Today's miles: 37.6 on bicycle
It was water-bottle-frozen cold this morning and I got up after the sun, hurriedly packed up the bike and rode down the road into the freezing air. I stopped to add layers, including the little booties that Richard lent me. It was amazing: within 10 minutes, I could feel my toes again. On Hwy 66, still in the deep countryside, I stopped to have cereal on a grassy spot by the road and meditate on the rising sun and my fabulous breakfast.
Last night, as I listened for the approach of dog (or human) footsteps, cold in my tent, I thought really carefully over what I am doing and just stayed curled up in a ball, my finger encircled in the hematite ring I was given yesterday. I thought about standing in that Gem Shop in the valley, the weight of the book (“Melody’s book”) in my hands, the type jumping off the page like proverbs, like the lettering on church signs- those Fortune cookie-length benedictions, advice, and even witticisms to-go. Especially for the transits, like me. “Aspire to inspire Before you expire”. And that man in the Gem Shop in his flannel and jeans looking at me reading, probably with no idea of the thoughts going through my head.
Somedays, you need to believe in the strength of crystals.
Pilot Mountain zoomed in and out of view as I cycled up and down mountains. I stopped at a gas station to ask for water and found 4 men with lots of hair (in hair, moustache, or beard form) in Carhartts, camouflage, and blaze orange gear. I talked to them for a little while, and then pushed off the last few miles into the town of Pilot Mtn, to grab a cup of coffee at a local establishment and pause and check on the weather. Those men had warned me of “weather this way tonight,” namely an ice storm. All day in my head, I heard the Indigo Girls’ lyrics, “the same sun that warmed that corn will suck those gutters dry; with everything its opposite, enough to make you wild or to keep this whole world spinning with a twinkle in its eye.” Everything out here seems ying and yang, positive and negative. Sunny and cold, busy roads with trucks but no dogs, ups and downs, nice campgrounds with strange abandoned sleeping bags…
In Pilot Mtn, I biked to the public library and settled down at a computer while the kooky “substitute librarian” fixed us our elevens (of coffee, not whiskey). I made a reservation at the Surry Inn, then peddled across the small town on my route, to mail the letter I wrote. I didn't stop much until got here to the Surry Inn. I talked to the lady at the desk a little bit, she was really friendly. She said that Dobson is expanding and that it recently opened to franchise business. That the vineyard has wine tours and classy dinner. That there is indeed lots of farming around here – a couple of tobacco farms, a pig farm, and a dairy farm. And she told me about this man from Canada who comes down here every year for a month, rents out the same room, and keeps his BMW and flat screen TV parked at the hotel and rides his bicycle up to Stone Mountain. Very Strange. I wonder what he does for a living, and what he gets out of the Stone Mtn bicycling.
I spent an hour at the diner connected to the inn, feasting on an odd combination of French fries, coffee, grilled cheese (white bread, fake butter and American cheese) and some homemade German chocolate cake.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
January 30, 2008
Today’s miles: 31.9 on bike
Stokesdale, NC to Hanging Rock State Park
For simplicity, I’ve taken to specifying “Asheville” as my destination and if pressed further explain how I’m getting there by bike and on foot. And if someone is really interested in the logistics, I start to explain the syntax and name of the whole adventure (the Mountain-to-Sea Trail). Most people don't get past the second stage of interest.
Today started out really windy. After praying with Misty’s father in Parkers – another heart warming benediction that left me buzzing with goodwill - I biked down to the MST and rolled onward towards the mountains! I caught my first view today of the gorgeous blue bumps – the Saura Mountains. The biking was hillier than it has been, today. I spent some extra time biking to the HillBilly Hideaway on Pine Hill Rd (closed, too bad, but open on Friday, Sat, Sun and with live bluegrass music on Sat). I stopped for a long break in Walnut Cove, where I spent an hour and a half at the library, then ventured to the Antique Store, dicked around a little bit and talked to an older couple about my trip.
It was a hilly route. I stopped in a valley in bedazzlement at the sign “Gem Shop.” The worker, a lean bearded man with kind-of crazy eyes, fielded my questions.
"Why do you work here?" For the kids. Drugs, alcohol recovery.
"Where do the crystals come from?" All over the world. A guy from TN goes around the world to buy them every couple of years.
"Do you get school groups that come down?"
Yes, and 4-H
"Where does the honey come from?"
Made out back, spring honey is sweeter than sourwood honey. There are still plenty of bees (no mysterious die off here anyhow).
Then Steven gave me a hematite ring. We talked about good and bad people, crystals, and he wished “perty” me a good trip and stood on the porch and waved as I biked up the hill. I stopped again in Danbury to listen to local bluegrass at the Arts Center for Stokes County.
Biking into Hanging Rock Park, had to skip the hiking part again and I just gazed wistfully at the mountains and continued on my way. I stopped at the closed Moore's Springs campground, thinking that I might stay there, but decided otherwise when I saw an abandoned sleeping bag on the ground. I’m in a previously burnt site (so says the Keep Out tape) tented in the rapidly growing pine trees. I tried to talk to someone in the house across the street, but no one answered the door when I knocked. I feel pretty good about this site. I can hear owls hooting, dogs barking, and cars passing.
I am thriving on this trip. I am talking to so many people, moving and seeing places, out-biking ferocious dogs.
Stokesdale, NC to Hanging Rock State Park
For simplicity, I’ve taken to specifying “Asheville” as my destination and if pressed further explain how I’m getting there by bike and on foot. And if someone is really interested in the logistics, I start to explain the syntax and name of the whole adventure (the Mountain-to-Sea Trail). Most people don't get past the second stage of interest.
Today started out really windy. After praying with Misty’s father in Parkers – another heart warming benediction that left me buzzing with goodwill - I biked down to the MST and rolled onward towards the mountains! I caught my first view today of the gorgeous blue bumps – the Saura Mountains. The biking was hillier than it has been, today. I spent some extra time biking to the HillBilly Hideaway on Pine Hill Rd (closed, too bad, but open on Friday, Sat, Sun and with live bluegrass music on Sat). I stopped for a long break in Walnut Cove, where I spent an hour and a half at the library, then ventured to the Antique Store, dicked around a little bit and talked to an older couple about my trip.
It was a hilly route. I stopped in a valley in bedazzlement at the sign “Gem Shop.” The worker, a lean bearded man with kind-of crazy eyes, fielded my questions.
"Why do you work here?" For the kids. Drugs, alcohol recovery.
"Where do the crystals come from?" All over the world. A guy from TN goes around the world to buy them every couple of years.
"Do you get school groups that come down?"
Yes, and 4-H
"Where does the honey come from?"
Made out back, spring honey is sweeter than sourwood honey. There are still plenty of bees (no mysterious die off here anyhow).
Then Steven gave me a hematite ring. We talked about good and bad people, crystals, and he wished “perty” me a good trip and stood on the porch and waved as I biked up the hill. I stopped again in Danbury to listen to local bluegrass at the Arts Center for Stokes County.
Biking into Hanging Rock Park, had to skip the hiking part again and I just gazed wistfully at the mountains and continued on my way. I stopped at the closed Moore's Springs campground, thinking that I might stay there, but decided otherwise when I saw an abandoned sleeping bag on the ground. I’m in a previously burnt site (so says the Keep Out tape) tented in the rapidly growing pine trees. I tried to talk to someone in the house across the street, but no one answered the door when I knocked. I feel pretty good about this site. I can hear owls hooting, dogs barking, and cars passing.
I am thriving on this trip. I am talking to so many people, moving and seeing places, out-biking ferocious dogs.
Biking Across the Piedmont: Part 1
I don't even know how to begin to describe how grateful I am for the generosity and openness of perfect strangers on this trip. I am in Walnut Cove, NC at the public library, and this morning I had my first gorgeous view of mountains! Blue and rounded, like I remember them fondly from the not-too-distant past. The bicycling is getting hillier by the day, to my infinite glee.
I had to skip the trail-hiking sections north of Greensboro, and bicycle around them for now. Another puzzle piece to figure out later on.
I have been winding around the countryside, taking the most circuitous route, and out-cycling those ferocious country dogs (bikers seem to incite chasing, I have learned). So far, I have avoided high fructose corn syrup on this leg of the trip (thanks in part to a long visit to Emily's Cookie Mix Shoppe, and a heart-warming talk with his its vivacious proprietor). I am working on my soo-uuuuthern accent. I slept next to that fish last night.
For any of you involved with the Friends of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail, I will definitely be coming to the annual meeting in Greensboro this weekend and look forward to meeting you all!
Total MST miles: 258.5 (154.1 foot, 103.4 bike)
Total trip miles: 352.2 (187.8 foot, 164.4 bike)
I had to skip the trail-hiking sections north of Greensboro, and bicycle around them for now. Another puzzle piece to figure out later on.
I have been winding around the countryside, taking the most circuitous route, and out-cycling those ferocious country dogs (bikers seem to incite chasing, I have learned). So far, I have avoided high fructose corn syrup on this leg of the trip (thanks in part to a long visit to Emily's Cookie Mix Shoppe, and a heart-warming talk with his its vivacious proprietor). I am working on my soo-uuuuthern accent. I slept next to that fish last night.
For any of you involved with the Friends of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail, I will definitely be coming to the annual meeting in Greensboro this weekend and look forward to meeting you all!
Total MST miles: 258.5 (154.1 foot, 103.4 bike)
Total trip miles: 352.2 (187.8 foot, 164.4 bike)
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
January 29, 2008
Today’s miles: 41.5 on bicycle
I woke up later than usual in Greensboro, made breakfast, did some planning for the day, Travis taught me how to change a bike tube, and got on the road finally around noon. All went well (although a little sore from my 70 miles yesterday). It was a cloudy, warm day. The problem began when I got to the Bryan Park golf club and realized that I wasn’t allowed to bicycle on the trails, or at least half of them, and the other half were mountain bike trails. Anyways, I had to find a way to bike around them. I found a map partway through my detour and sat at a coffeeshop in Summersville with the map finding my route on it.
I set off to rejoin the MST and search for a ceramic studio that was supposed to be on the trail, but I think it must be closed. So I kept biking, looking for the right place to camp, passing pastoral heaven on every hill, the red clay churned up in the fields. Ending up in Stokesdale, I stopped at a gas station to ask for advice about dinner and was given an earful about Stokesdale (7,000 pop, and rapidly growing) and its highlight: the worlds largest coffee pot.
I found the coffee pot a half-mile down the road on Hwy 158 N, behind (unceremoniously) a retirement community’s sign. Well, this I was not going to miss. You don’t see the world’s largest coffee pot any ole day, so off I went to see it and bike to Parker’s to find some grub and ask for a place to camp. It was a little diner, with the waitress/mistress of the joint Misty bustling every direction to take care of things. She offered me a place to camp on the property near the restaurant, and I accepted, then a couple in the restaurant asked if I wanted to stay in a house they had nearby, and I weighed it and decided that I would just as soon stay near to my bike and things. As I was setting up my tent outside in the dark, Misty’s grandmother came out of her round house and came over to give me a hug, then dragged me to the garage and insisted that I stay inside, propped on some old couch cushions and next to a plastic sword and a large, dried fish.
I am overwhelmed by the generosity of strangers.
I woke up later than usual in Greensboro, made breakfast, did some planning for the day, Travis taught me how to change a bike tube, and got on the road finally around noon. All went well (although a little sore from my 70 miles yesterday). It was a cloudy, warm day. The problem began when I got to the Bryan Park golf club and realized that I wasn’t allowed to bicycle on the trails, or at least half of them, and the other half were mountain bike trails. Anyways, I had to find a way to bike around them. I found a map partway through my detour and sat at a coffeeshop in Summersville with the map finding my route on it.
I set off to rejoin the MST and search for a ceramic studio that was supposed to be on the trail, but I think it must be closed. So I kept biking, looking for the right place to camp, passing pastoral heaven on every hill, the red clay churned up in the fields. Ending up in Stokesdale, I stopped at a gas station to ask for advice about dinner and was given an earful about Stokesdale (7,000 pop, and rapidly growing) and its highlight: the worlds largest coffee pot.
I found the coffee pot a half-mile down the road on Hwy 158 N, behind (unceremoniously) a retirement community’s sign. Well, this I was not going to miss. You don’t see the world’s largest coffee pot any ole day, so off I went to see it and bike to Parker’s to find some grub and ask for a place to camp. It was a little diner, with the waitress/mistress of the joint Misty bustling every direction to take care of things. She offered me a place to camp on the property near the restaurant, and I accepted, then a couple in the restaurant asked if I wanted to stay in a house they had nearby, and I weighed it and decided that I would just as soon stay near to my bike and things. As I was setting up my tent outside in the dark, Misty’s grandmother came out of her round house and came over to give me a hug, then dragged me to the garage and insisted that I stay inside, propped on some old couch cushions and next to a plastic sword and a large, dried fish.
I am overwhelmed by the generosity of strangers.
Monday, January 28, 2008
January 28, 2008
Today’s miles: 65.3 on bike
Green wiley road in Hillsborough to the city of Greensboro
Starting around 7:30 am, all went smoothly until ran into two dogs in the middle of the road. I dismounted, walked with my bike, approaching them slowly and talking winningly to them. Well, they were just a frisky, friendly duo and they followed me down the road a ways, jumping on eachother. It was SUCH a zippadeedooda kind of day: sunny skies and the perfect temperature for biking. I took a couple long breaks, one at this little ho-dunketty post office made with cinder blocks and painted silver and blue. I sat on a rickety bench outside of the old Prender’s grocery store and wrote a short letter.
I biked down the road until I reached a “Road Crossed detour” and an oasis in the clear sunshine: a COOKIE shop?! I wasn’t going to spend money, of which I am low on, BUT geez-us what was I to do. I went inside and met Debra, a smiling bright eyed woman who runs the shop AND a Minnesotan to boot. We talked for an hour and a half about her deceased daughter Emily and my trip (“You go girl” was what she said, I believe). We talked about moving to this area of North Carolina as a Northerner and the difficulty she has had integrating, even after living there for 12 years. About the xenophobia towards Mexicans moving to the area. About the farms no longer being planted to crops, and if they are, because of the “Big Tobacco Buyout” they are planting corn instead.
Bidding a new friend goodbye, I rolled on around the easy detour, adding 4 ½ miles to my route, which ended at the 2 United Church of Christ churches – two congregations kitty corner across the street and one black, one white. They are technically the same church, but separated by race and probably to some extent, the culture associated with race.
As I rolled on down the road, high on coffee and sunshine, I missed a turnoff and ended up going all the way into Gibsonville, adding an extra 4 miles! I stopped and got directions from the two women at a new housing development (“little houses on the hilltop and they’re all made out of ticky-tacky. Little houses on the hilltop and they all look just the same…”). Last eventful moment of the day was when I biked past a school bus and a kid yelled “Bitch” and threw a pencil at me! That’s the only hostility that I’ve experienced so far.
Then I biked into Greensboro on a highway with exit ramps and everything! All the way to Walker Street, where my couchsurfing host lived. I left a message for Travis when I got there, then waited at the Laundromat (& attached bar?) to wait for him to call and to eat dinner. I ate my homemade wheat rolls. Finally, around 6 pm, Travis called and I rode a few blocks to his wonderful little house filled with mouthwatering amounts of outdoor gear!! We talked for a long while, about gear (he is a manager for REI) and travel and life.
And then another Travis came over – a guy who is also involved with couchsurfing. Travis 1 left to talk on the phone and after a few attempts at conversation, Travis 2 and I sat in silence, flipping through magazines. And then a couple other bearded men burst into the house – Rob, Travis’ musician/marathon runner roommate, and some guy named Andrew. We ended up drinking a couple beers and watching Futurama projected onto the neighbor’s house. Slept on luxurious leather couch.
Green wiley road in Hillsborough to the city of Greensboro
Starting around 7:30 am, all went smoothly until ran into two dogs in the middle of the road. I dismounted, walked with my bike, approaching them slowly and talking winningly to them. Well, they were just a frisky, friendly duo and they followed me down the road a ways, jumping on eachother. It was SUCH a zippadeedooda kind of day: sunny skies and the perfect temperature for biking. I took a couple long breaks, one at this little ho-dunketty post office made with cinder blocks and painted silver and blue. I sat on a rickety bench outside of the old Prender’s grocery store and wrote a short letter.
I biked down the road until I reached a “Road Crossed detour” and an oasis in the clear sunshine: a COOKIE shop?! I wasn’t going to spend money, of which I am low on, BUT geez-us what was I to do. I went inside and met Debra, a smiling bright eyed woman who runs the shop AND a Minnesotan to boot. We talked for an hour and a half about her deceased daughter Emily and my trip (“You go girl” was what she said, I believe). We talked about moving to this area of North Carolina as a Northerner and the difficulty she has had integrating, even after living there for 12 years. About the xenophobia towards Mexicans moving to the area. About the farms no longer being planted to crops, and if they are, because of the “Big Tobacco Buyout” they are planting corn instead.
Bidding a new friend goodbye, I rolled on around the easy detour, adding 4 ½ miles to my route, which ended at the 2 United Church of Christ churches – two congregations kitty corner across the street and one black, one white. They are technically the same church, but separated by race and probably to some extent, the culture associated with race.
As I rolled on down the road, high on coffee and sunshine, I missed a turnoff and ended up going all the way into Gibsonville, adding an extra 4 miles! I stopped and got directions from the two women at a new housing development (“little houses on the hilltop and they’re all made out of ticky-tacky. Little houses on the hilltop and they all look just the same…”). Last eventful moment of the day was when I biked past a school bus and a kid yelled “Bitch” and threw a pencil at me! That’s the only hostility that I’ve experienced so far.
Then I biked into Greensboro on a highway with exit ramps and everything! All the way to Walker Street, where my couchsurfing host lived. I left a message for Travis when I got there, then waited at the Laundromat (& attached bar?) to wait for him to call and to eat dinner. I ate my homemade wheat rolls. Finally, around 6 pm, Travis called and I rode a few blocks to his wonderful little house filled with mouthwatering amounts of outdoor gear!! We talked for a long while, about gear (he is a manager for REI) and travel and life.
And then another Travis came over – a guy who is also involved with couchsurfing. Travis 1 left to talk on the phone and after a few attempts at conversation, Travis 2 and I sat in silence, flipping through magazines. And then a couple other bearded men burst into the house – Rob, Travis’ musician/marathon runner roommate, and some guy named Andrew. We ended up drinking a couple beers and watching Futurama projected onto the neighbor’s house. Slept on luxurious leather couch.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
January 27, 2008
Today’s miles: 33.1 on bike
Old Creedmoor Rd/Hwy 50 to Green Wiley Road
The bike was late getting fixed at the shop, so I didn’t get to leave until about 1:30 pm. Which was good, I think. I believe in coincidence, like Tess. Amelia and Salam dropped me off at Hwy 50 around 2 pm, and we strapped Richard’s panniers to the rack, bungee corded my backpack to the top of the rack, cinched the brain of my other pack to the handlebars. They snapped a photo of me and the Trek-mamacita and I headed off with Amelia yelling to me, “Stay inside the lines!”
I responded into the wind, “What lines??!” and wobbled down the road, trying to figure out how to change gears and ride on Amelia’s bicycle. The day was sunny and warm, THREE dogs chased me down the road, and I passed from Wake to Durham to Orange County, with an ease that backpacking rarely feels like: flying (precariously) down hills, shifting up and down, letting the bicycle do the brunt of the work. I exceeded what I thought I was capable of, basking in the lowering sun and the bucolic scenery. The pastoral horizon is quite pretty, in its productive affirmation of human ingenuity, hard work, and ego.
I arrived at Green Wiley Rd at sunset, and knocked on a door. A young woman (28) opened the door with a smile, shushing her hyper little Chihuahuas. I asked if I could tent on their property, and she said, “Sure, but you can just stay in out house,” no questions asked. I am continuously impressed with the way people trust me – a stranger, and let me into their houses and offer me food and showers and company.
So here I am, once again indoors with Jessica and Tony. She is a dental assistant, and he is a contracted painter. They have been together for 13 years, since their mid-teens. A few people have swung by and I can already tell what it must be like to live here. Jessica is keeping me updated by linking everyone by family or friendship and the friends are usually related to other friends and family by marriage. Tony’s parents live next door, and they are surrounded by the cows of someone who leases the land next door.
They have well water (tastes good) but as soon as I filled a glass, Jessica ran and got some bottled water and filled up a glass with it for me. I didn’t have the heart to lecture my hosts about conspicuous consumption.
Old Creedmoor Rd/Hwy 50 to Green Wiley Road
The bike was late getting fixed at the shop, so I didn’t get to leave until about 1:30 pm. Which was good, I think. I believe in coincidence, like Tess. Amelia and Salam dropped me off at Hwy 50 around 2 pm, and we strapped Richard’s panniers to the rack, bungee corded my backpack to the top of the rack, cinched the brain of my other pack to the handlebars. They snapped a photo of me and the Trek-mamacita and I headed off with Amelia yelling to me, “Stay inside the lines!”
I responded into the wind, “What lines??!” and wobbled down the road, trying to figure out how to change gears and ride on Amelia’s bicycle. The day was sunny and warm, THREE dogs chased me down the road, and I passed from Wake to Durham to Orange County, with an ease that backpacking rarely feels like: flying (precariously) down hills, shifting up and down, letting the bicycle do the brunt of the work. I exceeded what I thought I was capable of, basking in the lowering sun and the bucolic scenery. The pastoral horizon is quite pretty, in its productive affirmation of human ingenuity, hard work, and ego.
I arrived at Green Wiley Rd at sunset, and knocked on a door. A young woman (28) opened the door with a smile, shushing her hyper little Chihuahuas. I asked if I could tent on their property, and she said, “Sure, but you can just stay in out house,” no questions asked. I am continuously impressed with the way people trust me – a stranger, and let me into their houses and offer me food and showers and company.
So here I am, once again indoors with Jessica and Tony. She is a dental assistant, and he is a contracted painter. They have been together for 13 years, since their mid-teens. A few people have swung by and I can already tell what it must be like to live here. Jessica is keeping me updated by linking everyone by family or friendship and the friends are usually related to other friends and family by marriage. Tony’s parents live next door, and they are surrounded by the cows of someone who leases the land next door.
They have well water (tastes good) but as soon as I filled a glass, Jessica ran and got some bottled water and filled up a glass with it for me. I didn’t have the heart to lecture my hosts about conspicuous consumption.
A Salute
It is a tank-top warm morning, I am listening to bluegrass and relishing my cup of coffee, waiting for my laundry to finish drying and then! cycling westward. I do not have much "bicycling trip" experience, but if all else fails, I can always walk with the bicycle on the road.
I am very very excited about what western North Carolina will hold for me. Updates may not be regular for the next month (but they may! we will see!).
I am very very excited about what western North Carolina will hold for me. Updates may not be regular for the next month (but they may! we will see!).
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Dayhiking in the Triangle
If you are a hiker or traveler, you will probably understand this feeling. Wednesday was one of those validating days. I drove to an access point of the Falls Lake Trail, with the little Huffy road bike hanging out of the trunk of the Buick. In the parking lot, I hopped on the bike and headed the 6 miles to where I had left off the day before at the end of Possum Run Rd. I locked the Huffy and set off into the cool clear day.
I had almost forgotten this feeling. The cool morning, flocks of robins squabbling in the skeletons of deciduous trees, the soft path that yielded to my steps, and flashes of green as I passed through Longleaf and Loblolly pine sanctuaries and past hardy Christmas ferns. The strobe light effect of walking swiftly past the long shadows of trees in the morning. Not every day of every trip is a high. But the good days are great. I hiked about 11 miles in 4 hours, and could have leapfrogged part of the next section to finish up some more miles. Instead, I cranked up my Ace of Base tape in the Buick, picked up the Huffy, and drove to resupply at Whole Foods and Great Outdoor Provision Company. I have one more day of the Falls Lake Trail before I am dropped off at its western terminus to bike westward to the mountains. My face is healing, after undergoing some pretty gruesome transformations this week.
Conclusion: Phook Yeah!
Total MST miles: 154.1 (all on foot)
Total trip miles: 198.3 (187.8 foot, 10.5 bike)
I had almost forgotten this feeling. The cool morning, flocks of robins squabbling in the skeletons of deciduous trees, the soft path that yielded to my steps, and flashes of green as I passed through Longleaf and Loblolly pine sanctuaries and past hardy Christmas ferns. The strobe light effect of walking swiftly past the long shadows of trees in the morning. Not every day of every trip is a high. But the good days are great. I hiked about 11 miles in 4 hours, and could have leapfrogged part of the next section to finish up some more miles. Instead, I cranked up my Ace of Base tape in the Buick, picked up the Huffy, and drove to resupply at Whole Foods and Great Outdoor Provision Company. I have one more day of the Falls Lake Trail before I am dropped off at its western terminus to bike westward to the mountains. My face is healing, after undergoing some pretty gruesome transformations this week.
Conclusion: Phook Yeah!
Total MST miles: 154.1 (all on foot)
Total trip miles: 198.3 (187.8 foot, 10.5 bike)
Monday, January 21, 2008
Drastic, complicated change of plans
After a couple days of deliberation and fun, I have a new trip plan. Warning: This may get complicated if you are not intimately familiar with the geography of the MST and North Carolina
I hiked from Kitty Hawk to Okrakoke, took the ferry to
And now I will interview myself to assure my oodles of fans and stalkers that I am, indeed, at least partially aware of what I am doing:
Are you still thru-hiking the Mountains-to-Sea Trail?
No. I intend to complete the trail corridor without gaps, by the end of March. I will not be HIKING the whole trail. I will be biking about one-quarter of the trail, kayaking one-quarter of the trail, and hiking half of the trail. For a few years, I have had this vision of traveling a long distance through those three types of movement with the use of mechanical machines. No terminological “purist” would call this a thru-hike. I am infinitely okay with this.
Why don’t you just walk, it would be way less complicated?
I know that I am physically capable of hiking across the state, and if I had a more noble purpose for walking every step of the way (for example, for every mile I walked, a nutritious meal was donated to feed a poor, local family), I could push through my listless wall of misery and finish the trail on foot. However, this trip is entirely selfish. I am learning, researching, and writing, and find that I am more productive when I am reveling and not wallowing. Makes sense, no?
What are you researching and writing?
I had an idea before I left for the trip that it would be really neat to write a book based on my experiences on the trail, and amazingly enough, I think that it may be a viable idea. As I see it now, it would be part travelogue/ personal reflection on the things that I see and people that I meet, mostly focusing on how the people I encounter interact with and think about the natural world, especially related to consumption (food, water, energy), with a dash of natural and human history.
What are you learning?
GRE vocab. I know what ‘mirth’ and ‘lugubrious’ and ‘libertine’ mean, and can use these words in a sentence and recite a list of near-synonyms. Can you?
This will mean you will reach the mountains a couple weeks earlier than planned. Are you really ready?
Wahoo!
It will be cold.
Zippideedooda!
You’ll probably get lonely.
My mama always said, “Lonely is as lonely does”
Sunday, January 20, 2008
January 20, 2008
20 January 2008
New Bern coffeeshop
This is a place to be lonely, with others. I have been wandering through town for the last half an hour, thinking about this trip from different angles and about New Bern and how things come to be the way they are.
I passed a pile of wood scraps and thought, “I could make something with that” and then “but it would be more useful to have a goal of what you want to make before you start collecting supplies” and then I began to apply that sentiment to other things – like this trip.
Being smart and doing research is a matter of enjoying the process as much as getting results. I need to remember that. I am not enjoying this process of research. I enjoy moments of it, but not the day to day, well.. not drudgery exactly but… trudgery. Normally, the process is what thrills me – of science, of dishwashing, of backpacking, and of running. Not every second, but the vast majority of them.
The joy of backpacking comes partly from the beauty and simplicity of traveling unfettered and unhurried. "The closest we can get to freedom two feet on the ground", I’ve written before. Traveling unfettered, however, has its downfalls. I can’t carry books or stop in a restaurant/coffee shop that I know will be full of friends. Free is not universally good.
I was also thinking of what it was like to live in this area or anywhere before we had modern conveniences like internal temperature control or restaurants or grocery stores. Or cars. Or fleece.
Passing pecan and oak trees with their seeds on the sidewalk, I thought about how people define living and think about the food, water, and shelter that sustains them. What does it mean to be outside of that awareness? There was a plaque down by the waterfront for a Civil War battle that was fought in New Bern. Old silo-looking buildings and huge rusting loading dock by the river – the stacks looked like grain silos but have a faint “fertilizer petroleum” written on them. The old train tracks with freight trains still running. There are a million and one things to meditate on and research and be inspired by, in the natural and human worlds. How is it possible to create a picture of the world – of the Ecology of a place - without getting bogged down in any one field? And how do others go through life ignorant of cause-and-effect and history? How are so many people dispassionate about living? How are so many people comfortable with discount or polished knowledge at institutional settings?
New Bern coffeeshop
This is a place to be lonely, with others. I have been wandering through town for the last half an hour, thinking about this trip from different angles and about New Bern and how things come to be the way they are.
I passed a pile of wood scraps and thought, “I could make something with that” and then “but it would be more useful to have a goal of what you want to make before you start collecting supplies” and then I began to apply that sentiment to other things – like this trip.
Being smart and doing research is a matter of enjoying the process as much as getting results. I need to remember that. I am not enjoying this process of research. I enjoy moments of it, but not the day to day, well.. not drudgery exactly but… trudgery. Normally, the process is what thrills me – of science, of dishwashing, of backpacking, and of running. Not every second, but the vast majority of them.
The joy of backpacking comes partly from the beauty and simplicity of traveling unfettered and unhurried. "The closest we can get to freedom two feet on the ground", I’ve written before. Traveling unfettered, however, has its downfalls. I can’t carry books or stop in a restaurant/coffee shop that I know will be full of friends. Free is not universally good.
I was also thinking of what it was like to live in this area or anywhere before we had modern conveniences like internal temperature control or restaurants or grocery stores. Or cars. Or fleece.
Passing pecan and oak trees with their seeds on the sidewalk, I thought about how people define living and think about the food, water, and shelter that sustains them. What does it mean to be outside of that awareness? There was a plaque down by the waterfront for a Civil War battle that was fought in New Bern. Old silo-looking buildings and huge rusting loading dock by the river – the stacks looked like grain silos but have a faint “fertilizer petroleum” written on them. The old train tracks with freight trains still running. There are a million and one things to meditate on and research and be inspired by, in the natural and human worlds. How is it possible to create a picture of the world – of the Ecology of a place - without getting bogged down in any one field? And how do others go through life ignorant of cause-and-effect and history? How are so many people dispassionate about living? How are so many people comfortable with discount or polished knowledge at institutional settings?
Hiatus in New Bern
In the beginning of January, I watched a documentary on Ann Bancroft's Antarctic cross country ski expedition, partially in order to put my crazy in perspective. I watched as they got various physical ailments and struggled through doubt, and eventually, stopped at the South Pole. "Afoot and lighthearted I take to the open road" wrote Walt Whitman in "Song of the Open Road" and I try to live most of my life that way. Until the last 20 miles into New Bern, this trip was always afoot. It has never been lighthearted.
I am spending a glorious weekend with fellow free-spirit Tess, baking vegetables and bread, combing thrift store treasures, hitting up coffee shops, and not defending this trip to my surrogate trail-parents. It has been wonderful, and today I will decide whether I want to keep on walking and if so, to where.
I am spending a glorious weekend with fellow free-spirit Tess, baking vegetables and bread, combing thrift store treasures, hitting up coffee shops, and not defending this trip to my surrogate trail-parents. It has been wonderful, and today I will decide whether I want to keep on walking and if so, to where.
Friday, January 18, 2008
January 18, 2008
Today’s miles: 14.1
Camp Creek to the Neuse River, hitched to New Bern
I woke up early with the concise clear phrase echoing in my head, “Go. Now. Go.” I tried to quell it, and got up with the starting of engines (Friday morning commuters) and packed up and headed out into the morning cold. In Harlowe, I stopped at the little gas station, with only heavily-accented African American clientele. Some reactions I got were:
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Hey, she’s hiking across the state”
“You’re going to FREEZE. You better get yourself to a Motel 6 tonight.”
And other such encouraging talk.
I bought a tasteless 400 calorie strawberry poptart and some coffee, and sat inside the gas station with the Middle Eastern owner, listening to music in Arabic and defrosting. Shouldering the pack, I moved on down the road praying for sun and warmth. The sun finally came out and I passed by the Motha-effing Neusiok trail! Of course, despite my convinction that I would be trucking it to the Neuse River Ferry on roads, I turned into the trail and tried out the boardwalk. I walked about ¾ mile, until the boardwalk dropped off into wet mud. With a sigh, I pivoted and returned to the road. I walked to the Ferry Rd, turned right and marched on 5 miles to the river! I moved through a rich subdivision along the river, in marked contrast to the poverty I had been walking through that morning. I had no idea how much this trip would make me question and think about my privalage and ability to solicit help from strangers as a young caucausion woman
Camp Creek to the Neuse River, hitched to New Bern
I woke up early with the concise clear phrase echoing in my head, “Go. Now. Go.” I tried to quell it, and got up with the starting of engines (Friday morning commuters) and packed up and headed out into the morning cold. In Harlowe, I stopped at the little gas station, with only heavily-accented African American clientele. Some reactions I got were:
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Hey, she’s hiking across the state”
“You’re going to FREEZE. You better get yourself to a Motel 6 tonight.”
And other such encouraging talk.
I bought a tasteless 400 calorie strawberry poptart and some coffee, and sat inside the gas station with the Middle Eastern owner, listening to music in Arabic and defrosting. Shouldering the pack, I moved on down the road praying for sun and warmth. The sun finally came out and I passed by the Motha-effing Neusiok trail! Of course, despite my convinction that I would be trucking it to the Neuse River Ferry on roads, I turned into the trail and tried out the boardwalk. I walked about ¾ mile, until the boardwalk dropped off into wet mud. With a sigh, I pivoted and returned to the road. I walked to the Ferry Rd, turned right and marched on 5 miles to the river! I moved through a rich subdivision along the river, in marked contrast to the poverty I had been walking through that morning. I had no idea how much this trip would make me question and think about my privalage and ability to solicit help from strangers as a young caucausion woman
Coastal North Carolina
Since leaving the Outer Banks, I have taken to the roads, winding through picturesque saltwater marshes, scaring great blue herons, squishing through the spongy grass along the highway. And the not-so-picturesque - walking through some really poor neighborhoods (reminding me that living below my means is a privelage, not a legit lifestyle), soothing very territorial dogs whilst clutching my pepper spray, trying with increasing difficulty to explain to strangers why I don't just do something "normal" - get a job, a boyfriend, an apartment.
It hasn't all been peachy-keen. Thinking about the past the good always shines through, obscuring the tough parts. My face is totally windburnt - I look like a tomato. My lips are also windburnt, and peeling. Yesterday, I walked all day through the endless rain, trying to stay positive. At the end of the day, as I searched in the rainy incoming dark for the trailhead to enter the swamp, it stopped being fun. Today, I walked on roads to the river ferry, found a woman heading to New Bern, and got a ride into the city. I am taking the weekend off and plotting my next move.
Total MST miles: 127.8
Total trip miles: 154.9
It hasn't all been peachy-keen. Thinking about the past the good always shines through, obscuring the tough parts. My face is totally windburnt - I look like a tomato. My lips are also windburnt, and peeling. Yesterday, I walked all day through the endless rain, trying to stay positive. At the end of the day, as I searched in the rainy incoming dark for the trailhead to enter the swamp, it stopped being fun. Today, I walked on roads to the river ferry, found a woman heading to New Bern, and got a ride into the city. I am taking the weekend off and plotting my next move.
Total MST miles: 127.8
Total trip miles: 154.9
Thursday, January 17, 2008
January 17, 2008
Today’s miles: 17.0
It is miserable and raining outside and I am at an impasse as to what I should do today. It’s supposed to rain pretty much now until 4 pm (at least it’s not sleet and snow like in Durham). But then again, my sister Amelia will probably have classes canceled. I will have… hiking cancelled? Maybe. It would be unfortunate to be a day behind schedule, but it would be more unfortunate to be wet and cold and unhappy and on schedule. Right? A day off certainly isn’t the end of the world.
I did hike today. They didn’t offer a place to sleep for another night, and I didn’t ask so by 9:45 am, full of decaf coffee, off I walked into the dreary rain – 100% chance of rain all day. Hallelujah. Most of the day actually wasn’t so bad – I listened to music and stopped for a lunch of pizza, pop, and chocolate at a BP station. I got about 10 ride offers over the course of the day. By late afternoon, as I was looking for the Neusiok Trail and being barked at by unleashed dogs, the rain began to fall harder. After wandering around for an hour, searching for something trail-like between the ramshackle houses, I gave up and settled into a soggy strip of land tucked next to the road in the briars.
As soon as I stopped walking, the rain stopped and I set up my tent, hesitantly because it was most definitely private land and I was in the private property pride capital: the rural south. It is a wet, cold evening.
It is miserable and raining outside and I am at an impasse as to what I should do today. It’s supposed to rain pretty much now until 4 pm (at least it’s not sleet and snow like in Durham). But then again, my sister Amelia will probably have classes canceled. I will have… hiking cancelled? Maybe. It would be unfortunate to be a day behind schedule, but it would be more unfortunate to be wet and cold and unhappy and on schedule. Right? A day off certainly isn’t the end of the world.
I did hike today. They didn’t offer a place to sleep for another night, and I didn’t ask so by 9:45 am, full of decaf coffee, off I walked into the dreary rain – 100% chance of rain all day. Hallelujah. Most of the day actually wasn’t so bad – I listened to music and stopped for a lunch of pizza, pop, and chocolate at a BP station. I got about 10 ride offers over the course of the day. By late afternoon, as I was looking for the Neusiok Trail and being barked at by unleashed dogs, the rain began to fall harder. After wandering around for an hour, searching for something trail-like between the ramshackle houses, I gave up and settled into a soggy strip of land tucked next to the road in the briars.
As soon as I stopped walking, the rain stopped and I set up my tent, hesitantly because it was most definitely private land and I was in the private property pride capital: the rural south. It is a wet, cold evening.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
January 16, 2008
Today’s miles: 17.0
It was an uneventful day until around Stacy (population 191). All morning, I listened to NPR on the radio. I was walking through town when a door swing open and out walked an attractive, young guy “Where are you walking to?” I told him (Josh) and asked to fill up my water at his house. He was watching country music videos, getting ready to go set up some duck hides. He ticked off what he does, “Guide duck huntin’, go fishin' some, and I’m a cap’n. And pretty much, when I’m not workin’, I’m drinkin’.” And then he took about two facts about my trip for his article for the local paper – name and that I was hiking from Kitty Hawk to “Asheville.” Then he recommended that I go visit his buddy Jeff, who was crazy and had done plenty of interesting things, like hitchhike to Alaska, and invent the Tigerclaw saw (ohhh… the tiger claw!). So I said I might visit, then trucked on down the road. I reached Davis (where this character lived, population 350) late morning, and went into the corner variety store. While drinking coffee and eating cookies, sitting on my backpack, a fellow climbed out of his truck and said, “You must be the traveler,” and that was Jeff. We talked for close to an hour, about near everything.
He looked to be in his late 30s, with dark curly hair and a relaxed demeanor. He sat on top of the ice cooler and me on my backpack. He’s from Wisconsin, been living in Davis for the last 4 years, finishing a house, before that Asheville for a long while. Next week, he’s actually planning on traveling back to Asheville to move there with his 15 year old son, who’s having behavioral troubles at the local school. We talked about life on the road, good hitches and drunk hitches and he seemed to be nostalgically looking back to an earlier time when he said, “It’s amazing, whatever you need, it seems to appear right in front of you, on the side of the road.”
I felt such affection for this man, an intelligent single father stuck not knowing how to reclaim the freedom of the road off the road. He gave me $15 coupons to a bar/restaurant in Asheville that he’s a partial owner of, and off I go and he goes, and for the rest of the afternoon it was as though I had a special glow all around me, from a run-in with a common soul.
I stopped for a late lunch at a Methodist church picnic table. As the sun was setting, I became worried, because I had not seen the campground I was looking for. Stopped a woman driving out of a driveway to ask for directions and sneakily solicit an invitation to sleep in my tent in her yard. She, being the wife of a Baptist preacher, instead offered me to stay in a trailer vacated in their yard and we went to do some errands around town, with Rhonda’s grandson the very cute Dean. She bought me a BBQ chicken dinner and we rode the whole way listening to baby songs full blast on the stereo, to stop the baby’s fussing.
I slept in their RV, getting up a few times to coat my face in cocoa butter and lips in medicated lip balm. I really do resemble a ripe tomato. Yum.
It was an uneventful day until around Stacy (population 191). All morning, I listened to NPR on the radio. I was walking through town when a door swing open and out walked an attractive, young guy “Where are you walking to?” I told him (Josh) and asked to fill up my water at his house. He was watching country music videos, getting ready to go set up some duck hides. He ticked off what he does, “Guide duck huntin’, go fishin' some, and I’m a cap’n. And pretty much, when I’m not workin’, I’m drinkin’.” And then he took about two facts about my trip for his article for the local paper – name and that I was hiking from Kitty Hawk to “Asheville.” Then he recommended that I go visit his buddy Jeff, who was crazy and had done plenty of interesting things, like hitchhike to Alaska, and invent the Tigerclaw saw (ohhh… the tiger claw!). So I said I might visit, then trucked on down the road. I reached Davis (where this character lived, population 350) late morning, and went into the corner variety store. While drinking coffee and eating cookies, sitting on my backpack, a fellow climbed out of his truck and said, “You must be the traveler,” and that was Jeff. We talked for close to an hour, about near everything.
He looked to be in his late 30s, with dark curly hair and a relaxed demeanor. He sat on top of the ice cooler and me on my backpack. He’s from Wisconsin, been living in Davis for the last 4 years, finishing a house, before that Asheville for a long while. Next week, he’s actually planning on traveling back to Asheville to move there with his 15 year old son, who’s having behavioral troubles at the local school. We talked about life on the road, good hitches and drunk hitches and he seemed to be nostalgically looking back to an earlier time when he said, “It’s amazing, whatever you need, it seems to appear right in front of you, on the side of the road.”
I felt such affection for this man, an intelligent single father stuck not knowing how to reclaim the freedom of the road off the road. He gave me $15 coupons to a bar/restaurant in Asheville that he’s a partial owner of, and off I go and he goes, and for the rest of the afternoon it was as though I had a special glow all around me, from a run-in with a common soul.
I stopped for a late lunch at a Methodist church picnic table. As the sun was setting, I became worried, because I had not seen the campground I was looking for. Stopped a woman driving out of a driveway to ask for directions and sneakily solicit an invitation to sleep in my tent in her yard. She, being the wife of a Baptist preacher, instead offered me to stay in a trailer vacated in their yard and we went to do some errands around town, with Rhonda’s grandson the very cute Dean. She bought me a BBQ chicken dinner and we rode the whole way listening to baby songs full blast on the stereo, to stop the baby’s fussing.
I slept in their RV, getting up a few times to coat my face in cocoa butter and lips in medicated lip balm. I really do resemble a ripe tomato. Yum.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
January 15, 2008
Today's miles: 9.5
Back to the mainland I go. There are four men on this ferry with me, talking in really garbled accents. I mean, I am having trouble even figuring out what they are talking about, but I’m getting the impression that it is politics. And they don’t like Hillary “Chelsea’s Mama”. This is a 2 hour, 15 min ferry. I resupplied this morning at the variety store and got a new raincoat (much more heavy duty and costing $4).
What resonates most with me today are the varying reactions that I get to this trip, especially this afternoon. On the ferry, the four men all had something to say about my trip. A couple gave practical advice, told me to use my intuition. A third man, who as been living on Okracoke for 30 years, talked to me about for a long time. He told me about his jobs (commercial fishing, the Marines, and now maintenance work on the islands) and the water systems (Hatteras Island uses desalination, Okracoke uses a deep well and filtration system, but it used to be rainwater fed, and Cedar Island to Morehead City have mostly personal wells). He called hurricanes the natural water bucket of the coast. We talked about fishing, and how government regulations made it cheaper for frozen fish to be imported because fishermen can no longer make a living off of what they are allowed to catch. And then out of the blue, he asked me what my church is back home and fumbling some, I replied, “Methodist!” and we talked a little bit about religion. He gave me a benediction, kind blessings for safety during my trip.
In contrast to the third kind man, the fourth one asked me straight out – Why would you want to do that? And so I explained the circumstances, that I am almost done with college, want to explore before I get a real job and settle down, etc. And he came back with a sarcastic (I think) reply of, “No girl, you need to get a job! And apartment, settle down, make money!”
I replied, “I have the rest of my life to do that.”
And he said, “I’m 66, and the last 25 years have felt like about 3. It flies by. You need to start playing the game so you can start losing at it.”
And that was his parting sentiment. The “you are not normal” speech. I wonder what made him so cynical about life – maybe it was because his job consists of riding a 2 hour ferry back and forth on the same route, every day. The third man said that the other three used to be commercial fishermen for a living. Foraging… to service sector. Does that a cynic make?
Off the ferry, I walked until dusk on the road, past the little community of Cedar Island (population 301), getting a few unsolicited ride offers, a lot of friendly waves, and one man who wagged his finger at me. I passed through the Cedar Island Wildlife Refuge, with marsh as far as the eye could see, waves of grass towards the horizon of saltwater sound.
Back to the mainland I go. There are four men on this ferry with me, talking in really garbled accents. I mean, I am having trouble even figuring out what they are talking about, but I’m getting the impression that it is politics. And they don’t like Hillary “Chelsea’s Mama”. This is a 2 hour, 15 min ferry. I resupplied this morning at the variety store and got a new raincoat (much more heavy duty and costing $4).
What resonates most with me today are the varying reactions that I get to this trip, especially this afternoon. On the ferry, the four men all had something to say about my trip. A couple gave practical advice, told me to use my intuition. A third man, who as been living on Okracoke for 30 years, talked to me about for a long time. He told me about his jobs (commercial fishing, the Marines, and now maintenance work on the islands) and the water systems (Hatteras Island uses desalination, Okracoke uses a deep well and filtration system, but it used to be rainwater fed, and Cedar Island to Morehead City have mostly personal wells). He called hurricanes the natural water bucket of the coast. We talked about fishing, and how government regulations made it cheaper for frozen fish to be imported because fishermen can no longer make a living off of what they are allowed to catch. And then out of the blue, he asked me what my church is back home and fumbling some, I replied, “Methodist!” and we talked a little bit about religion. He gave me a benediction, kind blessings for safety during my trip.
In contrast to the third kind man, the fourth one asked me straight out – Why would you want to do that? And so I explained the circumstances, that I am almost done with college, want to explore before I get a real job and settle down, etc. And he came back with a sarcastic (I think) reply of, “No girl, you need to get a job! And apartment, settle down, make money!”
I replied, “I have the rest of my life to do that.”
And he said, “I’m 66, and the last 25 years have felt like about 3. It flies by. You need to start playing the game so you can start losing at it.”
And that was his parting sentiment. The “you are not normal” speech. I wonder what made him so cynical about life – maybe it was because his job consists of riding a 2 hour ferry back and forth on the same route, every day. The third man said that the other three used to be commercial fishermen for a living. Foraging… to service sector. Does that a cynic make?
Off the ferry, I walked until dusk on the road, past the little community of Cedar Island (population 301), getting a few unsolicited ride offers, a lot of friendly waves, and one man who wagged his finger at me. I passed through the Cedar Island Wildlife Refuge, with marsh as far as the eye could see, waves of grass towards the horizon of saltwater sound.
Monday, January 14, 2008
The Outer Banks
My face is burning. I think it is from the wind on the beach. Or maybe the sun. I am in Okracoke, at the end of the 60-something mile stretch on the beach. Most of the beaches have been deserted, save for the occasional fisherman and his truck. And washed up mysterious shoes and animals and shipwrecks(!!!) The clouds and dunes and sunrises have been beautiful, I have been staying relatively warm and mostly dry. I'm too tired to fully rehash the last week.
Total MST miles: 81.3
Total trip miles: 94.8
Total MST miles: 81.3
Total trip miles: 94.8
January 14, 2008
Today's miles: 20.0
Frisco to Okracoke
By morning, everything felt better, newer, drier and I was in better spirits. I woke up early for sunrise and an early 5-6 mile push to the ferry terminal to try and make the 9 am ferry to Ocracoke Island – the schedule is shortened because of roadwork on the island. I passed by a successful fisherman, carrying his arm length fish towards the boardwalk. Otherwise, it was me, the breeze, and the crazy moving clouds creating dazzling morning patterns across the sky – fish scales and puffy rain clouds, and wispy distant high clouds. My friend Seth would have had a field day with all of those cloud patterns!
I got to the ferry terminal and its little oasis comfort station by 8:30 am! I was of course the only walk-on traveler. The ferry took about 40 min to get to Okracoke Island. I chatted a little with the two ferry employees about my trip and basked in their exclamations of amazement, “You’re more of a woman than me!” one said. Off the ferry, I headed straight on down the beach in the wrong direction, where I ended up dead ending in a bog. When I finally got down to the right part of the beach, I hiked for 15 miles into the chilly wild in the bright sunshine. I finally found the wimpy, fenced-in "WILD" ponies down the trail after crawling under a fence looking for them out in the scrubby, expansive “pasture.” They were right by an observation deck, looked very normal pony-like (although they apparently have one less rib than normal ponies and are therefore uniquely adapted to the islands).
At the construction zone (the road is being re-built), I walked out to the beach to walk by the waves down the long, long stretch of beach, passing up multiple ride offers from passing vehicles. After a while, my nose and cheeks began to burn, and felt smooth and stiff – I don’t know whether it is plain old sunburn or windburn. Finally in Okracoke, a biker stopped and asked if I was hiking ‘the trail’ – the trail, imagine that?! And offered me a place to stay. I navigated myself to the library and updated me blog, wimpily. Talked a bit to a guy who is planning on thru-hiking the French part of the Camino de Santiago this summer! A backpacker! And onward to finally stay with Cassie and Jason, the gracious ex-couple who not only offered me a “couch” to sleep on, but a bed and room and shower and washer/dryer AND fajitas. I stayed up until 10 pm, watching The Life Aquatic with them.
Cassie and Jason have been living in Okracoke for two years now, both having graduated from Penn State. They said that one of the neat things about the island community is that everyone seems to have a hidden musical or artistic talent. And that some people have been living there for generations of their families and have plenty of quirks and interesting family histories. We talked about the surge of illegal immigrants on the island competing for jobs and leading to people locking their doors and cars – breaking down the trust of the community.
There are so many things that make islands interesting – their role in evolutionary history especially comes to mind. But there are so many unique things to learn from them – the community that thrives on insular trust. The input-output being a clear equation of whatever is brought in on a ferry boat or pumped into the ocean. The desalination plants making freshwater.
And then there is the history of human relation to the land – from houses on stilts that could be rolled backwards on logs with the advance of the ocean, and as the islands are pushed westward by the tides, to “crotch” structures to try and keep the beach from eroding, and McMansion beach front property insured by the only company stupid enough to insure barrier island property in the path of change, the constant wear of wind and sand and sun, and regular tropical storms and hurricanes: the federal government.
These are the scenes of colonization, WWII battles, shipwrecks since the age of exploration, pirates (near Okracoke was where Blackbeard was killed by General Maynard after his crew killed his crew). Cassie and Jason also told me that Bonner Bridge scored a 4/100 on the safety scale. A little comparison: the Minneapolis bridge was 50/100 on the safety scale. I’m glad that I heard that after walking over it!! No crops at all are grown on the islands, but goddamn they are beautiful and attract some hardy, interesting characters.
Frisco to Okracoke
By morning, everything felt better, newer, drier and I was in better spirits. I woke up early for sunrise and an early 5-6 mile push to the ferry terminal to try and make the 9 am ferry to Ocracoke Island – the schedule is shortened because of roadwork on the island. I passed by a successful fisherman, carrying his arm length fish towards the boardwalk. Otherwise, it was me, the breeze, and the crazy moving clouds creating dazzling morning patterns across the sky – fish scales and puffy rain clouds, and wispy distant high clouds. My friend Seth would have had a field day with all of those cloud patterns!
I got to the ferry terminal and its little oasis comfort station by 8:30 am! I was of course the only walk-on traveler. The ferry took about 40 min to get to Okracoke Island. I chatted a little with the two ferry employees about my trip and basked in their exclamations of amazement, “You’re more of a woman than me!” one said. Off the ferry, I headed straight on down the beach in the wrong direction, where I ended up dead ending in a bog. When I finally got down to the right part of the beach, I hiked for 15 miles into the chilly wild in the bright sunshine. I finally found the wimpy, fenced-in "WILD" ponies down the trail after crawling under a fence looking for them out in the scrubby, expansive “pasture.” They were right by an observation deck, looked very normal pony-like (although they apparently have one less rib than normal ponies and are therefore uniquely adapted to the islands).
At the construction zone (the road is being re-built), I walked out to the beach to walk by the waves down the long, long stretch of beach, passing up multiple ride offers from passing vehicles. After a while, my nose and cheeks began to burn, and felt smooth and stiff – I don’t know whether it is plain old sunburn or windburn. Finally in Okracoke, a biker stopped and asked if I was hiking ‘the trail’ – the trail, imagine that?! And offered me a place to stay. I navigated myself to the library and updated me blog, wimpily. Talked a bit to a guy who is planning on thru-hiking the French part of the Camino de Santiago this summer! A backpacker! And onward to finally stay with Cassie and Jason, the gracious ex-couple who not only offered me a “couch” to sleep on, but a bed and room and shower and washer/dryer AND fajitas. I stayed up until 10 pm, watching The Life Aquatic with them.
Cassie and Jason have been living in Okracoke for two years now, both having graduated from Penn State. They said that one of the neat things about the island community is that everyone seems to have a hidden musical or artistic talent. And that some people have been living there for generations of their families and have plenty of quirks and interesting family histories. We talked about the surge of illegal immigrants on the island competing for jobs and leading to people locking their doors and cars – breaking down the trust of the community.
There are so many things that make islands interesting – their role in evolutionary history especially comes to mind. But there are so many unique things to learn from them – the community that thrives on insular trust. The input-output being a clear equation of whatever is brought in on a ferry boat or pumped into the ocean. The desalination plants making freshwater.
And then there is the history of human relation to the land – from houses on stilts that could be rolled backwards on logs with the advance of the ocean, and as the islands are pushed westward by the tides, to “crotch” structures to try and keep the beach from eroding, and McMansion beach front property insured by the only company stupid enough to insure barrier island property in the path of change, the constant wear of wind and sand and sun, and regular tropical storms and hurricanes: the federal government.
These are the scenes of colonization, WWII battles, shipwrecks since the age of exploration, pirates (near Okracoke was where Blackbeard was killed by General Maynard after his crew killed his crew). Cassie and Jason also told me that Bonner Bridge scored a 4/100 on the safety scale. A little comparison: the Minneapolis bridge was 50/100 on the safety scale. I’m glad that I heard that after walking over it!! No crops at all are grown on the islands, but goddamn they are beautiful and attract some hardy, interesting characters.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
January 13, 2008
Today's miles: 11.0
Avon to just east of Frisco on the dunes of Cape Hatteras Seashore
I woke up to gray skies, and the wind once again at my back. I had peanut butter and banana on a bagel for an alternative breakfast. I began by trying to find the alt-route on the other side of NC-12, the old trail listed in the guidebook that would supposedly allow me to take an old beach road parallel to Pamilco Sound. I hiked half-mile or so before dead ending in some thorny brush, so I elected to return to the Atlantic Beach. Kept thinking, “red sky in morning, sailors take warning,” all day, because of the reddish glow at sunrise. I arrived at the lighthouse site, with all of the keeper’s names in marble at its base. The old lighthouse was moved to its new site using rollers not long ago. It’s a black and white brick peppermint stick.
I talked to the woman working at the museum for a long while, about barrier island ecology and shipwrecks. There were weird weather fluctuations today.
Today I got to actually take a non-beach trail! It’s called North Pond Rd, and it is gated at either end to keep cars off of it. I knew there was a chance of rain all day, but it just kept flipping on and off, so I would shed layers when the sun came out and pile my clothes and “raincoat” back on when the clouds blew over the sun and the temperature dropped 15 degrees! Hiding under a rare large tree, I felt thankful to be so compact and to finally have some natural protection from the rain and wind. This side of the OBX is a lot calmer than the direct N-S Atlantic islands.
It was so exciting (and validating) to see trail markers along the path. There were real trail blazes, and a couple of signs with the MST logo! I ran into a dayhiker with her enthusiastic dog, but otherwise just a few chattery squirrels complaining about my intrusion on their ecosystem. The sand got deep and white, and landscape less forested, more dune-landscape and at a trail, I hopped back from the dunes to the beach. The beach on the south side was calm and the sand was good for walking. A man with headphones on passed by in his truck a couple of times. I wonder what he was listening to driving on the beach on this rainy January afternoon. All I could think of was last spring going through the carwash with Ellen, AJ et al. with Rage Against the Machine playing full blast on the stereo. I miss all of those friends, a lot. I walked until it began to rain. Maybe it was a combination of the rain and nostalgia that sent me spiraling into a maelstrom of doubt, but when I was tenting out the storm at 3:30 pm, I began to question whether I wanted to follow this trip through.
Avon to just east of Frisco on the dunes of Cape Hatteras Seashore
I woke up to gray skies, and the wind once again at my back. I had peanut butter and banana on a bagel for an alternative breakfast. I began by trying to find the alt-route on the other side of NC-12, the old trail listed in the guidebook that would supposedly allow me to take an old beach road parallel to Pamilco Sound. I hiked half-mile or so before dead ending in some thorny brush, so I elected to return to the Atlantic Beach. Kept thinking, “red sky in morning, sailors take warning,” all day, because of the reddish glow at sunrise. I arrived at the lighthouse site, with all of the keeper’s names in marble at its base. The old lighthouse was moved to its new site using rollers not long ago. It’s a black and white brick peppermint stick.
I talked to the woman working at the museum for a long while, about barrier island ecology and shipwrecks. There were weird weather fluctuations today.
Today I got to actually take a non-beach trail! It’s called North Pond Rd, and it is gated at either end to keep cars off of it. I knew there was a chance of rain all day, but it just kept flipping on and off, so I would shed layers when the sun came out and pile my clothes and “raincoat” back on when the clouds blew over the sun and the temperature dropped 15 degrees! Hiding under a rare large tree, I felt thankful to be so compact and to finally have some natural protection from the rain and wind. This side of the OBX is a lot calmer than the direct N-S Atlantic islands.
It was so exciting (and validating) to see trail markers along the path. There were real trail blazes, and a couple of signs with the MST logo! I ran into a dayhiker with her enthusiastic dog, but otherwise just a few chattery squirrels complaining about my intrusion on their ecosystem. The sand got deep and white, and landscape less forested, more dune-landscape and at a trail, I hopped back from the dunes to the beach. The beach on the south side was calm and the sand was good for walking. A man with headphones on passed by in his truck a couple of times. I wonder what he was listening to driving on the beach on this rainy January afternoon. All I could think of was last spring going through the carwash with Ellen, AJ et al. with Rage Against the Machine playing full blast on the stereo. I miss all of those friends, a lot. I walked until it began to rain. Maybe it was a combination of the rain and nostalgia that sent me spiraling into a maelstrom of doubt, but when I was tenting out the storm at 3:30 pm, I began to question whether I wanted to follow this trip through.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
January 12, 2008
Today's miles: 20.1
Rodanthe to Avon
A multifarious day filled with a dog, the wind at my back, an afternoon of rain, good people met, brownies eaten, and ending with cheesy fries, coffee, and not so stealthy stealth-camping in the backyard of some houses. I am here with hopes that noone has to take their dog out tonight, and if so, they won’t call the cops to come fine me or cart my ass into jail for trespassing or wrecking the dunes.
This morning I woke up at the same time (6 am) in bed in the dry (!!) room at Lynn’s house, down on Laughing Gull Lane. I packed up, made some instant coffee in the microwave, and trotted on down to the beach to walk backwards to the pier, where I would make up for last night’s ride from the pub to the house. I dropped my pack on the sand, walked north for about a mile, meanwhile accidentally makin friends with a golden retriever pup on the beach. We walked together for 3.5 miles, by which point I was growing attached to the Rascal. He was a really sweet pup, although he made me feel badly about walking so slowly, chasing gulls and snipers in circles, then racing back to me to side-swipe me with his wet fur. I gave him some water and left him with a couple of fishermen.
The wind was at my back all day, and it was good walking until it started to rain in the early afternoon. Cold drops of rain. I put on the Dollar Tree poncho, and kept on down the beach. I took a break to slip my feet out of my sandals, eat a cheese sandwich (picking mold off of the bread…) while sitting behind a dune away from the wind. The great thing about backpacking is that its like a marathon picnic. A couple from near Raleigh stopped and gave me homemade brownies! They were out on the beach looking for washed-up fishing lures and picking up old fishing nets that could entangle birds on the beach. I believe in the trail gods. I really do. I am remembering, however, that there are negative things too! Like this afternoon and the rain & wind.
As I walked in the rainy wind with aching feet, I sang the entire 99-bottles-of-beer-on-the-wall song to motivated myself to reach the Avon fishing Pier in the distance. I went to a shopping plaza in Avon to get some bagels and dry off/warm up in Topper’s Pizza Café. And also eat cheesy fries. I love town stops. It totally saved my cold butt today. I talked to a couple in the restaurant from Ohio. They too saw me on Hwy 12 yesterday.
Rodanthe to Avon
A multifarious day filled with a dog, the wind at my back, an afternoon of rain, good people met, brownies eaten, and ending with cheesy fries, coffee, and not so stealthy stealth-camping in the backyard of some houses. I am here with hopes that noone has to take their dog out tonight, and if so, they won’t call the cops to come fine me or cart my ass into jail for trespassing or wrecking the dunes.
This morning I woke up at the same time (6 am) in bed in the dry (!!) room at Lynn’s house, down on Laughing Gull Lane. I packed up, made some instant coffee in the microwave, and trotted on down to the beach to walk backwards to the pier, where I would make up for last night’s ride from the pub to the house. I dropped my pack on the sand, walked north for about a mile, meanwhile accidentally makin friends with a golden retriever pup on the beach. We walked together for 3.5 miles, by which point I was growing attached to the Rascal. He was a really sweet pup, although he made me feel badly about walking so slowly, chasing gulls and snipers in circles, then racing back to me to side-swipe me with his wet fur. I gave him some water and left him with a couple of fishermen.
The wind was at my back all day, and it was good walking until it started to rain in the early afternoon. Cold drops of rain. I put on the Dollar Tree poncho, and kept on down the beach. I took a break to slip my feet out of my sandals, eat a cheese sandwich (picking mold off of the bread…) while sitting behind a dune away from the wind. The great thing about backpacking is that its like a marathon picnic. A couple from near Raleigh stopped and gave me homemade brownies! They were out on the beach looking for washed-up fishing lures and picking up old fishing nets that could entangle birds on the beach. I believe in the trail gods. I really do. I am remembering, however, that there are negative things too! Like this afternoon and the rain & wind.
As I walked in the rainy wind with aching feet, I sang the entire 99-bottles-of-beer-on-the-wall song to motivated myself to reach the Avon fishing Pier in the distance. I went to a shopping plaza in Avon to get some bagels and dry off/warm up in Topper’s Pizza Café. And also eat cheesy fries. I love town stops. It totally saved my cold butt today. I talked to a couple in the restaurant from Ohio. They too saw me on Hwy 12 yesterday.
Friday, January 11, 2008
January 11, 2008
Today’s miles: 19.7
What a long, long day. I woke up at sunrise (a gorgeous gorgeous sunrise). Left my dune to see that someone was camped practically right on top of me down the beach. Exited the beach, crossed the highway and entered the road towards Bodie Lighthouse. I skipped onto a little pine-lined path to walk to the lighthouse. Saw a couple of deer. Arrived at the lighthouse at 8:15 am. I wasn’t expecting to see anyone around (it opens at 9) but a woman was standing on the porch smoking a cigarette. I got some water from the pump, chit-chatted with her really briefly, then headed down the trail through some marshland, flushing great blue herons and white ibises from the adjacent streams.
Next, I walked on rt 12 to the Herbert C Bonner bridge with a “pedestrian walkspace” : yeah right. I hopped down to the catwalk, unaware that it would be ending in 200 yards. When it dead-ended, I hoisted first my pack then me up to the bridge. I think that was when I lost my peanut butter (RIP). I began the windy, harrowing bridge walk, which involved me clutching the railing for dear life and hoping that everyone would see me when they drove past at 55 mph. Scary, I almost fell to the sand on the end of the 2.5 miles walk to kiss its semi-permanent surface. I wandered around the dunes for a little while before continuing walking down the road, hoping I could find cover before it started to rain. I luckily found a little “interpretive sign” with a cover just as it began to rain and ducked underneath. I balled up in a poncho until the rain (and some thunder, lightening) stopped. Counting the seconds between the lightening and thunder, hearing it the storm leave.
Once it stopped, I put my pack on top of my layers and walked down the road to the Pea Island Sanctuary bird walk, a 2.5 mile dike-top jaunt through spongy grass past salt water and freshwater marshes, teeming full of ducks and ibises and and swans and geese… In the bush, I saw lots of birds that I couldn’t identify and a red winged blackbird, male cardinal, snowbirds, etc.
Stopped at the visitors center to talk to the two volunteers. They pointed out some of the birds that they knew and I listened. I left for the beach. I passed by lots of unidentified objects on the beach today – it was mesmerizing to see something bulky or colorful in the distance, and get closer and closer, to see that it wasn’t a mirage, but I still had no idea what it was. I didn’t see (or rather, pass) anyone on the beach today. Just me and the birds and the waves. My feet started to ache after a while, so I cut back to the road for the last 2 miles or so into Rodanthe. I thought it would never come. Got to this establishment (the Pub n’ Grub) at dusk (now 5:09 pm!! Can you believe it?).
No wonder I am having so much trouble getting all of my hiking done – 20 miles in less than 10 hours is damn impressive, when you take into consideration breaks and meals. Here I was served a delicious pizza and beer by Lynn the bartender and George the cook. In addition, after finding out that no campgrounds are open tonight, Lynn offered to let me sleep in the spare bedroom in her house! Golly. It is supposed to rain all tonight and tomorrow (60% chance of some type of rain…). The trail gods are being good to me today.
As Lynn drove me to her house, she described how at her gym in Avon two men were talking with amazement about some girl who had been crossing the bridge earlier that day. I am apparently notorious already in the OBX.
What a long, long day. I woke up at sunrise (a gorgeous gorgeous sunrise). Left my dune to see that someone was camped practically right on top of me down the beach. Exited the beach, crossed the highway and entered the road towards Bodie Lighthouse. I skipped onto a little pine-lined path to walk to the lighthouse. Saw a couple of deer. Arrived at the lighthouse at 8:15 am. I wasn’t expecting to see anyone around (it opens at 9) but a woman was standing on the porch smoking a cigarette. I got some water from the pump, chit-chatted with her really briefly, then headed down the trail through some marshland, flushing great blue herons and white ibises from the adjacent streams.
Next, I walked on rt 12 to the Herbert C Bonner bridge with a “pedestrian walkspace” : yeah right. I hopped down to the catwalk, unaware that it would be ending in 200 yards. When it dead-ended, I hoisted first my pack then me up to the bridge. I think that was when I lost my peanut butter (RIP). I began the windy, harrowing bridge walk, which involved me clutching the railing for dear life and hoping that everyone would see me when they drove past at 55 mph. Scary, I almost fell to the sand on the end of the 2.5 miles walk to kiss its semi-permanent surface. I wandered around the dunes for a little while before continuing walking down the road, hoping I could find cover before it started to rain. I luckily found a little “interpretive sign” with a cover just as it began to rain and ducked underneath. I balled up in a poncho until the rain (and some thunder, lightening) stopped. Counting the seconds between the lightening and thunder, hearing it the storm leave.
Once it stopped, I put my pack on top of my layers and walked down the road to the Pea Island Sanctuary bird walk, a 2.5 mile dike-top jaunt through spongy grass past salt water and freshwater marshes, teeming full of ducks and ibises and and swans and geese… In the bush, I saw lots of birds that I couldn’t identify and a red winged blackbird, male cardinal, snowbirds, etc.
Stopped at the visitors center to talk to the two volunteers. They pointed out some of the birds that they knew and I listened. I left for the beach. I passed by lots of unidentified objects on the beach today – it was mesmerizing to see something bulky or colorful in the distance, and get closer and closer, to see that it wasn’t a mirage, but I still had no idea what it was. I didn’t see (or rather, pass) anyone on the beach today. Just me and the birds and the waves. My feet started to ache after a while, so I cut back to the road for the last 2 miles or so into Rodanthe. I thought it would never come. Got to this establishment (the Pub n’ Grub) at dusk (now 5:09 pm!! Can you believe it?).
No wonder I am having so much trouble getting all of my hiking done – 20 miles in less than 10 hours is damn impressive, when you take into consideration breaks and meals. Here I was served a delicious pizza and beer by Lynn the bartender and George the cook. In addition, after finding out that no campgrounds are open tonight, Lynn offered to let me sleep in the spare bedroom in her house! Golly. It is supposed to rain all tonight and tomorrow (60% chance of some type of rain…). The trail gods are being good to me today.
As Lynn drove me to her house, she described how at her gym in Avon two men were talking with amazement about some girl who had been crossing the bridge earlier that day. I am apparently notorious already in the OBX.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
January 10, 2008
I woke up again with the first strains of dawn, making sure to pack up my things in a hurry, seeing as I was essentially camped out on someone’s backyard dune. In my stealth gear (black fleece, black spandex, black Chaco sandals) I left the dune to continue down the beach. After a mile, I cut into the town of Kill Devil Hills to find Nags Head Forest Preserve, for a little change of pace from the beach-walking. Following eery little back roads, where the roads were half paved, half overgrown grassy lanes. With the help of some directions, I got into the park. Algae covered swamps passed on either side of me, lots of vines covering the canopies of trees, some of them green in the middle of winter. I wonder what it’s like in the summertime when everything is green – probably wild and intimidating.
I was surprised to see private driveways and a few historic cemeteries along the road – what kind of person chooses to live in a SWAMP? Seriously. Back in the 19th century, people did live there, apparently. Ominous “keep out” signs crowned every road. I finally reached what looked like the end, as a sand cliff dove 15-20 feet to a bit of sand and the Palmilco Sound. I tried to walk down by the beach, but changed my mind, deciding instead to take the private road connected to the rode I was on to see where it led – to see if I could connect it to Jockey’s Ridge State Park (the official start of the Mountain-to-Sea Trail). Eventually, I navigated a series of road to find a coastal area and managed to squirm my way along the coast, over grassy tidal zones, into the park.
I took the back route to the top of the tallest dune on the Atlantic Coast (90-100 feet depending on the day). It was pretty spectacular. On the top, I met a girl who works for Outdoor Provision in Raleigh! I’m going to visit the shop when I get there. When I get there. I introduced myself at Jockey’s Ridge visitors center, to the 3 women who work there (and were very excited for my journey). I passed the first blaze of the trail and headed to the beach for some MST loveeeee.
Passed by a fisherman who I saw yesterday. Another bad catch, he said. I watched the clouds with curiousity. In Nags Head, I walked into town for some coffee, chocolate resupply, and Taco Bell. I talked for about half an hour to a gentleman on a bicycle who has always wanted to do the Appalachian Trail. We talked about, of all things, evolution. I walked on the road a little as I now have 3 blisters. At dusk, I headed to the beach to find someplace to camp. I am in the crotch between a couple dunes and my tent is hopefully more secure than last night, when it nearly collapsed on me! I have just entered Cape Hatteras National Seashore. I am feeling the OBX love. My legs are a little sore tonight. It was a long day.
2:15 am
It seems as though I just cannot stay asleep for longer than 6.5 hours. It doesn’t help that the wind is shaking my tent like a Polaroid picture. My back stake came out so I had to go out and tack it back down. A day and a half on the beach and already I feel weather-worn from the elements. What happens when it rains? Or gets cold? Hopefully then I will have a better tenting spot (or longer tent stakes). I swear, I must have ingested enough sand to make an ordinary gizzard very happy… if humans had grinding gizzards like chickens do.
I have yet to get into the rhythm of this trip. It still feels first date awkward, hopefully one of those times we can look back on together and laugh about.
I was surprised to see private driveways and a few historic cemeteries along the road – what kind of person chooses to live in a SWAMP? Seriously. Back in the 19th century, people did live there, apparently. Ominous “keep out” signs crowned every road. I finally reached what looked like the end, as a sand cliff dove 15-20 feet to a bit of sand and the Palmilco Sound. I tried to walk down by the beach, but changed my mind, deciding instead to take the private road connected to the rode I was on to see where it led – to see if I could connect it to Jockey’s Ridge State Park (the official start of the Mountain-to-Sea Trail). Eventually, I navigated a series of road to find a coastal area and managed to squirm my way along the coast, over grassy tidal zones, into the park.
I took the back route to the top of the tallest dune on the Atlantic Coast (90-100 feet depending on the day). It was pretty spectacular. On the top, I met a girl who works for Outdoor Provision in Raleigh! I’m going to visit the shop when I get there. When I get there. I introduced myself at Jockey’s Ridge visitors center, to the 3 women who work there (and were very excited for my journey). I passed the first blaze of the trail and headed to the beach for some MST loveeeee.
Passed by a fisherman who I saw yesterday. Another bad catch, he said. I watched the clouds with curiousity. In Nags Head, I walked into town for some coffee, chocolate resupply, and Taco Bell. I talked for about half an hour to a gentleman on a bicycle who has always wanted to do the Appalachian Trail. We talked about, of all things, evolution. I walked on the road a little as I now have 3 blisters. At dusk, I headed to the beach to find someplace to camp. I am in the crotch between a couple dunes and my tent is hopefully more secure than last night, when it nearly collapsed on me! I have just entered Cape Hatteras National Seashore. I am feeling the OBX love. My legs are a little sore tonight. It was a long day.
2:15 am
It seems as though I just cannot stay asleep for longer than 6.5 hours. It doesn’t help that the wind is shaking my tent like a Polaroid picture. My back stake came out so I had to go out and tack it back down. A day and a half on the beach and already I feel weather-worn from the elements. What happens when it rains? Or gets cold? Hopefully then I will have a better tenting spot (or longer tent stakes). I swear, I must have ingested enough sand to make an ordinary gizzard very happy… if humans had grinding gizzards like chickens do.
I have yet to get into the rhythm of this trip. It still feels first date awkward, hopefully one of those times we can look back on together and laugh about.
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
January 9, 2008
Today's miles: 6.5
Yesterday I took the Greyhound halfway across the state and arrived in Elizabeth City at the Greyhound station, that had moved about 5 miles outside of town. I had to take a taxi, which I shared with a young woman with a small baby and ketchup red hair to the Days Inn. I stayed up last night watching the results roll in from the New Hampshire primary. Now today I’m going to bring on the risk, by hitchhiking across the bridge and down US-158 towards Kitty Hawk.
What am I, as a young woman, supposed to do after the Blood Mtn incident? Back down, cancel my trip?
Today two good people (Phil and Macon) gave me a tag-team hitch from Elizabeth City to Kitty Hawk. I started out from the Elizabeth City hotel full of apprehension about hitchhiking but ready to give it a whirl. It was either hitch once or spend a couple days walking and camping on a busy road – which is safer when those are your options, eh?
I was out by the Elizabeth City bridge, awkwardly wriggling my thumb at passing vehicles, trying to look as reputable as possible, when a white SUV pulled up and an older gentleman motioned for me to jump inside. We talked a lot on the ride, passing through swampy areas, narrow inlets, towards the town of Grandy, where he was meeting his mother for breakfast. Phil bought me an Outer Banks map. He then bought me coffee, and when his mother arrived (an 84 year old spunky woman), breakfast. Sweet potato biscuit and eggs and country ham. They taught me some basic southern accent techniques, told me most of the history of their family. Phil, upon learning that I was an amateur birder, rushed back to get a spare ½ binocular from his truck. So begins my trip as usual: unsolicited gifts from caring strangers.
At the end of breakfast, Macon said, “You need to be a little nutty to enjoy life.” And I could not agree more. I drove east with Macon to the mechanic, then her house in Southern Shores, then to the bank (and just when I thought I had been taken hostage by the sweetest little old lady) to the beach in Kitty Hawk where I was set free with a half pack of gum and her address.
From Kitty Hawk, I walked down the beach to my current campsite on the dunes. "Yip! Ee-yo yippee yay" I sang in a sing-songy delighted way, happy to be out in the cool sun, walking on the beach alone. I detoured to the Wright Brothers memorial site, commemorating their first flight. Back on the beach, I passed commercial fishermen pulling in nets full of spiny dogfish (bycatch) and only one striper (~30 lbs of fish). Passed by a girl about my age and a portly fellow in a bucket hat, fishing with a pole from his lawn chair. “Catch anything?” I asked “Never do,” he answered with glee. I camped in the sandy backyard of an absentee house-owner, falling asleep early to the wiling sound of the ocean pushing and pulling sand, deep tissue massaging the beach. Woke up at 2:30 am thinking it was dawn, started to pack up before realizing my folly. Strange dreams.
Yesterday I took the Greyhound halfway across the state and arrived in Elizabeth City at the Greyhound station, that had moved about 5 miles outside of town. I had to take a taxi, which I shared with a young woman with a small baby and ketchup red hair to the Days Inn. I stayed up last night watching the results roll in from the New Hampshire primary. Now today I’m going to bring on the risk, by hitchhiking across the bridge and down US-158 towards Kitty Hawk.
What am I, as a young woman, supposed to do after the Blood Mtn incident? Back down, cancel my trip?
Today two good people (Phil and Macon) gave me a tag-team hitch from Elizabeth City to Kitty Hawk. I started out from the Elizabeth City hotel full of apprehension about hitchhiking but ready to give it a whirl. It was either hitch once or spend a couple days walking and camping on a busy road – which is safer when those are your options, eh?
I was out by the Elizabeth City bridge, awkwardly wriggling my thumb at passing vehicles, trying to look as reputable as possible, when a white SUV pulled up and an older gentleman motioned for me to jump inside. We talked a lot on the ride, passing through swampy areas, narrow inlets, towards the town of Grandy, where he was meeting his mother for breakfast. Phil bought me an Outer Banks map. He then bought me coffee, and when his mother arrived (an 84 year old spunky woman), breakfast. Sweet potato biscuit and eggs and country ham. They taught me some basic southern accent techniques, told me most of the history of their family. Phil, upon learning that I was an amateur birder, rushed back to get a spare ½ binocular from his truck. So begins my trip as usual: unsolicited gifts from caring strangers.
At the end of breakfast, Macon said, “You need to be a little nutty to enjoy life.” And I could not agree more. I drove east with Macon to the mechanic, then her house in Southern Shores, then to the bank (and just when I thought I had been taken hostage by the sweetest little old lady) to the beach in Kitty Hawk where I was set free with a half pack of gum and her address.
From Kitty Hawk, I walked down the beach to my current campsite on the dunes. "Yip! Ee-yo yippee yay" I sang in a sing-songy delighted way, happy to be out in the cool sun, walking on the beach alone. I detoured to the Wright Brothers memorial site, commemorating their first flight. Back on the beach, I passed commercial fishermen pulling in nets full of spiny dogfish (bycatch) and only one striper (~30 lbs of fish). Passed by a girl about my age and a portly fellow in a bucket hat, fishing with a pole from his lawn chair. “Catch anything?” I asked “Never do,” he answered with glee. I camped in the sandy backyard of an absentee house-owner, falling asleep early to the wiling sound of the ocean pushing and pulling sand, deep tissue massaging the beach. Woke up at 2:30 am thinking it was dawn, started to pack up before realizing my folly. Strange dreams.
Monday, January 7, 2008
Prep Entry #5
Weighing down in my mind the last few days, as I prepare to hike across the state, is the 24-year-old woman believed to have been kidnapped on the AT near Blood Mountain, Georgia on New Year’s Day. She was a dayhiker, and my thoughts are with her and her family. These are the creeps and psychopaths that go bump in the night – the reason that my dad furrows his forehead every time I mention backpacking alone, and why I get scolded by plenty of surrogate parents while on the road for hiking alone. This is the unfortunate validation that despite all of the wonderful, kind people in the world willing to help the traveler, there are truly twisted, dangerous people. I hope that against all odds she is okay.
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Prep Entry #4
I spend much of yesterday north of Durham on the Mountains-to-Sea Trail. It was invigorating. Close to fifty people were there to volunteer, of all ages. Including 2 of the successful 12 thru-hikers of the MST – Jeff and Bruce, both of who are also on the board for the MST. I talked to them about my questions, they gave me answers (and advice that I had not thought of - like bringing sunglasses for blowing sand on the coast?!). Everyone was really enthusiastic about my hike. It’s nice to have support. We also dug out about half-mile of the trail through the woods, twisting around Falls Lake (the water supply for Raleigh and the rest of Wake County). The lake is really low.
It was inspiring to see over 50 volunteers out there hacking away at the hillside to flatten a trail through the woods. These guys have a big vision for the trail: that it will eventually be more appalachiantrail-like, the half of it that is on roads moved to trails. It will be a long way to get there. Most of the land in eastern North Carolina, between Raleigh and New Bern, is privately-owned. It feels fantastic to be a part of something that people care about, like the MST. I don’t know what the volunteers were thinking, but no one told me that I was crazy for hiking in the winter, or out of my mind for being a lone female hiker. That’s a start.
I plan to bus east on Tuesday, as soon as my dog-pepper spray arrives in the mail. Otherwise, I am ready.
It was inspiring to see over 50 volunteers out there hacking away at the hillside to flatten a trail through the woods. These guys have a big vision for the trail: that it will eventually be more appalachiantrail-like, the half of it that is on roads moved to trails. It will be a long way to get there. Most of the land in eastern North Carolina, between Raleigh and New Bern, is privately-owned. It feels fantastic to be a part of something that people care about, like the MST. I don’t know what the volunteers were thinking, but no one told me that I was crazy for hiking in the winter, or out of my mind for being a lone female hiker. That’s a start.
I plan to bus east on Tuesday, as soon as my dog-pepper spray arrives in the mail. Otherwise, I am ready.
Friday, January 4, 2008
Prep Entry #3
“The whole of nature is a conjugation of the verb to eat, in the active and passive.” –William Ralph Inge
One of my new year’s resolutions is to be conscious of what I eat. Or more appropriately, to eat consciously: to think about what I am consuming and where it comes from and how it is grown or raised. Eating is one of the most concrete ways that the average American interacts with the environment today, however unwittingly – you will be hard-pressed to find someone who can tell you where the proverbial twinkie comes from. I think one of the biggest problems facing our national psyche is the disconnect between us and our natural resources: water, energy, and food. I recently read Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma. The two authors approach the subject of food in different ways and with slightly different rhetoric, but the end conclusion is the same: in the United States, we have a backwards way of thinking about food.
The way I see it, to decrease the cost of food, we have industrialized the whole system, choking out small farms from the marketplace in favor of expansive monocultures and harvesting machines. The whole of the problem is that we are treating agriculture as separate from the ecosystem. By applying the laws of economics (about which I don’t have the foggiest) we are trying to fit complex interactions and slow human-driven selection into a formula of: genetically modified seed + pesticide + herbicide + nitrogen fertilizer = large, cheap yield. Anyone who has taken an ecology course or spent time watching interactions in nature knows that ecology is at its core complex. Ecology is one of the least advanced scientific fields, due in part to macrophobia: how do you fit the world into a set of theories that don’t contradict eachother? How do you look at the world on different levels (population and ecosystem ecology, for example) and at different scales (a square foot of soil, a tree, a meadow, a continent) without getting lost in the sheer volume of information? Modern food production is reductionist, reducing a complex system to a set of controls (various –cides, a root meaning “kill”) and inputs (seed, chemical fertilizer) leading to a predictable output (yer sterile vine-ripe tomato in January).
That tirade was mostly inspired by Pollan’s book. On this trip, I will be hiking (or cycling!) through a lot of North Carolina’s farmland. I am curious about what types of crops are grown on this low-nutrient soil. Not that I’ll see any of it; if I were really interested in learning about agriculture, winter would clearly not be the time to cross the state. I am more interested in talking to the farmers, and trying to piece together a history and story by first-hand experiences. Last summer, I hiked south through Virginia, following the Appalachian Trail for 500 miles. I received an independent research fellowship from Carleton College to test stream quality using aquatic invertebrate sampling. I wrote this a week before I started the hike/study:
A thought I have been mulling over a lot is what it will be like to intertwine two completely different interests of mine (1) backpacking, which for me is at its heart personal control over movement and direction, arguably the closest that we can come to freedom with two feet on the ground. and (2) science, which at its core is rigorous, thorough, quantitative. This could either equal balance, or chaos.
While I wouldn’t describe it as “chaotic,” this contradiction ended up being the problem. I was on a schedule and had regimented stops, which detracted from the inherent whimsy of backpacking. And the unpredictable nature of rainfall or lack of rain confounded some of the results. The challenge of field studies is trying to apply control to a system that at its heart is variable and dynamic. I had a fantastic summer. All but one of the streams were rated as “acceptable conditions” due to invertebrate presence, absence, and diversity. At the end, however, it was clear to me that the most valuable part of the research was not the scientific data, but the conversations with other hikers and people in towns about water quality. Which of course got me thinking, “The next time I do I long hike…” I could just hike. I love hiking. But why settle for something simple when it could be so much more educational?
Today is the third day I have been fasting with Amelia and Salam, which is a perfect way to begin a year of eating consciously. We have been waking up early to make breakfast and drink water before sunrise (6:58 am). All day long, there is no eating, no drinking, nothing can enter your mouth. Salam says it is a way to think about those who don’t have access to food and clean water. At sunset (5:48 pm), we drink water and eat to our heart’s delight. Amelia and Salam will continue until the end of January, as a belated observance of Ramadan (October of 2007). Today is my last day fasting, but I hope to continue with this pattern of appreciating food and water.
One of my new year’s resolutions is to be conscious of what I eat. Or more appropriately, to eat consciously: to think about what I am consuming and where it comes from and how it is grown or raised. Eating is one of the most concrete ways that the average American interacts with the environment today, however unwittingly – you will be hard-pressed to find someone who can tell you where the proverbial twinkie comes from. I think one of the biggest problems facing our national psyche is the disconnect between us and our natural resources: water, energy, and food. I recently read Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma. The two authors approach the subject of food in different ways and with slightly different rhetoric, but the end conclusion is the same: in the United States, we have a backwards way of thinking about food.
The way I see it, to decrease the cost of food, we have industrialized the whole system, choking out small farms from the marketplace in favor of expansive monocultures and harvesting machines. The whole of the problem is that we are treating agriculture as separate from the ecosystem. By applying the laws of economics (about which I don’t have the foggiest) we are trying to fit complex interactions and slow human-driven selection into a formula of: genetically modified seed + pesticide + herbicide + nitrogen fertilizer = large, cheap yield. Anyone who has taken an ecology course or spent time watching interactions in nature knows that ecology is at its core complex. Ecology is one of the least advanced scientific fields, due in part to macrophobia: how do you fit the world into a set of theories that don’t contradict eachother? How do you look at the world on different levels (population and ecosystem ecology, for example) and at different scales (a square foot of soil, a tree, a meadow, a continent) without getting lost in the sheer volume of information? Modern food production is reductionist, reducing a complex system to a set of controls (various –cides, a root meaning “kill”) and inputs (seed, chemical fertilizer) leading to a predictable output (yer sterile vine-ripe tomato in January).
That tirade was mostly inspired by Pollan’s book. On this trip, I will be hiking (or cycling!) through a lot of North Carolina’s farmland. I am curious about what types of crops are grown on this low-nutrient soil. Not that I’ll see any of it; if I were really interested in learning about agriculture, winter would clearly not be the time to cross the state. I am more interested in talking to the farmers, and trying to piece together a history and story by first-hand experiences. Last summer, I hiked south through Virginia, following the Appalachian Trail for 500 miles. I received an independent research fellowship from Carleton College to test stream quality using aquatic invertebrate sampling. I wrote this a week before I started the hike/study:
A thought I have been mulling over a lot is what it will be like to intertwine two completely different interests of mine (1) backpacking, which for me is at its heart personal control over movement and direction, arguably the closest that we can come to freedom with two feet on the ground. and (2) science, which at its core is rigorous, thorough, quantitative. This could either equal balance, or chaos.
While I wouldn’t describe it as “chaotic,” this contradiction ended up being the problem. I was on a schedule and had regimented stops, which detracted from the inherent whimsy of backpacking. And the unpredictable nature of rainfall or lack of rain confounded some of the results. The challenge of field studies is trying to apply control to a system that at its heart is variable and dynamic. I had a fantastic summer. All but one of the streams were rated as “acceptable conditions” due to invertebrate presence, absence, and diversity. At the end, however, it was clear to me that the most valuable part of the research was not the scientific data, but the conversations with other hikers and people in towns about water quality. Which of course got me thinking, “The next time I do I long hike…” I could just hike. I love hiking. But why settle for something simple when it could be so much more educational?
Today is the third day I have been fasting with Amelia and Salam, which is a perfect way to begin a year of eating consciously. We have been waking up early to make breakfast and drink water before sunrise (6:58 am). All day long, there is no eating, no drinking, nothing can enter your mouth. Salam says it is a way to think about those who don’t have access to food and clean water. At sunset (5:48 pm), we drink water and eat to our heart’s delight. Amelia and Salam will continue until the end of January, as a belated observance of Ramadan (October of 2007). Today is my last day fasting, but I hope to continue with this pattern of appreciating food and water.
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