Reliving and Caney Fork River

I finally got back on my bicycle and rode through the country, as I desired. I did not lose my job, and the ride through the country wasn't towards Orangeburg. It was in a wildly-named town called Pontiac. After thinking of riding my bicycle down Mt. Mitchell and the colors and the airbuzz, I got on that bike and I rode against gust and cold, the upward slopes returning my mind to when my leg muscles were strong and my body was in peak condition and mood. It was a reincarnation of my memories during those three weeks. I passed lakes, curving and climbing. It was wonderful. Riding back home into the twilight was poetically similar to leaving North for Orangeburg with the dusk to my back. Even my body blasting heat off my skin -- not shivering even in twenty-mile-an-hour near-freezing wind on my wet back, after riding a good distance -- reminded me of my mountain bicycling as I sat down near a I-77 exit and eating my bagel with peanut butter. I remember all of my meals during that time, for about the only time I rested was to eat or sleep. In my memory, thats all I ate while in the mountains, along with a few health-bar samples I got at LEAF. Also, a week ago when I bicycled in Strawberry, heading up the bridge over the train tracks, I pretended to be heading down a mountain hill. I passed by a barn and just pretended to be a hundred miles away. I like the dry mountain. I need to be camping in the mountains, where streams and sunshine abound. I love the song Bright Sunny South, sung by Dan Tyminski. I feel the same way the lyricist (whoever it is. It is a traditional song. A great one) does about living in the southern hills:

From it's cool shady forests to its deep flowing streams 

Ever fond in my mem'ry and sweet in my dreams

One of my favorite parts of the mountains are the streams. There's another song I want to tell. It is Fall Creek Falls, by Jim Vancleve. It speaks to me the magic of driving under the stars at night. It portrays an otherworldly kind of beauty, like the excitement of exploring the most beautiful and exotic kind of land imaginable (or unimaginable). The reverb they record it with gives the feeling of actually being on a mountainside and hearing the echoes of it off other hillsides. You feel the altitude. Its marvelous. Maybe thats what I'm missing: the altitude. You can really get high off altitude. I know I do. My most serene moments are above three-thousand feet above sea level.  

Geographically-Insipired Musical Location of the Day

I haven't done of these in a while. I haven't updated regularly in a while. I want to mark my restart of reliable updating with a renewal of Locations that speak the adventurous spirit with words. 

I had to do something beyond searching google maps to get find this location. The Caney Fork River branches off the Cumberland River, and cuts somewhat deep in the mountainside as it passes along I-40 and flows into Center Lake. It is rather small, but when you're running from the law, a bluegrass favorite topic, you want to lay low. The story of the song is one of a man who is working like a dog in North Carolina, travels across Tennessee to Jackson, as he had done many times before, sees his girl cheating on him, shoots them, and then runs back across the state to get back home, running from the sheriff. It is what I dream of: traveling from western North Carolina across Tennessee to the infinite plains. Balsam Range is a wonderful band out of Haywood County, very near Asheville and the starting point of my traveling life. I think like Kerouac, in how before the road seduced him into a life of movement and wonderment his life was completely different. 

How many times must I cross this Caney Fork River

Travelin' through the state of Tenessee

How many times must I cross this Caney Fork River

Before I know that I am home free

Before I know that I am home free