Date: 2018-03-25
From: Franklin, NC

To: Home
Miles today: 0.0

After an evening of Mexican food, a couple craft beers, and March Madness at Currahee Brewing Co., I woke up at the Sapphire Motel, caught up on some journaling, and donned my hiking clothes which I washed in the tub and let hang to dry overnight. I was still very torn on whether I should leave the trail. Could one more day of rest give me the fortitude to continue? With the weather forecast dismal for nearly a week out, it wasn¢t until my rental car was delivered that I confirmed my decision, and then still it wasn¢t final.I decided to take the scenic route home and yellow blaze some AT highlights along the way. My first stop was Wayah Bald. I had promised a staff member back at Top of Georgia Hostel that before I quit, I would drive up to that mountaintop and contemplate the situation with the 360 degree view of beautiful mountains and valleys.  A forest fire touched there a couple years ago that burned the roof of the observation platform. It has since been replaced and looks brand new. The views were stunning as hikers trickled in and out of the viewing area. I spoke to an elderly local couple who had driven up through the snow covered forest road to enjoy the scenery. They said it had been several years since they¢ve had such wild wintery weather in March. Last year it was unseasonably warm.As I drove back to the entrance of the forest service road, I stopped for a few minutes and wondered if I should turn left and go back to Franklin, wait out the weather to continue hiking, or turn right and continue the scenic route home. My answer came with a text from a relative that said, ¢Time to come home. We are worried about your safety.¢And so I turned right and drove through some of the prettiest forest in the eastern United States. The Nantahela River Gorge is home to World Championship kayak competitions. The AT crosses the river at the Nantahela Outdoor Center (NOC), where hikers can bunk in a hostel, take raft trips, and load up on food at the restaurant which overlooks a professional kayak course on the river. I ate a juicy Cajun style burger there for lunch and visited the outfitters where I considered replacing my missing stove. From there, I took my rented car on a wild ride through the Tail of the Dragon, a section of U.S. Route 129 with three hundred eighteen curves bordering the Great Smokey Mountains and Cherokee National Forest¢¦with no guardrails! In some places, photographers were set up and took pictures of every car and motorcycle attempting the route. Banners told where each person could go online and purchase a photo of themselves driving their sports car or motorcycle down the famous stretch of potential doom. I decided that my rented Kia Soul careening through a curve would not be an impressive man-cave wall-hanger.After that I took a left onto the Smokey Mountain Foothills Parkway where the views reflected the mountain range¢s namesake, as great pillows of smokey fluff laid in valleys topped by steep forested peaks. The drive was reminiscent of Ronnie Millsap¢s song, ¢Smokey Mountain Rain.¢ I ended the day unexpectedly in the tourist Mecca of Pigeon Forge where I shacked up in a motel behind the Elvis Museum and watched my Mountaineers loose to Villanova in the Sweet Sixteen.After a good night¢s sleep and a filling continental breakfast, I couldn¢t wait to get out of the tourist area.  Detouring the heart of Gatlinburg I got lost on a windy east Tennessee backroad intending to visit Hot Springs, a trail town in which the AT runs right down the middle of Main Street.  However, I was diverted by my faulty inner compass to I-81, where my new destination was Damascus, Virginia, the home of Trail Days - the famous AT festival that takes place in May of each year. I was thinking about possibly turning in my rental car and picking up the trail there since the weather is generally a little milder and the trail becomes easier to hike. However, that plan was thwarted by a blizzard¢¦ Yes, a blizzard. And so I set my course home through inclement weather and arrived back at my house early evening in a fashion that to my surprise wasn¢t nearly as hospitable as I had hoped.  When the wife works long hard days and you've been playing in the woods for two weeks... Well, you get the picture.  It never fails.  Like football weekends in the fall, no matter how excited you may be, there is always rain on that parade.  As soon as my pack hit the floor negotiations began;  talk of retirement savings, talk of unfinished projects, talk of what is expected in a traditional marriage, talk of returning the favor, talk of...blah, blah, blah...  And... "Somebody has to be an adult around here!"  But absolutely no talk of the AT which is forbidden since that's all I've talked about for months.  After spending a small fortune on equipment and focusing my existence on that one thing for many more weeks than I was actually on trail, you can't blame her for being a little miffed.  She  had contemplated sending me back out there to get my money's worth.  I miss the trail already.   Most assuredly all are valid points coming from the perspectives of "normal" society and even of fundamental southern religion.  We work the best years of our lives, often in jobs that deplete our souls, in order to retire when we are too old to enjoy it or too cynical to appreciate the freedom.  And then after a while we die broke after an obligatory stint in a nursing home that digests the rest of the savings that we gave our souls to earn in the first place.  And that is called living a responsible life.  All of our days we worry about the dark monsters of health insurance and net worth.  Everyone wants guarantees.  It seems increasingly evident that our system of values is all about tomorrow, and none of it is about today.  It is a mindset that is very good for business, but it is terrible for the soul.  Even as we approach wonderful and unheard of financial security by yesterday's standards, tomorrows standards always loom.  And so enough is never enough.  Of course, there are versions of circumstance that are far more light imbued.  And those circumstances are usually followed by scary leaps of faith.  Some of those leaps fail, and so it takes courage to make those leaps.  I believe that leaps are what faith is all about.  Leaps of faith are defined by the absence of guarantees or pre-conditions.  I hope and pray that everybody important to me takes a leap of faith from time to time with no safety net, just to experience the joy of life the way a our loving God meant it to be lived.  By Faith!By no means would I ever suggest leaping a chasm without a reasonable amount of research, testing, and preparation - but there comes a time when you have to either take the leap or just stay home and live the status quo.  These days there are so many young couples and families that live out of wedlock because they want guarantees - because they want assurances - because they are afraid of the consequences of failure and the humiliation of divorce.My life has been defined by leaps of faith.  And yes, the majority of those leaps have resulted in failure.  More times than I can count I have crashed and burned.  But with each so called failure I still get something good out of it, and so the word "failure" is a misnomer... even a lie.  Failure is merely what happens when we've miscalculated.  When we try something new and it doesn't work out as planned, we can either try again utilizing the education of our failure (lessons learned), or we can cross that experience off our list of wants.  Either way, we are better for having leaped in the first place.  So many times, religion tells us that failure is merely the result of sin, and so we tend to beat ourselves up for failing and we believe that because we have fallen short of our goal, that we have fallen out of the favor of God.  Experience has shown me that most failures are NOT a result of sin.  And even though some are, we never ever fall out of God's favor.  Despite faulty interpretations of scripture that benefit the business of church, The Man Upstairs is always rooting for us - He loves us no matter what - and he's constantly urging us to take leaps of faith.      Meanwhile, I still have about 350 days to complete a Thru-Hike.  I've already hiked nearly 100 miles, only 21 more of those and I'll be done.  Hmmm.