Appalachian Walkabout: Down in the Ditches
A trip I took in the summer of 1996
Chad Hellwinckel
“Do you feed that dog?”, yelled a gray haired women out of her store-front in downtown Shelby, North Carolina. She was approaching us quickly, shaming me with her finger and firing questions. “Do you need some money to feed her?”, “When was the last time she had a meal?”, “Are you crazy?”.
‘Maybe’, I thought. Sally, my dog, and I had been on the road walking for 16 days and we both looked a little underfed. This was not the first time someone had questioned my dog-master role and I was ready with the standard answer, “She gets two cans of Alpo a day and all the dry dog food she wants…that’s what she’s carrying in her backpack. She’s part greyhound, that’s why she looks so skinny.” But my answer didn’t satisfy her. Her voice rose, “You should be ashamed of yourself. If you want to live this way, that’s your choice, but she didn’t have any choice. I’m getting her a good meal!” At that she went into the cafe next door and brought out a full southern meal; Roast beef, potatoes and gravy, okra, beans, and corn bread and plopped it all down on the sidewalk for Sally to devour. While I stood there hungrily grinning at Sally, I realized that this was the first time I had ever been envious of a dog’s meal.
Credit: Tracie Hartman
Sally and I began our journey two weeks before. I walked out the front door of my Knoxville, Tennessee home with a forty pound backpack, new shoes and a rope leash for Sally. My heart was pounding with an unknown mixture of fear and wonder. Here I was, actually doing it, taking the first steps toward my destination-the Atlantic Ocean some 600 miles away and a new life of living on the road. I was leaving home to change the pattern my life had become. People would ask me, what terrible thing happened that made you leave home, but I didn’t really have the blues. If I had the blues, I would at least have felt something, but I just felt dull, lifeless, and discontent. Life was railroading me onto those long monotonous tracks of a career. I felt the solution was to give it all up and hit the road. . . at least for awhile.
I planned on taking a few short trails off the road to cut corners, but most of the trip would be walking back highways through the mountains, farm country and small towns of the South. Sally couldn’t believe it either. I think she thought we were just going to the local park, but we passed the park , and she gave me a look I would become familiar with over the next few days. A look that said, “What?. . . Further?”
That first day I walked down the familiar back roads of the Tennessee Valley. Twisting through and foothills toward the Smoky Mountains. It was a Sunday and that afternoon I came upon a baptism in the Little River. I was in need of a rest, so I took off my pack and sat in the back of the congregation who were spread out on the river bank sitting in folding chairs and laying on blankets. We were all watching an older women with hands raised heavenward and eyes closed being held by three large southern men. One of them, probably the minister, was shouting out that the holy spirit was about to enter her body. Then everybody stopped talking and there was a long moment with only the sound of the running river breaking the silence, before the woman was dunked deep and long. When she emerged, the three southern men exchanged “alleluias” and high fives and all the onlookers on the bank cheered. If it weren’t for the lack of orange, I’d had thought I was at a Tennessee Vol’s football game. The next to be baptized was a teenage boy. The ministers were preparing him to go under by reading scriptures while he stood in the waist high water with his eyes closed and arms folded across his heart. Then he took a big gulp of air and the big southern ministers pushed him back into the water. When he came up, he didn’t give the usual alleluia or smile heavenwards. No, his eyes rolled up until only white could be seen, foam came out of his mouth and his body shook like in a seizure. I worried that I may have to use my CPR training, but when I looked around everyone else was happy and singing. It seemed as if they had seen reactions like his before. The kids who gathered around me were starting to make quite a bit of noise by chasing Sally around, so I put on my pack and headed down the road again.
We continued walking until the sun set. I had made it all the way to the foot of the Smoky Mountains that night, and in a state of panic about where to sleep, I wandered through a poison-ivy patch which would plague me for the next week and a half. That night was a fearful sleepless night. I had been on extended camping trips in the wilderness alone before, but the loneliness I felt that night I’d never felt before. I would not wish that empty pain on my worst enemy, well, at least not for very long. I think it was the fear of all the unknowns in front of me and all the love and safety behind me. In the wilderness, I knew what to expect. I had my food packed, I had my path picked, and I knew the precautions to take against animals and the weather. But this trip was on the road, going from Knoxville to the Atlantic in the most direct route. Wilderness served its purpose for peaceful escape, but this time, I wanted to see the reality of the greater wilderness of America in 1996 with all its beauty and ugliness. I lay awake that night worrying about the most dangerous animal, humans, and the millions of them between me, hid away at the western slope of the Appalachians, and those lonely waves breaking into North America on the outer banks of the eastern flood plain.
Because I was bringing Sally, we couldn’t travel through Smoky Mountain National Park, which would have been the most direct route (no dogs allowed!). We took the southern route around the park. The weather turned unusually cold and rainy the next day. After spending the morning hiking up the foothills parkway in the cold rain, I met a park camp-host named Vince, his wife and two grandchildren. They offered Sally some water and me a warm bowl of chicken noodle soup. The soup warmed me from the 50F temperature and Vince and I talked about my trip, his life and retirement plans and loneliness. “Hang in there, the first week will be hell, and then you’ll get used to it.” That afternoon the rain stopped and the clouds broke. I was walking through a place called Happy Valley and was feeling good. The sun warmed my skin and I waved to the people out in their yards in this hidden Appalachian community. I thought about all the stereotypes of inbred country folk with a gun on their lap and a leering eye toward strangers. It seemed comical next to these strong friendly people smiling and waving back at me. Four people that afternoon came out and asked if I was a lost hiker from the park. One elderly man, who couldn’t walk well, drove his car down the driveway just to say ‘hi’ and ask if I needed help. The community of Happy Valley was the epitome of what I hoped just may exist out here on the back roads of America. That night I slept on the only flat ground I could find; an old abandoned cemetery from the last century. I tried not to lay my bag over anyone’s remains, but who knows, I did sleep very soundly that night. Even the sound of a women screaming did not wake me for long (I found out later it was a bird). I had been walking about 25 miles a day those first couple of days out. A speed that began to cause problems.
The next morning I was up early and walking my most painful mile yet. My leg and foot muscles had tightened over night and I was limping badly. Every morning would be somewhat painful for the rest of the trip. The only cure was walking the first couple of miles until the muscles loosened. As we were hiking up highway 129 south of the park, I noticed that Sally was also limping. She had split open a paw, and I decided I’d call a friend to come pick her up. We walked to the nearest phone, which was eleven miles up a 2,500 foot pass on the twistiest road I’ve ever seen. On weekends this road is crawling with crotch-rocket motorcyclists trying to break the unofficial record from “Deals Gap” on the top where the phone was, to Chilhowee Lake on the bottom, were I was. Luckily it was a weekday and there wasn’t too much traffic. By the time I reached the top my feet, too, were blistered and raw. I called my girlfriends brother, Paul, to come and pick Sally up. We had a two hour wait so I stretched out on a picnic table to rest at the “Motorcycle Motel and Gas Station” and watched a few bikes come in and take off around the bend. The owner of the place came out to see Sally. He was an aging man, smelling of Old-Spice and Rum. He was friendly enough at first, though not a very good listener and he lectured mostly on what kind of dog Sally was, which is a favorite topic of Southerners. But his mood swung quickly at some point, possibly linked to the rum-smell. For some reason he thought I was going through the Park with my dog, and the more I tried to tell him that was not my intention, the more emphatic and violent he got about telling me how stupid I was. I got up and left when he said ” Those rangers will shoot your dog and you too! Do you understand what I’m saying boy!” I feared he was going to save the rangers the trouble and shoot me himself. Paul finally arrived and Sally was shuttled off back home to rest and recover and I was left to walk alone.
Over the next few days the loneliness subsided and the pain in my feet grew. Maybe the pain had become a companion and I was no longer alone. I walked down highway 28 to Lake Fontana dam where I stayed in a comfortable Appalachian Trail shelter for a night and took a hot shower in the morning! I met a construction worker at the bath-house who was building condos on the lakeside. We talked for awhile and when I told him what I was up to he said, “those are some wild ways man…wild ways!” Over the next few days of winding myself around the fingers of Lake Fontana, I’d see him pass by on the way to work or getting supplies and he’d honk and yell a few words of encouragement, “Hey Wildman, keep walking!”
The mountains south of Lake Fontana are sparsely populated and I was walking down a practically deserted highway, though the small communities of Tuskeegee, Hidetown, Brock, and Almond. I did not see one open restaurant in three days of walking, so most of my food came from gas stations. I’d spread my gear out on the side of a station and go in and buy one thing at a time (because I didn’t want to be stuck with extra weight). I think this worked well for meeting locals, because very time I’d return for another speck of food the owners would become more friendly. I quickly became a regular and questions were asked and jokes were told, but whenever a ‘new’ stranger would come in to pay for gas, the smiles would disappear and they’d become very quiet with the stranger. It was easy to see how these mountain communities got there reputation. The traffic started to pick up as I approached Bryson City and my feet were really hurting by this point. I just wanted to make it to town and then I’d rest for a day and eat some good food. A warm meal was my main goal heading into Bryson City. I knew my excitement for walking had pushed me too fast and I resolved to slow it down after Bryson City.
I wobbled into town and asked somebody where I could get a lot of hot good food. Ma’ Barker’s was the place to go. I ordered up fried chicken, mashed potatoes, beans, corn bread and iced tea and ate it down smiling at all the faces around me. I felt overjoyed with life and I wanted to share it with others. It was only noon, so I spent the day wandering around this tourist town watching people and talking to whoever I met. I sat for awhile with P.K. Parker, an 88 year old retired railroad worker who had worked on the railroad in Bryson City in the 20’s and wound up moving back after a 60 year absence. Now he works for the same railroad again, only now it takes tourists up a down a small mountain stretch for $17 a pop. He advised me to go into computers, “The future will be in computers.” I sat down at the station and listened to a local Bluegrass band playing songs about walking blues and love. As they played, I sat and looked up at the mountains. My girlfriend, Corey, my friends and home were on the other side of them. I looked at my bone-aching feet that carried me away. Then I looked at a family of bored looking tourists waiting for their train and then over at the 88 year old parking cars. It all mixed together in sad beauty, but it was life and I was seeing it.
I rested for another day in Bryson City, thanks to the gracious help of Mike Harris who helps his aunt run the Rosehill Motel. He stopped me on the way out of town and asked where I was going to sleep that night. When I told him I don’t have the kind of money to stay in a tourist-town, he asked, ” I run that motel you just passed, how much do you want to pay?”
“I’ll give you 25 dollars”
“Done”, said Mike.
I spent that day watching cable TV, repairing my feet, treating my poison ivy and rocking in the front porch chair talking with Mike. He’s a college student in Miami, up for the summer helping his aunt. He had worked in a posh Hotel in Miami, pampering the rich and famous. I think my sore blistered pusing feet were a new one for him. He told me some stories of the arrogance of wealth, “Sting’s an asshole”, he confided.
I felt fresh after my rest in Bryson City and it felt good to be moving again. But my high spirits ran into low wires when I entered the Cherokee reservation. I had been to Pigeon forge, on the other side of the park, and thought that it was the tacky capital of the world, with all its mini-golf coarses, go-cart race tracks and ceramic pigs, but Cherokee took the title away, no contest. I wove my way past the plastic tomahawks, headdresses and totem poles. I accidentally bumped into a Cherokee “chief” with his full formal dress on and a sign advertising, “Get your picture taken with the Chief!” I excused myself for bumping him and he answered “That’s all right, buddy” in a thick southern accent. I decided not to linger long on ‘cultural genocide’ avenue and picked up my pace, making sure to walk a wide circle around the Indian pow-wow in full progress in the Subway parking lot. It was a couple of miles out of the corroded heart of Cherokee, and just when I thought I was out of the worst, when I approached “Santa Land”, a year round Christmas theme park. It took me 20 minutes to walk the length of its Reindeer roller coaster and parking lot with “White Christmas” and “Winter Wonderland” blaring out into the 90 plus degree August heat.
Farther up the road I approached a group of 20-30 guys spending their Saturday afternoon drinking and smoking. They were about 15 yards away and on the other side of a small creek, and I hoped I would pass without them noticing me, but no such luck. Out of the corner of my eye I could see all heads turn toward me and the rock music was turned down. “Oh shit,” I told myself, “Don’t panic”, as I felt in my pocket for the pepper spray. When they started yelling at me, I lifted my eye’s from the road and let them fall on the crowd for one second and waved and said “Howdy!” with a big smile. Walking briskly, I did not look back until my heart had been swallowed again. The encounter spooked me enough so that I didn’t want to just camp off in the woods that night. I walked into “Little John’s” campground for the night. The old couple who ran the campground still spoke their native language to each other and we stood by a small creek talking about my trip. When I offered to help split wood the old women said pointing to her husband, ” oh no, he’ll split it. But it may take a little while, he’s had two strokes, one on each side.” He did swing a little slow, but he hit the logs right on and the wood split clean.
After two days of walking highway 19 over the pass and through Maggie Valley and Lake Junaluska, I was entering Canton, North Carolina. Home of the Champion paper mill which I heard so much about back in Tennessee. It is infamous for it’s long history of polluting the Pigeon River, turning the water black as it leaves Canton on its way to Tennessee. The Pigeon River flows out of North Carolina and into Tennessee to meet up with the Holdson River, eventually reaching the Tennessee River which flows by Knoxville and home. Needless to say, Tennesseans don’t like this paper mill much. Seeing it in person didn’t help my negative bias. It’s a monstrous congregation of steel, smoke stacks, logs and sawdust. The smoke stacks spew foul air into the desolate decaying downtown streets. Canton truly looked and smelled poisoned. It was getting dark and I went into a gas station to get some water and ask directions to a cheap motel. The attendant had a swastika tattooed on his forehead and looked embarrassed about it. For some reason I believed it was a mistake caused by a drunken night years ago, and that he was working in this station to save up money to get it removed. But maybe I tend to assume the best of people. He volunteered, “I ain’t seen nobody ever drink the water here, see, it’s brown.” I decided I wasn’t so thirsty.
“Is there a cheap motel downtown?”, I asked.
“Just that place across the street”, he pointed.
The building was old and falling apart like the rest of downtown. The only indication it was a motel was small lettering in the window that read “ROOMS”. I walked in the front door and into the lobby. “Hello? Is anybody here?” Nobody came. The lobby had the decor of the 1920’s. The old chairs, coffee tables, mirrors, and mantles were covered by a thick layer of dust. It was a dismal place, but just when I was turning around to find a nice school yard to sleep in, a man popped into the room. “Come on back here”, he motioned. I followed him into another room. He was a thin-skinned 60ish man with an “I just swallowed the canary” grin on his face. “Are you the manager?” I asked. “Nope, she is” I followed his boney finger over to a very large women. No, a huge women prostrated in a reclining chair with a blanket over her (it was over 90 degrees!) and eating chicken.
“If you want a room, its $10 a night”, she said.
“Can I see a room first?”
“Bill, show him number 22”, she demanded.
“Number 22? Isn’t that Hank’s room?”, he replied.
“No, THEY took him away this morning”, she explained. “I haven’t had a chance yet to wash the sheets. You need a blanket or something?”, she asked me.
I followed Bill up the stairs to the room. It had a bed, unmade, a sink with stains from the brown water, and a broken mirror. Thoughts of lice and fire rejuvenated my walking feet.
“Bill, no offense, but I think I’m going to try my luck outside tonight, you know, under the stars.”
Bill was not offended and even gave me some advice on walking the roads, ” Always walk facing traffic.”
By now it had turned pretty dark and I still didn’t know where I was going to sleep. I stopped and put my wits together. I learned that the best thing to do when I start to feel panicky is not to think, but just watch closely and trust my eyes lead to me. I began hunting for a safe place to sleep, following the unnamed subtleties.
Up a side street, I saw an open field next to a house with a few people laughing on the porch. I started up the drive toward the house to ask if I could camp in the field. Renee, the owner of the house met me half way up and after giving me the once over to make sure I wasn’t an axe murderer, invited me up to the house for some watermelon. A few couples and their kids where eating and talking up on the porch. They had just gotten done with a Bible study session and seemed to be excited about being a ‘witness’ for me. Their group was called ‘The Way’ and they were thrilled that a ‘pilgrim’ had come to stay with them.
“Do you read the Bible?” a man asked.
‘Oh boy,’ I thought, ‘this day just keeps on going!’
“A little”, I said, and then the group informed me of God’s true message, the powers we can call on god for, Jesus’ purpose, and the coming kingdom for the next hour or so while I ate cake and watermelon and drank iced tea. Usually, I was up for a good religious talk, but these people were out of my league and my dreams and their lecture were getting mixed up.
“Jesus is not God, and should not be worshiped as one…”, someone said.
Then I’d lapse into a momentary dream on the porch… I met Jesus in his sandals on the street and he offered me a smoke and tells me that there factory really stinks…then I jar awake again and node my head. The guests eventually tired themselves and leave, and Renee tells me I can pitch my tent in the backyard. I fall asleep quickly knowing that I’m safe and thankful for kind trusting people that will take in a crazy eyed, smelly ‘pilgrim’.
In the morning she fed me breakfast and after her kids went off to school, we got out the bible and read a little together before I headed out for Asheville. I was anxious to get to Asheville because I was to meet my friend, Corey, there. We planned on spending a day together eating and drinking our way around that hippie town. It had only been two weeks since we’d parted, but the promise of her at the end of the day propelled me to walk those 25 miles at record speed. My feet were getting broken in. She was also bringing Sally to rejoin me.
That day I walked the remaining 25 miles up highway 19 and into Asheville. I struggled through the sprawl of outer Asheville (which, like most urban development built after the 60’s, has no sidewalks) and into the downtown motel where Corey and I planned to meet. Two minutes later Corey drove in. When I saw her, I began to cry. I had been over the loneliness of the road for awhile now, but seeing her brought a swell of emotion up that had been kept very low and hidden away. I believe I suffer from a common human affliction; I’m love-farsighted. I don’t fully comprehend the love of another when I’m with that person. It takes the stress of distance for me to see the love. We spent the next day with each other. Our favorite spot, which we discovered on a previous weekend trip, is Barley’s Taproom, and we spent alot of time drinking Highlander Porter and eating banana pepper and sausage pizza. Sally was out front getting unrelenting attention from a throng of hippies who were feeding her leftover pizza to try to fatten her up (a futile effort). Before I knew it, our time together was at an end. We said sad goodbyes the next morning and Sally and I continued eastward.
I managed to get through the tangle of freeways dividing Asheville from the greater world and got onto Old Highway 74. I was approaching the eastern continental divide, something I did not even know existed before I saw it on my map. A mailman stopped in the little town of Fairview and asked if I needed a ride. I told him thank you, but I was walking, and then he offered to let me camp in a field by his house five miles up the road. His name was Franklin and he gave me directions to the place. It was the best camping spot so far on the trip. I had to walk down small back roads and all the neighbors came out and asked where I was headed. One even suggested I take a bath in his pond. I didn’t know how to take that offer. Franklin’s house was hidden up a little dirt road and over a mountain creek. I pealed off the road as the directions said, hiked a few hundred yards, and found the small meadow with a black walnut tree standing alone in the middle . It was still only 4:00 in the afternoon, so I unrolled my bedroll and spent the remaining hours of the day just watching the meadow; the insects, the flowers, the trees and the birds. There was a small creek running beside the meadow and I listened to its cool water and far away thunder. It was a peaceful time. As the sun was setting, I saw a spider put up its web for the night. I followed by getting out my sleeping bag and falling asleep. Franklin and two of his boys came up sometime after dark to check on me. The kids wanted to know why I was walking so far. I think I mumbled something about seeing stuff. Franklin suggested I take an alternate route in the morning.
Franklin clearly explained, “Follow this stream up to the gap, that’d be the continental divide. Then follow the path and stay on the ridge. Always take right turns. Never go left. Follow that for about 8 miles, then you’ll hit a road that’ll take you back out to the main highway.”
At least that’s what I remember him saying. It wasn’t as simple as Franklin put it. Sally loved being off the leash and I loved being away from cars for awhile. We followed the stream up to the divide and I found the jeep trail Franklin was talking about and hopped right over the ‘No Trespassing’ sign, trusting Franklin’s prediction that I “shouldn’t have any trouble”. A few miles down the path a 4X4 truck passed me with a David Duke sticker on the bumper and two guns in the rack. I waved, but the men inside didn’t return the neighborly gesture. At some point I had made a wrong turn. I knew this because the trail had vanished and I was struggling through thickets and young trees. Eastern forests are tough off the trail. I dreaded the thought of backtracking the hours of trail I had gone, so I pushed on relying on my map and compass. After about an hour of struggling through the forest I broke out into a wide field and those growing worries subsided. Sally loved being free of the pricking bushes and showed her happiness by chasing a couple of Killdeer in circles. I followed the field out to a small road that eventually took me out to old highway 74 again.
I was finally out of the mountains, but with the Piedmonts came something I did not expect; cars. Lots and lots of cars and very narrow roads. I had grown up in Kansas, where even the dirt roads are wide enough for two combines to pass each other. I wrongly expected at least a small median for heavily traveled roads. The next few days were spent struggling through the tall ditch grass, avoiding cars, and trying to keep Sally walking behind me. She’s very persistent about being in front. I walked through the towns of Bat Cave, Greenhill, Spindale, and Forest City.
In this populated area, I found out that rural volunteer fire stations are a great place for wayward travelers. Seemingly by accident, I kept running into volunteer firemen that let me camp in the yards of their stations. One very hot afternoon between Forest City and Ellenboro, Sally was just quitting on me. Every time we passed a patch of shade, she’d lay down panting and giving me a look that was saying, “don’t you dare make me walk any further”. I relented and walked up to a used car dealership for some water and met Reece Hammond. He invited us into the air conditioned office where Sally immediately plopped down on a cooling vent. Reece got Sally some food and I visited with him and the rest of the employees there. Reece is the fire chief in Ellenboro and invited me to sleep in the station yard that night. After a good rest, we hiked into town, ate at the local diner and met Reece at the station. We sat in the station and talked about the history of the volunteer department, the fire trucks and the local community. I spent the night in Ellenboro’s town hall yard under the stars. It seemed like a good place.
Over the next couple of days, I walked along highway 74 to Shelby and then up highway 150 through Cherryville and toward Lincolnton. Although I was warned several times a day about the ‘rattlers’ which, I was told, enjoy laying in the grass on the side of the road, I never did see one. As I was heading out of Boger City the sun was setting on my longest day yet, 35 miles. I saw an open field to camp in and started across the field to hide myself, when a car pulled in the driveway of the house next to the field. Since these people were probably the owners of the property I was about to trespass, I decided to walk over and ask for permission. I stood at the beginning of their long driveway and tried to look nice and say “hello” in as friendly a way as possible. Two older women were getting out of the car. One took a look at me and motioned to the other to hurry it up. The other looked up and I thought her eyes were going to come clean out. She turned pale white and darted for the back door. Naively, I walked up to the front door and rang the bell, thinking that they may just want to put the grocery bags down before talking to me. After a few minutes of silence on their front porch, I realized that they were probably frightened of me! It seemed all too odd. Me? Frightened of me? I had a slight feeling of pride but it was washed away with a fear of my own. They might have a gun on me, or maybe they called the cops! I turned around and got back on the road quickly. Fearful and panicked people are not to be messed with. I had been warned almost daily about the mean vicious people out ‘there’ in the world. These women must have heard about ‘them’ too.
I spent that night beside a gravel pit. Unknown to me at the time, this would be my last night on the road. The next morning I got up and dreaded the idea of another day’s walk along the highway. I got my stuff together, walked a few miles and thought. “I don’t have to do this! I can quit!” Then I thought about all the bad things about stopping now; I told people I was going to walk to the coast and I’m only half way there; I would have alot of explaining to do. What will they think of me? Am I a flake? Am I quitting because of a little onslaught of boredom? What will I think of myself in a day, in a week, in a year? Will I regret not going on? Then I thought about why I began walking. What really propelled me out that front door was hope. The hope of extinguishing the discontentment of my life. I hoped that by gearing down and hitting the road, I would find something in the world, or in myself, that would be new and beautiful. All those blues and bluegrass songs can’t be all wrong. The happy, singing hobo must exist, and I was going to find him. No, I was going to be him.
The futileness of this search overcame me. I walked up to a cabinet factory beside the road, asked to use the phone, called Corey, and asked her to come get me. The trip was over. I put my pack down and waited. It took her four hours to travel the distance it took me 18 days to walk.
Defeated? Victorious? Definitely not victory, but maybe a battle won. The trip did not bring on an enlightened state of mind which persisted. It did not miraculously cure me of the daily discontentment, insecurities, annoyances, and anxieties from which I was escaping. I realized that the road to contentment is a much harder road than any adventure. There are no shortcuts. No worldly accomplishment is going to give lasting contentment, not even walking 600 miles. I realized the pitifulness of my sorry situation in that cabinet factory parking lot. I felt drained and calm, peaceful I guess. I had discovered a terrible truth. Contentment was the real destination and it, like the ocean, remains unreached.
But for those 18 days, I felt that odd sensation which came from concentrating on survival. Everything was uncertain. I was not in control of all that could happen and I found myself relying somewhat on a power that was not in myself. What should I call it, magic, synchronicity, fate, God’s love, delirium? Who knows, thinking about it is a sure way to loose it. All I can say is that I felt something, a power in the world that was illusive and compassionate, and it was real.
I loaded my pack and Sally in the back of the truck and drove home. “Maybe I’ll be a fire lookout for awhile?”, I thought.