down hundreds of feet into a reservoir sooner than later. It seems to have a foundation of sand over slippery bed rock.
Oh, and the exorcism? That went very smoothly, thanks be to God and Saint Michael the Archangel. I still have to resurrect the series of on exorcism, 40 some articles as I recall.
Sometimes my outings bring me to places where I wish I had a dog for protection, like if I break down (that happens quite a bit). Some of the places are really remote. The rescued puppy might not cut it in some of the more difficult situations that I had to hesitate to go into but did. We had some small dogs, and some bigger ones when I was a kid. I know, I know, I should just trust, right?
Anyway, what if I did have a German Shepherd that rode along on these trips, and stayed in the bed of the truck chained from a shoulder harness to the center of the back of the cab with enough leeway to put their nose to the wind, I wonder if that would work, like at a supermarket. Someone said that people steal dogs around these parts for illegal dog fight gambling. And there is, in fact, a lot of that. I wonder if there are lockable leashes for just such a scenario. The orange dog is going to be shipped up to Connecticut for… um…
ARISE! LET US BE GOING! 
So Father George, what were you not going to tell us about the orange dog?…lol
Thank goodness you have St. Michael as your protector. Safe journey…
If Father hesitates to say, then I don’t want to know.
Your rectory isn’t in CT.
Glad you plan to bring back the exorcism series.
I did not have the benefit of reading your prior blog, but something tells me you and Laudie-dog are kindred spirits….she would have really enjoyed that drive…..not me, ugh.
I am sad that people cannot now read the exquisitely, excruciatingly awesome Holy Souls Hermitage blog. It was a real experience, and as an experience it had a present-moment impact (“Father is freezing cold and ill and has a gruesome brown recluse bite and does not have money for necessary things like food! Ah, but the Traditional Latin Mass at dawn facing the sunrise, and the hoarfrost, the brave rooster, and the flowers, and the joyful Laudie-dog!”) that would be a little different than the impact it would have on people reading it now.
For me quite individually a part of the great personal value of Holy Souls Hermitage blog is that I was deeply obsessed with Thoreau’s _Walden_ as an adolescent (beginning in 6th grade and for quite a few years after, a time when I fell into atheism and/or a kind of nature mysticism) and though it’s not that I was comparing it to Walden, my mind and soul were just deeply predisposed to find the more immediate, and more philosophically and religiously complete experience of Holy Souls Hermitage in no uncertain terms deeply delightful. And Fr George was so friendly, kind and happy to include us as if we participated in a way (of course we did not only talk with him on the blog but “force” some donations on him so he would not starve). I was already returned to the Church and a devout Catholic when I came across HSH blog via Father Z’s blog, so it’s not that HSH blog converted me or something, but I think I can see how through it God reached some things inside of me that needed healing and setting right. That’s the best I know how to say it, not that anyone asked me, but Monica’s comment got me thinking back and remembering Holy Souls Hermitage very fondly, which was also so much more than what I am describing.
Elizdelphi – I too remember the HSH blog and followed Fr George’s adventures up there often with fear and trepidation as to what his posts would bring. Previously I also followed his blog written in Lourdes and illustrated with so many beautiful photographs.
I once was under the impression that everything put on the internet remained there for ever but sadly this is not the case.