A Llama, a Rescue, and a Falling Rock

I didn’t expect to race down a hill after someone else’s kid that afternoon. I didn’t plan to almost get beaned in the head by a falling rock, either, but you can’t predict these things.

It was February, and the temperature was cool but not cold, like the weather was trying to compromise between winter and spring. Bobby and I were going hard on the scavenger hunt our young singles church ward had put together. One of the tasks was to take a picture with a llama, so we’d gone up to the Hare Krishna temple, which, for some reason I don’t know, includes a herd of llamas. The llamas ignored us, as did the peacocks perched in the back of a dusty pickup truck. After snapping our pic, we climbed the stairs of the temple to the patio running around the edge. We picked our way around puddles, nodding hello to the girl getting glamor photos done in one of the temple’s small towers.

It was nice to be out and about now that the month-that-shall-not-be-named (January) was over, but I had more on my mind than the view and the 400 points we got for the llama picture.

“We should go to Dripping Rock and do the task to take a picture with a waterfall,” I told Bobby as the breeze nipped our noses. “We’re not that far away, and we’ve been meaning to go there since your sister told us about it. Which was two years ago.”

It being a Sunday afternoon, Bobby was more inclined to relax at home than go gung-ho on points, but he humored me, and we drove out to the trailhead. (Trailhead being a generous term. It was a paved path and supposedly less than a mile round trip.)

Off we went, Bobby armed with his fancy camera in case we came across anything just begging to be photographed. Down a short incline, a river ran parallel to the trail. A family was out for a walk too—a couple with a dog, led by two blonde little boys who kept pedaling back and forth on their bikes, yelling out, “Sorry, I have to pass!” each time they went by us.

All the while, we were on the lookout for Dripping Rock. According to the internet (and Bobby’s sister), it was a rock that hangs over the river and it drips continuously, like a waterfall. We saw a few rocks early into the walk that were dripping, but they didn’t seem far enough along the trail to be Dipping Rock, so we trekked on.

As we went, we crossed two bridges, one of which was a suspension bridge. What, exactly, was a fairly short suspension bridge doing on a small, unassuming trail? We posited it was to teach kids about bridges, but if anyone knows the actual reason, feel free to comment below and tell me.

After a while, we still weren’t finding anything that looked more like Dripping Rock than the rocks at the start of the trail. The trail began to switchback up a hill, and we decided that we’d try a few more bends, then turn around if we didn’t find anything. The river had sunk further down and away from us, and as the trail curved up, a wooden rail protected it from a drop-off to the river. We could hear some faints sounds from the family behind us, but they disappeared out of sight as we hiked up the switchbacks.

“I don’t think we’re going to find it,” Bobby said as we peeked around one more bend.

“You’re probably right.” I turned to face the downhill slope. “Ready to go back?”

“Yeah.”

Somewhere out of sight on the trail, there was a SMACK.

We heard the dad bellow his son’s name.

Bobby and I looked at each other for a split second, then took off down the hill. I yanked my sunglasses from my hair so they wouldn’t fly off, and Bobby’s camera bag thumped against his back.

Had the kid gotten through the rail and gone off the cliff?

Was he in the river?

What we were about to see?

We rounded the switchback and the family came into sight. The dog was standing on the path, forgotten, its leash dragging on the ground. The older boy was still zooming around on his bike. The other—thank goodness—was in his dad’s arms. He was screaming bloody murder, his face pink, but he didn’t seem to have any major injuries. I scooped up the dog’s leash to return as Bobby and I slowed down, trying to catch our breath.

“He ran his bike into the rail,” his mom explained as we got closer. “He was wearing his helmet, so he’s fine, just scared.”

“We’re glad it wasn’t worse,” Bobby said. “We were afraid that we were going to come back and see Dad going over the fence.”

“Honestly,” the mom said, shaking her head, “we’ve been trying to get him to learn to use his brakes for a while now. You don’t like it when they have to learn the hard way, but sometimes, that’s what it takes!”

We exchanged some more pleasantries, then waved good-bye as the son calmed down. Back on our quest to find a waterfall, we determined that Dripping Rock must have been one of the rock we’d seen early on in the hike. When we got back there and got a closer look, it was pretty cool—an overhanging bank dripping continuous, pencil-straight lines of water into the river.

It would make a nice picture, I suggested offhandedly to Bobby. “I mean, you did lug your camera all this way.”

“That’s true.” Bobby pulled out his fancy camera and went to work, hopping across stones in the river to get a good shot. I followed, examining the dripping for myself. The overhanging bank from which the water was dripping was above my head, wet and slick with bright green moss. Some of the dripping ran down the moss and fell from it like long, wet strands of nymph’s hair.

I had my hands in my coat pockets, peering at the muddy, cave-like area under the overhang’s edge and wondering if it would be worth crawling into if it weren’t February and cold, when something hard grazed the side of my head, crashed into my shoulder, and toppled into the river with a plop and the grate that rocks make when they hit each other.

“Oh my gosh.” My shoulder throbbing, I jerked my head up at the overhang to see an indentation the size of both my fists in the mud above my head. “Bobby, I think I just got hit by a falling rock!”

“What?” He turned around. “Sorry, I didn’t see it.”

“I wasn’t even that close to the overhang.” I searched the water, but there were a lot of rocks. No telling which one was the culprit.

“Maybe you should get further away,” Bobby said. “Actually, maybe we should just go. It’s getting cold.”

“Good idea.” I hopped across the rocks and away from the scene of the crime.

While I waited for Bobby to join me, I pressed my shoulder, then grimaced.

“Welp. That’s going to bruise.”