Finding that "vision Thing"

When I was a kid, I remember taking a field trip to this cool place hidden on the Puget Sound between Des Moines and Redondo Beach, Washington. Called Saltwater State Park, it was a place of vast beaches and cool playground equipment and views that seemed to go on forever.

One thing that I still remember from those long ago days was a section of pavement that seemed to be an abandoned road that slipped right into the middle of the water. It wasn't a boat ramp either. I knew this because that old road still had fading pavement markings on it and sigh posts hinting at direction. Laid across the pebbles one expansion joint at a time, although the highway seeming long abandoned, that concrete hinted at an important old route. One that split all that salt water in half, destination Vashon Island. A place that in those days seemed almost forever away.

My classmates and I pondered this piece of old concrete highway, we running along those edges as the sea gulls circled overhead, daring the world and the wind to stop us before the tides erased our route. It was a magical time in my life. As a little kid, it seemed entirely possible that at one time a highway had crossed that huge inland sea without aid of bridge or tunnel. That somehow once upon a time concrete overcame the tides and salt water and deep depths of former glacier carvings that were now overtaken by the bay. That man could create such a byway did not seem unrealistic.

I believed with all my heart that the road was real. So did my friends. We did not question the possibilities.

I'd like to look at the world in that same way these days. With that innocent belief and a hope that no matter how cynical the world seems, that routes not yet explained exist still the same.

In the minds of boys, I remember a time when without consequence old byways surely once conquered the sea.

As an adult, I know my classmates and I were misguided. Alas, the deck was so stacked against such a possibility- as if trucks and autos and all other vehicles once rolled across the sound.

But as children we were far so ahead of adult humanity. We could accept wonder without question.

We could see possibility where none existed.

We could relax and dream and believe the impossible.

I'd sure like expereince a few more instances where illumination overcomes my skepticism. Where youth trumps adulthood. I suppose I need to return to Salt Water State Park. Just to see if any trace of that highway remains. And to retrace that wise path across the barriers of disbelief.