Beech Fork State Park, West Virginia

Thursday May 2, Barboursville WV, 9:17AM

Tripometer - 300 miles

God Makes the Rivers to Flow - an excerpt from The Rig Veda translated by Eknath Easwaran

God makes the rivers to flow. They tire not, nor

do they cease from flowing. May the river of my

life flow into the sea of love that is the Lord.

May I overcome all the impediments in my course.

May the thread of my song be not cut before my

life merges in the sea of love.

Yesterday, May 1, was the start of our trip as well as Beltane - more commonly recognized as May Day in the USA. It is the Celtic cross quarter holiday that celebrates the beginning of summer. The Summer Solstice, in contrast, is when we are fully enveloped in the season.

This is a new campground for us but yesterday we traveled mostly through the "known" -- areas that we have some intimacy with through previous travel in Virginia and West Virginia. When I was a kid growing up outside St. Louis I used to relish looking out the back seat car window whenever we crossed a bridge because I was nearly certain of what I would see...rivers, streams and creeks below. When I was 14 years old we moved to the Virginia suburbs of Washington DC and I remember being at first put off by my new surroundings. Whenever we crossed a bridge I would look out the car window in anticipation, but usually find that we were on an overpass and there was only another road below us.

Yesterday was a drive filled with bountiful water crossings. A few highlights were:

• Maury River near Lexington VA

• Greenbrier River near Lewisburg WV

• New River near the newly minted New River Gorge National Park

• Kanawha River near Charleston WV, the State Capitol

We are camping on the banks of Beech Fork Lake, a 720 acre lake that is fed by Twelvepole Creek and was created by the Army Corps of Engineers in the 1970's.