Providence Canyon State Park is touted as one of the seven wonders of Georgia, and it is also called the little “Grand Canyon” of Georgia. However, I know it from a time before it was rich and famous, so to speak. That is, I am not sure if it was a state park back when I visited it, but it sure wasn’t getting the visitor traffic it is today. It is a natural limestone, sand, and clay formation about an hour south of Fort Benning. It is south of Lumpkin, Georgia. Pay attention to that city because there will be a test later. Why did I give you the geography lesson? Good question. Because I wanted to. All seriousness aside, if there wasn’t a story, why bring it up, right? Exactly. Well, as luck would have it, there is a story. One day in a far-off land (Fort Benning), three of my friends and I were trying to come up with an idea to kill time (other than drinking beer). If you’ve read all or most of my posts, you’ve already met one of them. Robert the local yokel from Macon, Georgia. The other two were imports like me, Jim and Mark. Jim knew of this place south of Lumpkin that was made of natural limestone formations and was basically a big waterslide park in rainy weather. He said, “Hey guys, let’s check this place out. The only hitch is either Wright or Bob has to drive because they’re the only two with cars.” Bob said, “I’ll drive if you guys spring for the food and the beer.” We all agreed, so we got some beer and some chips and dips and we were off to Lumpkin. When we got to the canyon, there was this big sign that said stay back from the canyon rim and do not climb over the fence and enter the canyon. Yeah. Right. That was going to happen. Sure. We unloaded the cooler to take with us, then we stopped by the sign to pose for pictures because, of course, we had to capture the moment. You know. Kodak memories and all that. Then, we were off over the fence and into the canyon. We were having one hell of a blast sliding down the canyon walls into the creek, then climbing back up to the canyon rim to do it again. We were getting filthy as hell. About an hour later, we heard someone shouting, “Hey, you there. Hey, boys. You there. You come up here at once. You’re not supposed to be in there.” We all yelled back, “Who’s going to make us get out? You? Why don’t you come down here and make us get out?” Well, then the person finally gave up and went away and we went right back to drinking beer and having a blast. But nothing is ever that easy, is it? Nope. And this situation sure wasn’t either. About a half hour later, a sheriff or state patrol person came by. I’m pretty sure it was a sheriff, but you never know. Anyway, this guy was a prime physical specimen. He was about as big around as he was tall. He yelled at us, “Hey boys. You boys, there. You need to come on up here.” We were thinking, “Yeah, right. So, you can arrest us. Not no, but hell no.” We just said, “Why don’t you come down here and make us? But we gotta warn you, we don’t have any donuts, and it’s a tough climb back to the top of the canyon.” He yelled back, “Trying to play it the hard way, huh? OK. I can wait.” Well he waited up there for us while we hid at the bottom of the canyon for almost an hour before he finally gave up and left. By then, it was getting pretty late. We decided to make a couple more sliding runs before we called it quits. We packed everything up in the car and headed back toward Fort Benning. Along the way, we stopped in Lumpkin to get some fast food. By then it was dark outside as we got back on the road. We were laughing and drinking beer and talking about the good times we had. Little did we know, big trouble was just ahead on the highway. All at once, we saw a sea of taillights. Bob slowed the car down to a stop. What the hell happened. Traffic was slowly inching along up the highway. Every so often a car or two would pass by in the other lane. We thought, there must have been one hell of an accident. Then, we came to a lone patrol car. The patrolman motioned for us to roll down a window. Bob complied. The patrolman said, “Hello boys. Where are you headed?” Bob answered, “Well, sir, we’re headed to Fort Benning.” The officer replied, “Oh, you all soldiers, are you? Well, we got a road block up ahead. We’re looking for a few fellas. It’ll just take a little while.” Once we passed that patrolman, we started panicking. OH, SHIT! They can’t be that serious, can they? A road block? We were up that proverbial creek in that proverbial canoe with no paddle. What the hell were we going to do? We had open containers. We had a cooler of beer that we could NOT make disappear. SHIT. SHIT. SHIT. We were as good as busted. We hid our beer as best as we could and waited for the hammer to fall. When we got up to the road block, it was lit up like a Christmas tree. Lights blazing everywhere. We all screamed, “We’re busted! Shit. Damn.” Cooler heads or head prevailed. Bob said, “Chill guys. I got this.” Let me do all of the talking.” We pulled up to the road block, and the guy in charge asked us where we were going. Bob said, “We’re soldiers, sir. We’re returning to Fort Benning.” The guy in charge asked to see our identification cards so we showed him. Then he told us we were clear. He said they were looking for some fellas that had escaped from the state prison. As we drove off we thought about all that worrying and panicking we had done and realized it was just another exercise in futility.
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