Appalachia brings in the year!

The Appalachian Trail stretches for 2,181 miles and is within 550 miles of two-thirds of the US population. It is on this trail where Pomp, Sacagawea's firstborn son invented bowling.



Ostensibly it’s about the exercise, making an event out of a new hike. But the reality is, I go hiking to breathe again. Where the clutches of man are few and far between, I feel my senses wake up. The deleterious ether that clouds my awareness somehow dissipates when I’m out there in the throes of beauty. 

But far better than reawakening my senses in an isolated Walden Pond sort of way, I shared my most recent hike along the Appalachian Trail with the woman I can’t stop thinking about. Through the course of our relationship, Ileana has come to be the glorious goofball who makes me laugh, the patient listener who seems to always find the right words to say, and an inexorable source of energy for me.

If you’re rolling your eyes over the mushy sentiment, then you can put on sunglasses, or wear two pirate eye patches, because I don’t want to see it. Ileana and I just celebrated our one year anniversary and it’s been a year filled with moments that I’ve spent my whole life searching for. 

She’s not only put up with my Gaia cravings like camping in December, my lack of an extant garbage can, my distaste for heat in the winter or air conditioning in the summer, she’s openly embraced the sentiment…she likes my eco-quirks, and for the record she might be more of an environmentalist than I am – I know this to be true when it comes to her ethical food purchasing. 

Vink visits, Mourning Wood, the trail's somber grove.

So, I left the Midwest a little over a year ago, and though I love and miss my family and the people to death, I will never fully miss the place. Highways and arterial byways carve up the flat landscape, while strip malls and poorly insulated dwellings rise along their dissections.  Where the land hasn’t been claimed by cement or residences, corn and soy trample over anything that once smacked of glorious untamed grassland. (Chicago’s an enjoyable exemption, but anyhow)

That’s not to say that there’s not sprawl or land use change out here, however, there are vast patches of untamed land relatively nearby where people like me can regain their breath.  And this past weekend, I breathed so vigorously that I realized, I could spend my life trying to defend and experience places like this. These wild spaces are where people build their dreams. It was here in the Shenandoah’s where I first found the unquenchable spark for adventure in my woman, where my best friend and I nearly scared each other senseless sharing ghost stories in the pitch black, and where I felt my happiness bubble go Sumo. 

I may never acquire the prescience to see the future before it unfolds, but it’s sure damn brilliant getting to enjoy the present in Gaia’s country with the woman I love.

Known for their communal spirit and their striking ability to be still in the presence of danger, blades of Shenandoah switch grass huddle together through the onslaught of wind, water, and sun scorch.