A moment in Sleepy Hollow

In my free time I've started moonlighting as a florist delivery person. Maybe I'll tell you more about it some time; for now, suffice it to say it has great emotional pay.  Anyway, on Saturday while out and about, I had this magical little adventure.

It turns out that Sleepy Hollow Road does not connect to West Sleepy Hollow Road--even though all the maps show it connecting. So, I went up Sleepy Hollow Road and got a bit lost. The snow that wasn't sticking in the roads below was sticking now because I was up the mountains a little and I was on a dirt road.

I went up the road that most looked like the map--not it.  In fact, it ended up being a crazy steep hill up to someone's empty house and then a dead-end. The delivery van just powered up on up there--and boy! was I glad, because I had no phone service and no idea what I'd do if the van got stuck in the snow. So then I turned around and came back.

Both up and back it was gloriously, magically beautiful. The woods in the Vermont mountains, snow on the ground, a dusting of snow on evergreens, more lightly falling snow falling. Gorgeous. At one point I got out, turned off the van and listened to the silence and soaked in the beauty. It was only a moment, but moments like those fill and heal my soul.

Then, I got back down to Sleepy Hollow Road and what do I see walking down it? An elf! Okay, not quite. But there's this old man in knee breeches, with buckles, an old-fashioned coat, gloves on a string, etc. And when I stopped to ask him about the West road, he had a delightful British accent of some sort. Irish? Welsh? I don't know my accents, so I don't know. But I truly felt like I'd gone back into time and into a story book. It was awesome.

And then a few minutes later I was back delivering flowers to a very modern house in a very modern subdivision. Mixing the two Irving stories together, I felt like my time in Sleepy Hollow was the opposite of Rip Van Winkle's trip up the hill--though only about 15 minutes passed, I felt I'd been gone for hours.

I love the glories of nature and all the fun oddities that make the world interesting!