"Humping It" and Hitchhiking

My hands feel frozen at five-thousand feet, but they are just cold and wet. I can feel the damp chill crawling up my arms, down my neck, towards my core. I leave my bike at the foot of the trail and hump it up the trail to set up camp, for much-needed dryness. Its a short walk, but, being heavy with pack, it is a stenuous uphill climb.
From the long wet, drowzy afternoon, enduring an aqueous assault on all of my belongings, all within my seemingly-porous tent, I think about my bike, fearing it being stolen, no -- having a vision of it -- by some dishonest band of guys in a pickup truck. Witnessing it in my mind, but too preferred to the damp (rather than the wet) to care. One moment of hasty (or maybe relaxed. There was certainly nobody going to come around the bend to see their act) petty theivery. Just like that
Pools of water forming on the corners of the tent, poking holes in the tent to relieve them, allow them into the ground, where they long to go. Sleeping bag soaked at the bottom, dampness creeping up, an ever-decreasing island of dryness wherewith to lay on and rest on. Legs curled up, too uncomfortable to sleep. Either that or too wet for the body to allow slumber. Sleeping bag stains body with its dyes. I shift between one and the other, disconecting myself from my discomfort. It is another person going through this, and I am just vicariously experiencing it alongside him. Rather the processes of an extremely-bored mind than a weak constitution. I don't believe any sleep came. With the howling winds which always seem to follow, I hang my wet clothes (which I soon realize to consist of all socks, undergarment, breeches, and jacket), and morning eventually comes. The clothes will take a morning and afternoon to dry and my sleeping bag, perhaps longer. I leave them along the trail to continue on towards my desired destination. They have nowhere to go. They will be there when I come back this evening.
My dry socks and wet shoes will carry me to where I need to go. All I have is time -- it is just a matter of using more of it and getting less distance in return.
The clouds are below me, only a few hills high enough to win my view, standing as islands in a sea of mist, as far as the eye can see.

Formulation

I will spending the next week and a half in the bless-ed gentle forests of Nantahalla. I will be much happier and more relaxed now that I can set up camp anywhere at least 100 paces away from a road. Beforehand, I had to push myself beyond the point of relaxation, beyond the point, of discomfort, beyond the point where my muscles could not recover. No more of that. I wandered the back trails along on one of the hills of Riceville, NC (about 3-4 miles northeast of Asheville), and, after having time to think, I realized I direly needed to plan my travels not by distance, but by whether the altitude would encourage biking speed (10-15 mph) or force hiking speed (1-3 mph). I have done so, and am ready to go onwards! Things are looking relaxed, and the colors are GORGEOUS!!


Ralph Stanley II - L.A. County

Wrecking Ball

Yesterday, I hiked Mount Mitchell, rode 30 miles down the parkway (thank goodness it was almost all downhill), did contra for 3 hours, and walked an hour to the place I stayed for the night. I've been going going going for a week now and, with aching legs, sore Achilles's tendon, and right shoulder so sore to lead me to think it damaged, can go no longer. I am resting all day inside the abode of a wonderful family I met in Asheville some ten months ago.
During the two days on the parkway, the one song that never failed to come to mind every other hour or so was Gillian Welch's Wrecking Ball. (I have two recordings in my head: the one from her ever-so-appropriately-titled album, Soul Journey, and a World Cafe EP version, which holds the most memory for me). The violin's melancholy melodic phrasing made the view of the powerful mountainside watery and distorted. The question that pervades my thoughts as I head back down from Mt. Mitchell is this: am I a wrecking ball?

I met a lovesick daughter on the San Joaquin.
She showed me colors I'd never seen
Drank the bottom out of my canteen
Then left me in the fall
Like a wrecking ball.

Standing there in the morning mist,
And tug a cord at the end of my wrist.
Yes, I remember when first we kissed,
Though it was nothing at all
Like a wrecking ball.

Slow Going

(won't be talking in third person until I really get on my way)

So, it is day 2 of my bicycling trek, and I am only in Asheville. Yesterday late afternoon, I walked up (as the switchbacks were far too much for my tired legs) Beaucatcher road to Windswept road, as a leather tramp suggested some 6 weeks ago (the last time I was up here), and found a quite flat, quiet, and dry spot nearly at the top of the mountain. At the top of the Windswept community, I discovered a excellent viewing point (as about as good as you can find on a tree-covered mountainside. After a certain altitude, perennials give way to hardy conifers that become more sparse the higher you go) where I also happened to meet one Brett, a sporty, friendly, man in his mid-twenties (who owned a 24-speed mountain bike so sleek and nice that I couldn't believe it when he told me it was second hand) who gave me a good spot of information on many trails and wildernesses that I have longed to visit ever since I discovered western North Carolina some 9 months ago. The views were just as pleasant in the morning, and the shortcut road off the mountain had me occasionally fearing I would break my bike or fall off. My legs seemed to be weaker from LEAF (all that contra dancing), not to mention my now 35 pound backpack (was 40+ pounds before LEAF and at least 40 pounds before I donated half of my clothes and what must have been a 3 pound jar of peanut butter this morning to the Rescue Mission on Patton Ave.) After that and a more close-to-body and compact backpack arrangement, things seem more manageable.

For now, I am taking it easy in downtown Asheville, exploring the fine art, enjoying shops and bookstores that make those of Charleston appear dull and uninteresting. I was most impressed with the Grove Arcade. Though most of the stores therein had a finesse and sophistication I have not until now experienced (such as the Biltmore antique shop, the Jazz Giraffe, or the meat and cheeses shop, where the generous cashier gave me a 1/3 pound block of pepper jack cheese on top of the 1/3 pounds of pre-sliced pepperoni I purchased), it was the architecture of it that entranced me. There I was, with a sizable backpack, staring as straight up as I could, admiring the incredible stonework, more so as a whole than in detail, though the crumblings in the stone were a fantastic detail (though I can be deliberate in getting attention by, most of the stares and double takes I surely get are just a product of my natural peculiarity).

Recently, I have spent a good hour or so in an excellent cozy establishment intended to give the feel of being in one's own study, enjoying wine and good literature (though I of course relished in the literary portion), and am now in the UNCA Library, having been fed up with the Buncome County library system, for its painfully-limited selection and non-free internet, but will soon be headed back towards the Folk Art Center to obtain the best maps of the area and pitch camp for the night.

Note: I won't be updating nearly as much after I hit the Blue Ridge Parkway to Mount Mitchell. It will isolate me for about two and half days. Also plan to visit Graveyard Fields during the end of my time in North Carolina (Oct. 27-29) to allow for the best colors. Everything else is relatively unplanned thus far.

bike troubles:
10/8 unsuitable pedal (replaced)
10/15 stripped pedal thread (fixed)
10/18 pedal dislodged from crank (fixed)
10/19 increasingly-loose pedal-to-crank connection (will soon fix with thread sealant)
as one can see, each one of these problems lead to another
every other system of the bike is in working order

I worry about my caloric intake. Fear I am not eating enough. Feel fine about my fat and protein intake though. Will require much more food per day once I start biking my planned 20-30 miles per major travel day.

Reality

The music of Gillian Welch floods my head, and accompanied (and continues to do so) my 5 mile walk to downtown Black Mountain from Lake Eden. My pedal came loose because of a foolish removal of a bolt that fastens it to the crank. I have gotten that fixed at the bike store (man was kind enough to go inside the store and fetch me a bolt for free, even though the store was closed on monday).
Even with that fixed, the immensity of distance is still overwhelming. I leave Black Mountain soon.

Day Before LEAF

Hello again,
It is one day before Lake Eden Arts Festival, a music and arts festival in Black Mountain, NC that stands out from most other festivals in that it is very dancing centered. There are opportunities to dance in zydeco, cajun, salsa, latin, and contra forms along to their fitting bands.
I bought food for the trip this morning, and am preparing both my backpack and my mind. On the way back home, I listened to the music of Gillian Welch from her Hell Among The Yearlings album -- perfect album for a rainy day. I am also going to my half-sister's house to pick up copies of On the Road by Jack Kerouac and Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer.

There are many different kinds of scenes that evoke that adventurous spirit in me -- multitudinous facets to the same object. During an overcast day where visibility is lessened, and it is drizzling, the song One Morning by Gillian Welch comes to mind.

My plan is to carpool up to Black Mountain, taking my bicycle and backpack, which will weigh some 37 pounds (which will luckily get lighter as eat more and more of the food in it), and after LEAF, I will bike up the Applachian mountain chain, probably doing at least 20 miles a day on bike (I do expect to be walking some of the mountain roads that will be too steep to bike much faster than I walk) until I get to Ashe County in NC or up in Tennessee, depending on how much distance I make, then head back down, spend 4 days or so in my soul home (Salem SC and Oconee County, SC) while breaking for some human interaction in Greenville, then exploring north Georgia, and finishing the journey through Ninety-Six on towards Charleston, SC. I'm going to do my best to bring a camera and a few data-storage CDs and hit a county library from time to time to update and use Google Maps to get an idea of how good of distance and time I'm making and change my plans accordingly.

More songs that evoke the adventurous spirit
Ricky Skaggs - Walls of Time
Bela Fleck with Edgar Meyer - Big Country

The Adventurous Spirit

Hello,
My Name is John Kotab. I won't really introduce myself, because I don't expect (though I wholeheartedly welcome if so be it) strangers to read this.

I actually started this only to post my adventures and travels, be them long distance or a pleasant local bike ride. I suppose it IS important to note that I live in North Charleston, SC, which is a triangular area of land above the Charleston peninsula that has only recently become developed. Although some of the houses on Dorchester road nearest to I-26 were around since the 40s and 50s, during that time, it was primarily country, and very pretty country at that. This is not the case today. It is the epitome of urban decay: mostly unmanaged, below the poverty line, polluted, and labeled as having high crime rates (though I don't argue the statistics, I argue the level of danger people imply from them)

More information on North Charleston
Formed from the borders of the Cooper and Ashley rivers, and Goose Creek and Ladson city limits, North Charleston has an area of about 77 sq. mi. To give you a frame reference for this, downtown Charleston is a little less than 2 miles long -- though many consider the actual downtown area to be about 1 mile long (from the battery to the "crosstown") mostly because beyond the "crosstown" there live people that don't consume like only the middle class (as a whole) can and have decent housing aren't considered important by most people, so it seems (dispensable in their eyes, if I may wax bold) -- and an average of 1.5 miles across

Already you can guess (for those wholeheartedly-welcomed strangers that have stumbled upon a slice of my world), I am quite apprehensive of the government -- more so the government in large cities or anywhere were little land is shared between an enormous amount of people. As you could probably also guess, the placement of legality over morality leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I believe that in big cities or areas of high population density, circumstances brought on by said population density encourage or force local government to make morally-objectionable policy. With this, I lead in to my love of open space and low-population-density areas in general. I am a Chris McCandless (who had a book, Into the Wild, written about him and his travels) of sorts. (I don't know if all of these characteristics speak of him) I value freedom and being true to one's own intricate and varied whims and fascinations, such as leaving town for a few weeks by oneself and camping, biking, and just being, or just standing at command to a sunset or expansive vista, in enjoying in its fullest BOTH the solidarity of nature and the excitement and duty of deeply connecting with other souls, and in treating all people with acceptance, emphasis on those people some people seem to exclude in their scope of who is humane, such as the homeless. I now wander into the adventure portion of this blog.

The title of this series of dissertations, Emersonian essays, descriptors, snapshots of emotion, travelogues, insights, and geographic is called The Adventurous Spirit

If you want to understand my adventures, you have to listen to the music behind it and give place to it in your heart, and most importantly, you have to experience Appalachia in a slow, personal, and pedestrian way.
I call the music that inherently describes the longing to explore new lands. . . the music that calls you up the mountain. . . the music that makes sedentary-ness painful and makes home to be wherever there is beauty and openness. . . I call it music that embodies the adventurous spirit.

To begin with this (for those that want to get in my head), listen to One More Dollar by Gillian Welch.
here is the song, set to a PERFECT photo show.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4NI6JFZpTE&feature=related

One more important thing to say to those who hunger to catch the adventurous spirit, lyrics are paramount, especially geographic references and descriptions of the culture. Find the reference point in terms of time and place in each song, such as mid-to-late-19th century homesteaders in the west (as in One More Dollar)