Ghostly Journey through Nantahalla National Forest

I worked so hard on this trip. I called tons of people that were interested in a river-rafting trip in Bryson City, so that I could make it. I did everything within my power to be with so many of the people I've grown to love in Asheville over the past two years (and many others, all together all at once, a grand happy reunion down the river) before I leave for a foreign land in service of my Lord and God. Me and two friends from Magic City travel to Bryson City, that El Dorado behind the waterfall. As we get there, I get the sure impression that I will not to unite my soul with everyone, this one last opportunity. My since of urgency turns to apprehension. And I remember the mountains along the Great Smokey Mountains Expressway, where the car broke down. The mountains, towering high overhead under a near-overcast grey, were almost threatening. At that moment in time, I could almost empathize with people that find themselves terrified on a mountain at night. I turned on the bluegrass radio. It didn't help.
Just east of downtown Asheville, separating it from the strip mall, is a mountain. Beaucatcher mountain. There is a road that goes behind the Greyhound Station, sliding up the mountain, under a bridge, and into Windswept community, where you can see the dawn and dusk. A girl once walked up that mountain road, past a now-abandoned mental hospital, up on that bridge, and jumped off, so depressed was she over the loss of her boyfriend. It is said that her sad soul still creeps that mountain.
Needless to say, we were late and were not able to find the rafting company where everyone was. We did go on the river, just by ourselves. It was delightful and cold, but a pit had developed in my stomach. I felt sick. It subsided, no not subsided, merely receded into the shadows of my mind. The greatest thing we did was jumping from a big rock, dropping eight feet in the air into forty-five-degree water. Each muscle fiber felt like steel in my skin as we swam to the riverbank. As we got back into the car. I mused, "this subtropical forest mountainside has an ominous feel to is. There is something freaky about it. It doesn't feel like home at all". Even when the girls dropped me off in downtown Asheville, it didn't feel like the town I've loved and fantasized over. Didn't feel like the sweet town I looked down at from Beaucatcher Mountain. It felt alien and empty. But what was empty was me. I did not belong here. As I catch a bus through Beaucatcher tunnel, and get into the heart of Riceville, farm valley nestled in the mountains, a feeling of home returns, that satisfaction of returning. But it swiftly evaporates. I walk to the house on the mountainside, the highest house in the little town of Riceville, just below the Blue Ridge Parkway, where great joy had always blossomed and where freedom had always been felt. At least I would get to go to church the next morning and see some of the people I wanted to see. I was planning on staying until Tuesday. I left Sunday afternoon. I was done. I will not return to the mountains until I complete my two-year mission. The time for hill-tramping is over for now.