from John Prine's "Paradise" (1971):

Well sometimes we'd travel right down the Green River
To the abandoned old prison down by Adrie Hill
Where the air smelled like snakes, And we'd shoot with our pistols
But empty pop bottles Was all we would kill.

These are some of the most vividly descriptive words I know. I was driving through western Kentucky a couple years ago, and I just had to hike a trail I found near the Green River. It was in Mammoth Cave National Park, high above the river in a lush, overgrown area that has sinkholes all around. Yes, it DID smell like snakes there and I was halfway scared out of my wits to walk alone, but it was beautiful.

-Joe-