Date: 2005-07-21
To: Awesome morning
Miles today: 0.0

Had a strange morning this morning. At about three o¢clock, music starts blasting out of my roommate Landon's room. He isn't suppose to be here, so I go in to tell whoever it is to turn it WAY down. (It was really loud.) Funny thing is, no one was in the room. Another roommate of mine, Matt, comes in just as bewildered, saying that he saw a cat running through the house. The only explanation we can think of is that the cat jumped on the computer, turned on the music jukebox, and started playing loud music. ?????? weird huh? Anyways, I go back to bed after shutting the music off and can't go to sleep. I read for a little bit, then get up and check my email and read some journals here on Trailjournals. Well, an email form an old hiking buddy (Thanks Hippielongstockings) and some journal reading got me fired up to do some hiking. So, at like 4:15 in the morning I throw on some clothes, grab some food and water and drive out to Roan Mountain. I get to carvers gap just as the sky is getting light and hike to the top of Bald Mtn, just north of Roan. It's here I make a disturbing revelation, the woods no longer feel like home to me. Don't get me wrong, I was having the time of my life, but it felt NEW. I guess only other people who've done extended trips in the woods (like hikers) could understand. You spend so much time out there that you stop thinking "hey I'm in the woods." When i first got off the Trail in 04' and had spent some weeks working down at Scout Camp, I went back up to Roan to find a shelter journals that i had left. It was raining, but that didn't bother me, the weird thing I noticed was while I was walking was that being back on the Trail gave me the same feeling I get when I go back to my parents house and go into my old bedroom. Brushing up against a tree gave me the same feeling as brushing up against my old bookshelf would.Anyways, that¢s only part of this mornings story, figuring that out has just solidified my want/need to go back out and hike again. I made it to the top of the bald and found a nice rock to sit on. This is where it gets hard to describe, because nothing I could put into words could ever describe the beauty of this morning. The wind was blowing slightly, stirring the grasses all around me, which had turned a deep red from the morning light. The wind carried with it a chill that lets one know the winter cold is never far off at 6000' ft. The wind also had a taste to it, yes, that's right, a taste. I can't describe it, the crispness, the evergreens, the grasses, If that taste came in gum form, i'd buy the company. It's neat to stand on top of a mountain and see the world wake up on one side, while the other side is still covered in darkness.From Bald Mtn the sun rises almost directly over the Grayson highlands, another beautiful stop on the AT. The sun had come up, but just above/behind the highlands was a huge low cloud that obstructed any view of the sun. Instead it filtered its warm red/orange light and threw it into the sky. The combination of this all made it seem like the world was getting ready to break into song. You couldn¢t hear it; it was more something you felt in your body and soul. hear it, like a wonderful low humming sound that is both inexpressibly lonely and inexpressively lovely. It was ALIVE. It was the sound of a thousand voices singing some great open chord. I was very aware of my own breathing, each breath I took I thought might come out in some song about the beauty of the day to match the sound I could feel all around me, but I know no song that could capture it, so I remained silent. The sunlight falling upon everything looked like a weight of gold, everything thing I saw seemed to stand forth with a kind of exclamatory force. Even the dirt seemed to emit this wonderful glow, if I picked it up and saved it, I would have my hands on the world most priceless treasure. The humming grew. Now it was not a thousand voices singing but a million, an open funnel of voices rising from the deepest well of the universe. I realized I was the only person awake in what felt like the whole world. No one else was up here, no one would witness the coming of the sun. What happened next I will never forget in a thousand years. The sun, which had seemed to be moving slow, burst forth over the low clouds, bathing the world in light so bright I had to shield my eyes. The humming grew to its loudest yet, and then day came. Life was normal. If I had come 30 minutes later I never would have known what had happened here. The humming was gone, all was as it normally is. I started walking back down, thinking about that beautiful sunrise, when I saw 2 deer eating just off the Trail about 20 feet away. Animals can sense when something is dangerous, and these two knew I was no threat. I watched them for awhile and then kept walking. They ate lazily, keeping an eye one me, but knowing I was no trouble. As I entered the woods on the way back down I disturbed a small squirrel from his breakfast. Perhaps sensing the same thing the deer did, he leapt up on a branch right at my eye height and started chattering away. Lecturing me as if to say "How rude! What would you think if I came up to you during breakfast and ran you off!?" I laughed at this, apologized for disturbing his meal, and kept walking. (The squirrel sent me on my way with some more berating.) Down in the parking lot, I got in my car and got back home before the rest of Boone had woken up. The day is young, what comes next?Ok, I wrote all of that last part yesterday right after getting home. When I'm done, everyone is waking up, and a friend of mine from back home calls and says he's coming up for the day and wants to do something fun. My roommate Matt decides we should go swimming at this waterfall he knows about. We get 6 people together and head out there, looking for a place tyo eat lunch. This is Boone though, so everything that isn't fast food is closed on sunday. We're starting to get worried that we won't find anything when we find a gas station in the middle of no-where. Literally about 10 minutes after the last house we saw crossing into Tennesse. We stop, and they have a grill open with food prices from the 1940's! I mean, I got a HUGE double bacon cheeseburger with fries, a bottle of water, a pack of gum, and a bag of M&M's for less than 5 dollars! We all eat to our hearts content sitting on the front porch, then decide to buy an ice cold watermelon to bring with us swimming. Anotyher 20 minutes of driving brought us to a steep gorge, the 15 minute walk down this thing was as bad as any I saw on the AT, and you can hear the waterfall before you even start walking. The waterfall is huge, easily 35 feet, with a 20 foot deep pool at the bottom. (I of course had to do a swimming area check to make sure it was safe, too much Boy Scout training.) This thing is so tall, when you jump off the top you have time for yell, breathe, and yell again. We stayed there for hours, soaking up sun, eating ice cold watermelon, and swimming/jumping. It's one of those days you wish would never end. But it did, we got our stuff together, hiked back up the steep hill and started driving home. Perfect end to a perfect day right? Oh, it wasn't over yet. On the way home we decide we should have a bar-b-que. So we go to the store, buy some hot dogs, hamburgers, chili, vegatables to cabob, and invite a bunch of people over. THAT, my friends, is the perfect ending to the perfect day. All of us standing around the bar-b-que just having a good time. Man, I wish i could write better and express how awesome the day was. But alas, its too early in the morning for me to write well. uhhhh...the end