US 52/US 78 Split and Kitty Hawk

Something incredible happened this week. The temperature increased by an average of 20 degrees. I worked up a sweat while biking. It brought me momentarily back to this summer, that it was the strangest and best one I've experienced yet. This summer and the next I shall be preaching the gospel, a stranger in a strange land, so I know it will get even better. The summer after that I will be driving EVERYWHERE, including the west of Alex Supertramp. It just gets better and better. It makes me think of, while on my two-and-a-half week bicycle trip, how many times I saw summer pictures of the North Carolina hillscape and yearned to see all the lushness. But back to the warm Charleston weather that is now, as I type, going away. The first experience, greeting the warm weather, was on a usual bicycle ride on my Bushy Park route on Saturday early afternoon.  I had passed by a walking trail many a time while completing my 30-mile run, but this time I went down the path. It was very adventurous for me bicycling on this root-covered walking trail. Twists and turns. I'm hooked. I get lost temporarily, which is the point of the whole venture. Not all that wander are lost. After finding my way back onto the main road, I return home, in awe. On Sunday, I roamed some more, but in a car. On my way back from church, I continued down Rivers Avenue, passing the US 52/US 78 split -- 52 going to Goose Creek and Florence and northward, 78 sprawling west into Aiken and Georgia and onward -- and sweeping by the winter swamp that has been calling to me for months now, not planning anything. I came up to where 176 begins, and felt the knee-jerk reaction to take a left and drive on up through the Holly Hill of my bicycling lusts, running alongside I-26, making its way through Columbia, Spartanburg, and finally, the mountains. However, I turned right onto Red Bank Road and enjoyed the sunshine poking through the mostly-cloudy skies down Old Back River Road and all of the country that I'm blessed with living so close to.

On the music side of things. I am finally, after amassing days worth of hours listening to it, buying This One Is Two, by Ralph Stanley II, the progeny of the famous Ralph Stanley. I also bought much Alison Brown, a fantastic composer and banjo player. To sate my Dobro addiction, I bought a Union Station album. I bought a few albums that contain numbers I have mentioned in my Locations, such as Jim Van Cleve's No Apologies (Devil's Courthouse) and Balsam Range's Last Train To Kitty Hawk.

Musically-Inspired Geographical Location Of The Day
Today, I go to an unexpected place, mostly for the fact that its on the coast of the Atlantic. The place is a very small town called Kitty Hawk. The only attraction there is the Wright Brothers monument and a maritime forest. All of this by the sea. This song talks about progress artistically. I love how it is written. I love the pairing of airplanes and locomotives in this song. I've always wanted to travel somewhere by train. I've been wanting to travel the Outer Banks of North Carolina for some time now. This song captures the feeling of desiring to be swept away for me.

No, no, nothing lasts forever

Nothin' says goodbye like a ticket in your hand

They say makes progress makes us better

Time ain't standin' still for anyone
All aboard the last train to Kitty Hawk

The yesterdays takin off

And tomorrows gonna fly

Romanticization and Richmond

I have been thinking of the following for more than a week now:

I love all the different instruments that bluegrass music offers. The pennywhistle is the Irishman's laughter, but it is also the mother's indignation, and the wind. The Dobro is the romantic or tear-jerking outcry, the father's anger, the odyssey. The harmonica is the sweet peals of victory, Gabriel's trumpet. The upright bass is the beast's breath, the mountain.

In a few hours I leave for Atlanta. I wish I could have seen it in the fifties.

Musically-Inspired Geographic Location of The Day
Today, I keep focusing on the land where I shall rest under the banana tree: Tennessee. Its really interesting what keeps happening to me with certain musicians. Old Crow Medicine show I liked, were it not for the sharp pangs of the harmonica and the rattle of the man's voice (surely he must contort it in someway to get that authentic sound). I have come to enjoy those sharp retorts, and even am considering buying their album Tennessee Pusher. I have been thinking of the hills of Tennessee, but the cover of this album leads me further west still. It may be merely Tennessee, but for somebody who can barely afford forty dollars in gas to a magical plateau town that people say is not unlike San Francisco, western Tennessee is very very far. Plus, its fun to play the Dobro. I imagine the flat land and jaloppys. But, back to the Location. The song is a relaxed down-home tune that floats through a town, at the intersection of two interstates, a rail-line, and a river. Richmond, Virgina. It sings about the James River, and the sea life images evoked from the rocks and docks. The freedom and escapement, and the violin that comes in after "I think I'll float on down to Richmond town" that lets you feel the boat man's happy abandon. The "lets get out of this dusty old town" emotion showed so perfectly in the shape of the even epic-like melody is wonderful and filled with sunlight. When we leave this life, a memory is all we become to the earth anyway. Floating is definitely the way to live.

James River blues

That train came on through

And works gettin' slow

So where's a boat man to go?

I think I'll float on down

To Richmond town

They don't need us anymore

Haulin' freight from shore to shore
That old iron boat hauls more
Than we ever could before

On The Road

These past five days, I spent time away from home, doing so much traveling.

I arrived in Florence around 5pm Thursday. After a lively dinner with the family I spend a lot of time with up there, Tommy and I went off to Charlotte licketty split, to a party. It wasn't too great, but I talked with some people and others I haven't ran into for a good while. At the party we met up with a guy from Hendersonville, Norm was his name. We took him back to Florence to hang with all of the gang for the weekend. The ride home was sleepy, but filled with chatter. Norm and I talked much music. We got home at 4am and sleep that night was awful and unsatisfying, to both me and Norm. Tommy always wakes up before the crack of dawn and he was off to a fast start, while I crawled out of bed at almost noontime and there was breakfast left for me on the table, which was right decent of the dad, Al, and I scarfed it up. The whole day was spent with the regular Florence gang -- plus Norm of course. He is a real hoot and makes Suzie laugh more than she already does -- and the gal Suzie had her boyfriend Bill along. We went a small distance out of the town to visit the site of an atom bomb dropping, but not going off. We went to the mexican restaurant. Everything was delicious. Everything seems more delicious away from home. It was a boring day, but it was spent with friends and it was good seeing all of them, and I'd soon be very joyful to see all of them, because we'd spend a lot more time together that weekend. The next day, I woke up a bit earlier the next day, which was Saturday, and Tommy and I traveled with some guys from our church to Columbia for religious work. It refreshed the day and made me think about God. The rest of that afternoon was mostly spent alone. I wanted to go out for a drive in my car. It always happens the third day. I brought a few people along, Norm and Tommy's brother, Carl. We drove to the Darlington raceway. it was big. I thought it was small, but it was as big as any racetrack you see on Nascar television. The dusk was yellow then red and dull. We drove back to the mall before going back home, meeting up with Suzie and Bill. It was wonderful seeing them again, they are good to each other. We all had our kicks at the mall, and left without getting asked out this one store. We usually travel all together. Its a shame we didn't this time, or at least not yet. Hendersonville was next. We had to take Norm back home. We were going to go in Tommy's car until the last minute, but decided to go in Carl's four-by-four. It was a fun trip. We fit all three of us into his two-seater truck and drove all the way up to Hendersonville. Snow from three weeks ago was still on the ground, hard as a rock. We got stuck; Carl's truck had a small leak in it. We somehow found Norm's house after Carl was actually worried that we weren't going to find it and freeze to death overnight. It was a nice house and Carl and I really opened and talked great things of the soul, and important things. Everything important maybe. Sleep was refreshing on those leather seats, and the morning was brisk and beautiful. I wandered out, my joyful self, into the twenty-degree weather in a teeshirt and corduroys. We got the truck fixed, and because we both missed work that day on account of the breakdown, we had nowhere to go and decided to go dig Asheville. The snow-clouded mountains in the distance with the dusk hanging red and dull was everywhere. Things were all right. It began to snow, we enjoyed it. The town sparkled. I wanted to visit a wonderful family I often stay with. They were way up the mountainside just out of town. The snow got heavier and powder drifted back and forth on the pavement. Carl, from Logan, Utah, was familiar with the snow. When we got there, only the mother and the younger kids were there. Julie, the older sister, had left back for Utah for college a few days ago, and Sam, the younger sister, had left that morning. The oldest brother, Chris had just left and we caught up with him and rode around in his car looking for a car part to allow the heater to work in Carl's truck. It was very cold to him. The snow let up a little bit, or was probably just lighter down on the main road, and we walked into stores, me with those same pants and teeshirt, but with Chris's scarf on. After driving back up to their house and not being able to find parts to that old boat or fix the heater system, we got ready for a bit of a cold, four-hour ride back. We said goodbye to the family and the snow was majestic and getting heavier. The ride out was excellent and full of energy, but it got dark and there wasn't much to see. Before we crossed the NC/SC border, the winter trees fell away to the right and lights from hundreds of towns and thousands of homes burst in front of us, shining lonely and still a thousand or so feet below and miles away. It was all downhill from here. Carl hauled that boat seventy-five miles an hour down a more-than-eight-degree grade until we landed in South Carolina. We talked and listened to a lot of bluegrass like Ricky Skaggs. We got home quite late and ended up reading the bible before heading to bed. I woke up unrefreshed the next morning, and nobody was really in the house except Tommy and Carl. It was time to go home. The drive was sunny and chilly. I road with the windows down until an hour before dark. I took a stop at the Santee Wildlife Refuge and walked along the lake shore. I got home and ate a lot then took it easy

Now I scratched out the following on my note pad while in Asheville. When things demand my attention and speak to me without words, it just becomes me and the landscape. No we, just me:

"We drove up to Asheville. The snow was falling. It was neat. The cold made me wild and bold. We finally found the Riceville Road. Nickel Creek [was playing in the truck like a lullaby]. We really took it slow up in these high hills, the snow began to fall more. I felt so blessed [and was filled with near-overwhelming gratitude]. There's something about these mountains. As we drove alongside downtown, the snow still fell, like flakes from heaven being lightly shaken down. The white benevolent light from the highway street lamps bathed the interstate. It was all so beautiful. The light and white left me making love-nature metaphors. So much light"

Meandering through downtown Asheville, I saw the mountains off in the distance at dusk, one higher hill behind another behind another, and the day's last sun rays leaking through. The snow clouds lended a mystic air to all the light, as if the whole world should stand still in wait of something great and terrible. Intense and gentle beauty. It was the most beautiful image I shall ever see in these, Heaven's hills.

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I know I talked a bit about music in today's (well, I would have liked to post all of this Monday when it happened) post. A few songs I want to put out there:

Nickel Creek - Out Of The Woods
Nickel Creek - The Hand Song
Ricky Skaggs - Sally Jo

I want to share a lyric from Out Of The Woods. Again with the making a nature lyric from one of love:

Time out of mind must be heavenly
It's all enchanted and wild
Just like my heart said it was gonna be

More Music, Banjos, and Rocky Top

I, of course, listen to a lot of music whenever I'm driving. My mind was in a delightful mess as I prepared to leave for Florence, South Carolina all while preparing items to take to other places along the way. I actually did not forget anything, which is amazing, considering me. Before I left, I checked out a few CDs from the library: Rhonda Vincent (Stuart Duncan plays on the album. He is incredible and clever), Ricky Skaggs, and a more serious work of Sara and Sean Watkins and Chris Thile (Nickel Creek). As I drove up, I didn't listen to them though. I was saving them for when I was up in the mountains. But of what I did listen to, I want to show a few thoughts and paint a few pictures.

Ralph Stanley's music really sets me in a contemplative and inspired state. One thing that gets me about his music is that its often like a Negro spiritual. The banjo, after all, came from Africa. His music style, from his clawhammer banjo to that voice so full of grit -- raw as the Virginia mountainside -- brings a pleasure to the winter and grey trees that pass by me. I'm glad that I'm coming to embrace the gray. His voice always takes me to thinking of winter and oldness, ancientness even. Ralph is as a prophet, an old man on the mountain, like the white, long-haired, bearded man delivering the Word. In the bluegrass world, there is a smal dispute of whether Bill Monroe or Ralph Stanley should get the most notoriety. While I greatly respect Monroe (and his seemingly endless number of compositions) , you can guess which one I feel deserves more awe.

As I drove to Florence up I-95, I continually saw the clouds in the rearview mirror, a vague beautiful glow proceeding forth from them, and those same rays of light pouring down from clouds looming in the distance, as if beckoning me.

I haven't gotten these feelings -- emotions like awe and sheer exuberance -- while traveling for too long. I know the road is where I belong. I think about being a trucker after I get off my mission. I think about it all the time
I'm getting new sad feelings. Feelings of things not being as joyous and exciting anymore because they are not new. An idea that things are burned out, and its all been done, and that the things that I hoped for in newness have only turned out to be an exact replica of what now wearies me and what I have been attempting to find relief from. I've already been up to western North Carolina. I've already been to Charlotte. I've already been lots of places. However, my heart still burns upon looking at old pictures of past travels, like I'd wish to go back once more to a few of those places. I have yet to go to Holly Hill, and the ancient peals of Stanley's voice and banjo inspire me to chase out these plans that I, until recently, had considered stale. I am going to visit the Outer Banks of North Carolina by the end of this month, so that excites me.

Geographical Musically-Inspired Location Of The Day
Since people are saying everything is new, I think I'll show y'all something that's new to me. When I got into bluegrass, I mostly listened to newer and progressive bluegrass. I'm finally settling into a lot more old-style bluegrass from the 60s and 70s. I got a CD from my niece for Christmas, with a lot of Bill Monroe, Earl Scruggs, Ralph Stanley, and Osbourne Brothers. This song that I have chosen really connects me to the mountain, particularly in its most gruff and raw form. The song is Rocky Top, performed by Osbourne Brothers. I think of rocketing over a mountain hill so fast that the car leaves the ground, and making switchbacks at death-wish speeds. I always love the speed. Fast bluegrass captures the joy of velocity for me. Here it is!

Wish I was on ol' Rocky Top down in the Tennessee hills
Ain't no smoggy smoke on Rocky Top, ain't no telephone bills

Rocky Top you'll always be home sweet home to me

Good ol' Rocky Top

Rocky Top, Tennessee

Regret

I regret that I have not spent much time on my bike seat. I failed to pay closer attention to God's beauty. I did not travel up Bushy Park. I did not bike up to Holly Hill. I did not bike to Awendaw, when the leaves were on the trees. They are gone now. All that is left on a few of them that did flush with vibrancy is dull leaves on the bottom, that have yet to be completely shriveled from the sun and cold. I so very much regret this omission of traveling. I don't know what is happening. Things are changing. Life is getting dull. I've relied so much on green beauty and orange beauty and even brown beauty, that grey, my dreaded grey, the grey soaked into the branches, leaves me with little aesthetic joy. I missed an opportunity that won't be here for another year. I suppose that no matter how much time I spent out with the colors, and no matter how much pleasure I derived from them, I would have still regretted not getting more out of it come winter. Winter is here.

However! I DID go to Edisto Island. I wouldn't leave anyone dangling on just a teaser, well for too long anyway ;)
I went with someone else, which may shock some of you. We, of course, rode on a bus. The ride there was, well, dark. There was a haze in the sky. We got no sleep. In the "morning" (we had to wake up at 5am to catch the bus at six), the haze was gone, turned into a slight rain that sapped all heat from inside our tent. If there was any sleep that night, it was not after that rain, which made it too cold for slumber. It was one of the strangest times I have ever camped, and that is saying something. Think of it. We saw no sunlight the entire time on that island. The entire time, I marveled at how we did not set one foot on a gas pedal to get here. We had nothing but our bikes and a tent. We didn't even bring picture IDs. On the ride back, I marveled at man's unstoppable industry, building those miles of road and bridge, to allow access to something accessible to only few animals and definitely not the primitive human: a sandbar. We entered that sandbar in autumn, during the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, and left that sandbar in winter.
Winter is here, and I must renew my joy

Remembering

I have been intending to post for the past two days. I have been locked up, and would sit down to type, and all I'd have to say is "I got nothing". My sleep schedule has gotten continually more sporadic. Part of it is that my thoughts are all over. Having run out of legitimate songs for the Musically-Inspired Geographic Location of The Day exacerbates my procrastination.

I have been pondering the fields of Ireland sloping downwards to the sea, or the rolling plains of Jerusalem, of the sort I have been daydreaming of since early childhood. I know that once I live in Utah for a few years, spending every possible weekend (or any other period of freedom) on the road, driving to California multiple times, exhausting all those lonely, buzzing towns, squeezing every last drop of life from God's country, I will undoubtedly lean towards Europe and the rest of the world. I know that many college-aged youth aspire to Europe, assuming its entire essence to be portrayed in a few large cities wrapped around a vague line of continental demarcation, but I wish to be a rover, a more ancient and self-sufficient kind of tramp.

To return to a relatively less-romantic plane, I want to talk about bluegrass. I got an excellent bluegrass compilation for Christmas. Ever since I read On The Road (yep, its going to keep coming up. It is the traveler's bible, after all), I've equated bop to bluegrass -- the same rapidity, the same intensity, the same  overpowering level of skill and integrity the musicians possess. High-tempo bluegrass (mostly newer recordings, though some old, piercing breakdowns do it for me too) captures the bliss of velocity and youthful valor for me. I feel privileged to be able to appreciate it (because many cannot, probably for no better reason than why I don't like most heavy metal: preference) and really get into it.

I want to share some of my favorite passages from the traveler's bible

. How that truck disposed of the Nebraska nub! --- the nub that sticks out over Colorado. And soon I realized I was actually at last over Colorado, though not officially in it, but actually looking southwest towards Denver itself a few hundred miles away. I yelled for joy. We passed the bottle. The great blazing stars came out, the far receding sand hills got dim. I felt like an arrow that could shoot out all the way . . . I wondered where the hell they would go and what they could do. They had no cigarettes. I squandered my pack on them I loved them so. They were grateful and gracious. They never asked; I kept offering. Montana Slim had his own but never passed the pack. We zoomed through another crossroads town . . . and returned to the tremendous darkness... and the stars over head were as pure and bright, because of the increasingly thin air as wel mounted the high hill of the western plateau about a foot a mile . . . pure clean air, and no tress obstructing any low-leveled stars anywhere. . . I bought a pack for each of them; they thanked me. The truck was ready to go. It was getting on midnight now and cold. Gene who'd been around the country more times than he could count on his fingers and toes said the best thing to do was for all of us to bundle up under the big tarpaulin or we'd freeze. In this manner, and with the rest of the bottle, we kept warm as the air grew ice cold and pinged our ears. The stars seemed to get brighter and brighter the more we climbed the High Plains. We were in Wyoming now. Flat on my back I stared straight up at the magnificent firmament, glorying in the time I was making, in how far I had come from sad Bear Mtn. after all, how everything worked out in the end, and tingling with kicks at the thought of what lay ahead of me in Denver---what-ever, whatever it would be and good enough for me.

. 'And here I am in Colorado!' I kept thinking gleefully 'Damn! damn! damn! I'm making it!' And after a refreshing sleep filled with cobwebby dreams of my past life in the East I got up, washed in the station men's room, and strode off fit and slick as a fiddle to get me a rich thick milkshake at the roadhouse to put some freeze in my hot tormented stomach. Incidentally a very beautiful Colorado gal shook me that cream, she was all smiles too; I was grateful, it made up for last night. I said to myself, 'Wow! What'll Denver be like!' I got on that hot road and off I went to Denver in a brand new car driven by a Denver businessman of about thirty five. He went seventy. I tingled all over; I counted minutes and subtracted miles. In a minute just ahead over the rolling wheatfields all golden beneath the distant snows of Estes I'd be seeing old Denver at last. I pictured myself in a Denver bar that night, with all the gang, and in their eyes I would be strange and ragged like the Prophet that has walked across the land to bring the dark Word, and the only Word I had was Wow.

. Ed White, Frank, Bev and I spent an entire week of afternoons in lovely Denver bars where the waitresses wear slacks and cut around with bashful loving eyes, not hardened waitresses but waitresses that fall in love with the clientele and have explosive affairs and huff and sweat and suffer from one par to another; and we spent the same week in nights at Five Points listening to jazz, drinking booze in crazy colored saloons and gabbing till five o'clock in the morn in my basement.

That is one of the greatest joys of the road: the legend of it in one's own mind. Just look at the buildup and all-or-nothing hope for Denver, and then the paradise of it and fondness of remembering being there, how "the whole world opened up".

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As the title of this post suggests, I have been doing a lot of remembering. On my way back home from downtown on the 24th, biking up meeting street all the way to where it ends, I thought of nothing but the imperial towers amidst the river, unseen in the day time, hidden by the factories and buildings. I did not recognize the field the night -- the night I finished On The Road -- where they grabbed my attention when all other lights fell away. Downtown Charleston could not have been more desolate that day. It was the perfect morning. I felt like only person on the peninsula. I've been remembering that dingy night on top of the mountain overlooking the valley towns, the rain and prophesying wind, the gray, the Clemson clouds, all of the faces. That dead-quiet dusk on Mt. Mitchell. The still monday morning at Lake Eden, where frost covered everything and froze time. The contra dancing at the farmer's ball in the magical city of Asheville, followed by a long walk under the moon and haze. I remember the utter excitement and gratefulness with which I approached interaction with a friend. Things have been different, even empty, since I arrived back in Charleston with thirty-seven cents in my debit and pennies in my pocket. I cannot even write with the ardor and consistency that I once maintained. I must go back, and I know I will soon.

Musically-Inspired Geographic Location of the Day
I'm continuing with my wordless selections. This one is especially relevant in my remembrances. This location marks the beginning of the end of this period of wandering. After I ascended to this place, and biked off the ridge of the mountain, below the cloud, and into the road of troubles and hiking and hitchhiking, my mood followed. My demeanor went from soaring high above the clouds to a low indifference, being pushed on by intertia. I kept moving even in the pouring rain. Night comes, and there is nothing to do but stop and camp for the night. In the morning, there is nothing to do but break down camp and get moving. I really got excited about seeing four states at once though, on top of the Devil's Courthouse. Jim Vancleve tears it apart on this rickety ride of a bluegrass tune. (Remember, for the song, right click the Location title and select 'open in new tab' and for a picture of the geographic feature, click the greened and underlined name a few lines above)

A Passion

I woke up this morning at 5am and the pervading thought was to set up my Deviantshare account. I worked on it and fished it before the sun came up. I do this because the adventure telling really isn't complete without a few pictures.

I may or may not have mentioned this before, but I really enjoy photography. I want to be more serious and take a class, and perhaps even have a small developing room, but for now all I have is a decent camera that I am borrowing. I honestly thought I'd shrivel up when I lost my camera (still have not found it), but instead it just removed a part of me that I'm trying to get back now. I am finding inspiration on a fellow Blogspot user's blog, along with perusing the pages of other DeviantArt users. I have found much inspiration from Flickr as well, looking at photos of places I have been and wish to go to. I do not claim much skill in it, but I have been told by an old friend and fellow photography-enthusiast (who has taken college photography classes) that technique can be taught but passion cannot be taught. Lately, it seems that a lot of my passions, including traveling, are fading, much to my disappointment. I have missed contra dancing for the past month. A few months ago, I tried charcoal again, but did not get caught up in it, though I wish I could paint again. Responsibilities are tying me down, and I do not fight them, because their reward outweighs the inhibitions they create. For a few weeks, I shall keep a small preview of my works at the top of my blog page. I have also changed the URL of my blog, because of some poor programming on the part of DeviantArt (in my humble opinion). I am going to create a second Blogspot URL entitled theadventurousspirit.blogspot.com. I'm going to do this for anybody that is following me, so they won't be victims of the dreaded broken link.

Internalization and Black Mountain

I am beginning to understand some of the more counter-intuitive emotions tied into traveling that Kerouac tried to communicate in On The Road: the failure, the sadness, "everything . . . collapsing"

I traveled to Florence, South Carolina this weekend. It isn't a noteworthy pinpoint on the map other than the fact that I have true friends there that I often travel with. I wanted to spend time with just them, instead of going places with them to visit groups of friends and acquaintances, which we have always done. I have thought to myself in previous visits that we never get to really spend time together, except in the car (where we oddly don't really talk much). Our dynamic just wasn't the same without the road. I truly enjoyed their company and they are just as good of friends, but it was just different, and oftentimes we find what is at variance to our expectations, at first, to be unsatisfactory. I remember failure: failure to go to Charlotte or Asheville to see snow, glorious snow, snow that creates perfect silence, snow that sets nature at stillness and seems to set time in suspended animation, failure to even get out of Florence without something going wrong. My car battery drained, having left the lights on all night. After we got that fixed, me and a friend, who especially loves traveling, set out to test the car and decided to make a small adventure out of it. We headed for the NC/SC border, going up I-95. We ran out of gas, and had to pull the car to the side of the road -- that is ultimate defeat. Things were falling apart. After getting gas, there was nothing left to do but go home.

Now the above narrative is simply just the concentration of the feelings of dissatisfaction and the glorious struggle that is captured so perfectly in Kerouac's novel. It is a key element, and I'm very glad to keep experiencing it. I honestly did not feel it while I walked five miles to Black Mountain from LEAF, nor when my bike was stolen. I did feel it when my new bike's back wheel became wobbly upon heading down from the Blue Ridge Parkway. The simple transition from being above the clouds, commanding the view of seas of mist, to being below them and at their dominance, made me think of the security and comfort of the sunny mountain. Everything was perfect on that mountain ridge. After my descent, the sadness really soaked into me, through my shirt, until I was covered with it. It got in my shoes. It hung about me for two days. Though be it a subtle sadness (not the kind of sad that makes us sigh or cry) it literally obscured the beauty all around, except a misty field that I often remembered from previous days (this was on NC-hwy 281). This is my first time I travel in the fall, in late October, when the snow can be seen atop sleeping Black Mountain, when cloud moves in and challenges what I qualify as beautiful. That night where I realized my time of tramping with the full spirit of exploration was over and that it was time to accept defeat and go home. . . this was when the travail culminated. By this time, it was all in my sleeping bag, staining my feet (the feelings brought on in this instance were not like that night the rain deprived me of any sleep), running into the low parts of the inside of my tent. There really wasn't any escaping it. In this moment, I distinctly remember wanting to go home, like a little child. It was an essential part of my journey. I firmly believe that once you hit that point of conciously desiring all the comforts and familiarity of home, yet do not obtain home, the concept of "home" in your mind begins to change. Your thoughts on home get rewired in your brain a little, with each instance of this. I feel a little bit of familiarity and the emotion of a yearning to return towards any place I've spent more than day at, such as the Salem and Lake Jocassee area, Riceville, North Carolina, and especially Asheville. I feel my adventures are just beginning.

Musically-Inspired Geographic Location of The Day
I wanted to try something different (also, if you've noticed, I set the title of this section of the post as the link to the song, rather than the title of the post up at the top. I wanted the music to flood the reader's ears as the words below enter their mind. Same thing goes: right click, select 'open in new tab'). I wanted to share an instrumental, with the location just in the title. I've been dwelling on that memory of snow-covered Black Mountain in the morning, looming over the valley (this memory is from Lake Eden in October), and thinking "I want to be THERE! on top of THAT!" and reflecting on my over-simplistic fantasy of walking to the top of it. This song seems like the perfect sound if one were to prefer something other than the super-terrestrial silence of the mountain. The song suggests a summer setting, when the mountain is well-awake and resonating in deep lows. Think of the beginning free-flowing part as you look up and are captured by the prospect of climbing the summit, and the adventurous idea of it that gives you a headbuzz. As the tempo picks up (starts at one minute, thirteen secons), you are climbing it, and it is strenuous. You can't really see anything because of the trees. The desire to reach the top now pulls you upwards, against the will of the muscles of your legs against any other restraint that might come from the mind. Again, because of the trees (winter does not present this problem, though. The leaves no longer obscure the vew), you have no idea how close you are to the top. You eventually find your rhythm and the ascent isn't as tiring. When you come to a clearing in the trees, your reward a view of the valley below, the melody becomes soft and contemplative (around five minutes, fifty-three seconds). That's just how it goes. You put in much work of ascending the mountain side for just a moment of silence, looking down on where you started.

Going To California

So, as I am wont to do while driving all day Tuesdays, I've gotten on a new kick: Dolly Parton. I never saw this coming. Her vocals are perfect, and she writes EXCELLENTLY. I got really pumped off of her album Little Sparrow and one song, Shine, a classic rock cover, gave me the biggest thrill of any of my recorded-music-listening experiences (yep). I could definitely see her live, and I'm very very picky of which musicians I truly enjoy live.

I got a copy of Led Zeppelin's, which I got to listen to Going To California. I decided, upon first hearing this some years ago, that I would listen to this song as I traveled to the pacific ocean, perhaps on an overcast day. I would listen to this song hundreds of times over. I thought it wonderful. I may want to visit San Francisco to this song, as I thought as the lyrics "someone told me there's a girl out there, with love in her eyes and flowers in her hair," sank in (as I've said, I will listen countless times before some lyrics "sink in"). Think of Scott McKenzie's San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers In Your Hair). Long title, self explanatory. Everything about Zeppelin's California is beautiful on a different plane altogether, the aching, the longing, the dizzying airbuzz. Another album I tend to listen to while going out west is a mix tape I made of Gillian Welch. I decided this a few months ago, and again last month. This is not for a long time though. I won't be going out to Utah for a good two years or more.

Winter is Coming

I have so much to say. Its been building up for almost a week, and it all comes out on the road. Driving that car always gets my mind turning. The fall colors decorates either side of the road as I'm listening to Ricky Skagg's Walls Of Time (though it is that Bill Monroe that composed it, it being one of a seemingly endless number of his compositions. That's one of the very few things I don't like about bluegrass musicians: they do too many covers on their recordings) with that solemnly heralding violin solo. I have programmed this song to a lot of different imagery. At first, I played it on a small cassette recorder (which perfected its feeling of oldness and vaguity) while biking my route down Red Bank Rd to Bushy Park Rd, with the marshes and swamp trees and tall grasses with their ghostly, white husks. There is an ancientness and slow but ineffable timeflow to it. I feel it, and the song depicts it perfectly, with the harmony always at the interval of a fifth (sorry for those that don't know music theory, I do it for the edification of those that do know). As I was walking up the Blue Ridge Parkway in the afternoon, the sun causing all the red-browns to resonate and burst at my eyes, the lyric "the wind is blowing 'cross the mountain, and on the valley way below" described the blustery land that I was slowly ascending. I see the mountain range, hill after hill after hill, with one earthmound right in my face and holiding a vice on my attention. The ancientness, communicated in low rumbling frequencies that must be emitting fro the mountainside . The natural temples embedded in the land. During the most "earthy" season -- when the trees turn the color of the soil -- all of this was, to me, captured in Walls of Time, both the swamp and the mountain. I would REALLY like to go canoeing in any creek flowing through an estuary environment in the period of two to three hours before sunset, but it would have to be soon or never, because autumn, with its evocative ancientness, is giving way to winter. Winter is on its way. My trip to Sully's Island really drove this floating thought home and pinned it in my mind. The constant wind of a beach exaggerated the drizzle and cold air. This wind, eerily enough, was utterly absent during this one visit to Folly Beach last February, though not the kind of quiet that there was at the base of Mt. Mitchell that lone dusk. This absence of noise was a time-halting silence, a silence that restrains utterance or movement -- even to stop the Walls of Time in my head, just having left the Parkway and entered the shadow of elder mountain, father mountain -- a silence that haunts you for the rest of your life. It's like the atmosphere did not exist above 5400 feet. No more medium for sound waves. It was like I had left earth, and was in the heavens, for the stars were certainly closer, and in the morning sky the gentlest shades of crimson. There was no crimson in the sky that morning on Sullivan's Island. It was a grey, not the purgatorial grey of being in a drizzly cloud, but a pleasant mixture of grey melted in with light blues and benevolent whites. It had rained just enough in the night to busy me with keeping dry. Though I only got two hours of sleep when, after four hours, the drizzle finally subsided (and then was left to deal with the colder wind that always follows even the slightest rain), I was at relative peace. No cursing my discomfort or lack of sleep, no regretting I didn't take a ride home after listening to Ward and Joel at Art's. I left towards my destination as they had sung finishing the song Sullivan's Island. It was neat, because I desired to hear it right before they decided to play it. The idea of living here, in this old sleepy town by the sea, then travelling all over, only to return back, right where you started, broke and beaten -- "back on Sullivan's Island" -- is one of pure legend and stoicism. Getting there, a sudden thought struck me with horror: What if they had closed the swing bridge?! I read in the newspaper about the closing of the bridge while a new one was built and about traffic being rerouted over the IOP connector, which would mean an insurmountable ten-mile detour for me and my lowly bicycle. Luckily, this was not so, but walking over the bridge was the eeriest experience. The fiendish bridge played on my fears of falling and drowning, and the lights above the suspension structure gave the feeling of being in a sinister cage. I arrived, and dealt with the rain for the said four hours. When the clouds thinned a little bit (only for a moment), just as the time the clouds temporarily cleared to flaunt the glorious yellow sun when I last visited this bless-ed sandbar, I saw instead the white moon. Even in its waning, near-dark phase, it lit up the clouds perfectly, just as I had romantically hoped for (it was the imagining of this: relaxedly looking up to the comforting moon from cool, windy shore; that swayed me to risk being rained on). This scene evoked the greatest feelings of comfort and mildness in my heart. I was too chilled to be warmed by it though, but it was wonderful as it cast the gentlest white on the edges of the clouds around it. In the only break in the clouds a few stars could be seen, and this feeling of fun-ness -- of things getting back into motion -- that was sprinkled on me, such as I felt upon seeing the reddest evening sky of my life, now reminds me of LEAF, when the clouds thinned and gave way to the stars, promising the victorious sun come morning. There was no fun-ness in the morning, just tiredness, but the ineffable feeling to move on was there. I actually walked a lot of the road through Mt. Pleasant and halfway up the Ravenel. Viewing the trains of cloud with the fresh backdrop of light blue to the north on top of the Ravenel was oh so refreshing. I was passive in my tiredness, but enjoyed it nonetheless. Rocketing down the Ravenel, I just made the bus home, popping out onto Meeting St just where the bus was about pass. Under the covers, as I collapsed into an unrefusable sleep when I got home, the thought that winter was coming (though the warm Charleston sun persisted through the glass) pervaded my thoughts. I do hope I can enjoy more colors before winter comes and steals them all away. Edisto is next.

There'll Be Some Changes Made

Some things about my page

1. I removed the picture of the morning mountainside. I wanted to make a statement with words rather than pictures. It also wasn't cropped correctly to smoothly fit with the streamlined, highly-marginalized design from our amazing Google developers.

2. I added a Kerouac quote in place of the caption "travels, music, geography," partially because I didn't like the wholesale feel it gives off, and also because categorizing something often deprives it of the very essence you are trying to draw attention to. It is inevitable that it will cycle between a handful of quotes that capture the adventurous spirit

3. I added a "Earth Saving Tips" widget. This is partially because most people take for granted the playground that is Mother Earth. God gave us this world for our use and enjoyment (or if you take the leap of faith in saying that there is no god, perhaps I could reword this in saying that we humans have a disposition of dominance over the rest of life on Earth), but also to take care of, because as you can see, we are more thean capable of depleting it and de-beautifying it (while I don't think we can "disrupt the balance" per se, nature is very resilient and while we may put stresses on some species that drive them to extinction, ecosystems are remaining balanced. Its also important to realize that species come and go, this is nothing to be alarmed about). I just want to call to everyone's attention that the cleanliness of our environment is a personal responsibility in how and what we consume, and in what allow to happen. Nature is only for us to enjoy as long as we take care of it.

4. I eliminated everything in the blog post section except title and post body. No comments, no date of posting, nothing, just the raw text. These words are what they are, and I don't want anything to leave an impression about this blog other than the text, not how frequently I post, not whether or not someone feels I'm wasting my time or whether anybody even reads it. Its the best formatting I've done or probably ever will do on this blog

Sometimes, You Just Need it Faster

I spent all day driving today. My ears perked up when World Cafe's made a reference to Kerouac in talking about the musician's life being one spent on the road, and how getting back home demands one to decide which part of their life they like better, and how one gets a chance to look at themselves in the mirror after months of ceaseless traveling and realizing with some sadness at first at how pieces of oneself have been left in all the places touched upon.

I think of Ralph Stanley II's Honky Tonk Way. Life on the highway -- its freedom and the entrapment, all at the same time. A lyric from that song:

We ride the highway in a big silver eagle
its not quite as nice as you think
the freedom of the highway can feel like a prison
with bars made of asphalt and paint

I also think of more entrapment of the traveler that is traveling on assignment. Traveling for the sake of anything else but to move and experience new things, the idea horrifies me. After having listened to Cold Shoulder a thousand times, the thousand-and-first time penetrated my understanding of what the song was trying to say. The double meaning of the phrase 'cold shoulder' only hit me when I realized Ralph was taking on the character of a trucker.

The lure of the highway is like a woman sometimes
She can be your best friend, but she's a real jealous kind

I wish I could hold her
Instead of hugging this old cold shoulder

I say all these things because, as Kerouac says, they are too fantastic to remain silent about. Life is brimming with light and inspiration, given to us freely to the point of overflowing. Who am I to withhold that from my fellow humans, who have that same access to this spring of light? Because this song is also "too fantastic not to tell," I give you this song. Those fellow wanderers in this land of electronic tonic who have been exceedingly vigilant in November may recognize these lyrics ;)
http://songza.fm/~19uf0d
http://songza.fm/~8548qa
Same song; different recordings. No artist or title, its a surprise, and an explosive one, at that.

Revival

After a some six-week hiatus, I am listening to Gillian Welch again with the same feeling I did right before I went up into the mountains (though the echoes of it remained for the first couple of days). I don't mean Wrecking Ball or Wayside/Back in Time or the other songs from this Location(s). I mean just sitting on the sofa and listening to an entire album of hers in the sunlight. Her subject matter is so pure, as is her musical style. How unadulterated her singing voice and how simple David Rawling's picking. I need to go back to Art's Bar and Grille in Mt. Pleasant -- maybe biking over the Ravenel bridge to Sully's Island before and going back to that beach afterwards -- to hear Ward and Joel sing her music.
The Gillian Welch album that continues to impress me is Hell Among The Yearlings. It is her fourth released album, and stands out from her previous albums. You get to hear Gillian playing banjo, evoking a whole new range of images, mixes of wet and cold early-morning environments. Some of my favorite solo work by Rawlings is on this album.
There are many biking routes I wish to take and local journeys I'd like to pursue while the leaves are still on the trees in Charleston (excluding the evergreens, of course). I wish to bicycle up to Lake Moultrie and travel alongside it for a few miles east of Moncks Corner (about 50 miles round trip) and go up Hwy 176 to Holly Hill one morning, have Sweatman's BBQ for lunch, rest for an hour, then bike back home in the afternoon (it is 35 miles from my house to Holly Hill, so 70 miles round trip. I haven't biked that much in one day since coming home from Ninety-Six). An endurance run that I will only do once I get a better bicycle seat follows a route through Moncks Corner, down Hwy 41, and then through Awendaw to downtown Charleston and back home (I looked at it on google maps. It is 90 miles if I complete the whole circuit on bicycle, 75 if I take the bus home in the evening). I'm also going to pay a visit to Edisto Island before Autumn is over, so keep a look out for that.

The End of The Road and Johnson City

To view the song while reading about it in the Location of the Day, right-click the title above and select 'open in new tab'

I finished reading On The Road (The Original Scroll) around 11:15 on Monday night. It took me the same time to read it as it took Jack to write it: three weeks. I had spent all day on the move, from the Ashley River in its burning blue water, to the Old Navy Base sitting alongside the creek (though only for a moment), and read last of Kerouac's travels during all of this. As planned, I finished the book on a bus. The restlessness of youth. Kerouac lays "IT" out on the road and in his novel here:

We were all delighted, we all realized we were leaving the confusion and nonsense behind and performing our one and noble function of the time, move.

Snapshots of my time on the road Monday. . .

1) The autumn moon brought the salt at my feet, the salt-pluff and salt-reeds, their mixing smells forever conjoined in my mind with the beach. The sun made it all right. A narrow string of trees across the creek showed their festive colors and gave way to a wise, old marsh tree further in the distance.

2) Biking down old meeting street, the MAGIC of the desolate sodium-vapor-lit dark, with moon keeping vigil amongst the cottonball clouds. All of the orange burning light, it disappeared, dispersed all at once. Across the dark field, all the light that was left was the imperial light of the Ravenel towers, miles out in the sea, two pillars of gentle white. It spoke to me, not that I could understand at all, but it gave utterance and it grasped and held my attention

3) THIS is North Charleston in the late night, with all of its decay, and all of its calm. The absence of humans returns the land to its natural feel. Desolate unlit parking lots. I've never witnessed such. As I walk in the holy Charleston night, I feel exceptionally safe, no, not safe, mildly excited and tranquil at the same time, as a child gets in the quick sharp cool of a windy night. Winter is coming.

You can't get ANY of this in a car

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Musically-Inspired Geographic Location of the Day
Today, this first day of December, we move to east Tennessee, to Johnson City. The end of the road in Kerouac's novel, the paradise, is Mexico City. The end of the road for me, I think, will be eastern Tennessee, where I find my paradise. I may travel afterwards, but I think I'll find perfect fulfillment from my travels in eastern Tennesse, beneath the banana trees. I looked at some of the things along the NC/TN border, and I saw this one landmark, Round Bald. Its my dream: mountain hills devoid of trees but lush with brush and grass, like the hills of Jerusalem. Maybe I'm very limited by my experiences, I have not witnessed the yellow expanse of the deserts of Arizona, the jungles of southern Louisiana, even the endless plains of Iowa or the savannah of Africa. Here be a tale of a man, told by Old Crow Medicine Show, in Wagon Wheel (adapted from the chorus of Bob Dylan's Rock Me Mama):

Headed due south out of Roanoke
I caught a trucker out of 'Philly, had a nice long toke
And he's a' headed west from the Cumberland Gap
To Johnson City, Tennessee
And I got to get a move on before the sun
I hear my baby callin' my name
And I know that she's the only one
And if I die in Raleigh at least I will die free

When it clicked, long overdue (I do listen to the lyrics but I tend not to piece each line together because I do not read the lyrics. My friend is right: doing so is neccessary), that it is a song about being a hitch-hiker heading for something, my soul leapt. The joy. I smiled so warmly as I type this.
I included the link to the song, but I have the World Cafe EP of this, as I said in a previous blog. It has much more echo and the banjo rings so true. The fiddle is sorrowful and sweet, oh the solemnity of the mountainside when its quiet and there's nothing to do but sit and ponder on that quiet. All of this actually reminds me of my time in Boone, North Carolina, and traveling down to Lake Eden Arts Festival in the middle of spring. The memories are precious aren't they? It's the only thing we can take with us.

Red at Night, Sailor's Delight

I must tell you about a drive that I had last night. It was enormous and chilling. Even though I listen to mostly bluegrass currently, I shall let you in on a little secret that my favorite musician to listen to while driving is Gordon Sumner, known as Sting. I was listening to Soul Cages while driving from Goose Creek to where I work, and it was about 5pm. Driving is like a psychoactive dessert to me now that I rarely do so. The sky near the horizon burned an infernal red that grew darker as the night would take over the day. I just sat breathless at 60mph, stealing more glances at the skyfire than the road. I played tracks I often skip over, though they captivated me powerfully this time around. Here they are (perhaps the audio only while reading will let your imagination do its bidding rather than watching the video):

Island of Souls
When The Angels Fall

Angels is so eerie and hauntingly beautiful, and really gave completion to the dusk. It was dark on the interstate, but illuminated by painfully bright construction lighting. I get to work, park the car, dash out the car, leaving the car on, to get the item and jump back in, and rocket off back for home. It is about 5:30pm now. To avoid rush-hour traffic on the "I" going west, a ride up South Aviation is best I was surprised at how I didn't expect the explosion of honest, pure red upon coming up on the place where the trees fall away and there is nothing but open field to the left. You can see the runways of the airport and air force base, and of course the red. The entire part of the sky that was previously hid by the trees was RED. The biggest, purest, solid RED sky I've ever seen in my entire LIFE. and I switched to track two of the CD. I just felt like something to mirror the fun-ness and wonder of what I was seeing

All This Time

and I began to think of the saying "red at night, sailor's delight; red at day, sailor's dismay," furthering my connection of how much Gordon lived the sea. It was certainly delight, but subtle delight that was as pure as the sky. But nature always presents itself in such an emotionally neutral way, that it gives memories that grow so rich, though so subtle at the time you see. As the wall of red was hidden by the hangars, I began to think that driving is such a joy because you get to ride a boat that travels rivers of viscous black phosphate and paint. You can go ANYWHERE you want! I also thought of and agreed with Ben Gibbard's lyric: even landlocked lovers yearn for the sea like navy men. Magic. Like being in an anti-gravity machine.

Worn Muscles and Memphis

To listen to this song while reading about it in the Location of the Day, right click the title above and select 'open in new tab'. Beware, because its a Lala file, they'll only let you listen to the full song once, so make it count ;)

I need to start by saying I have stopped driving unless I absolutely have to. My muscles were sore for a few days after pulling nearly eighty miles in one day. Once I started bicycling for transportation as well as leisure, I was doing 15 mph for an hour at a time. The first Monday back home, I bicycled back home from downtown, down King street, past all the restaurants, past the decaying older part with its WWII-era houses and simple poor people walking about, past the concrete fields to the left overtaken with vegetation, along the railroad tracks and the interstate, past the factories, over the climactic bringe that passes over the railroad tracks and, at the top you can see all of charleston as it is, in all its unprettiness : what has been condemned as bad neighborhoods sprawled to the right and the roads and fields lay waste and a haven of sorts. Once left alone and neglected, it becomes more natural, and you see the indestructibility of nature and beauty, that it will win your attention through the concrete and halogen light and dirty air. You throw grey liquid on it and cut down all the trees, beauty still flourishes, just a different kind of beauty. After King street becomes Rivers its just city and more city until home. I have been doing a lot of similar fast trips, and they are tearing up my legs. I haven't biked since friday, when I did my first thirty-mile circuit since about six weeks. In short, this bicycle route I take goes north through the 52/78 split (which is open and beautified with bushes on the road mounds, complete with a lone tree in this field), heads down an open expanse of red bank road, then goes up Bushy Park Road for seven miles, then heads down a country road back onto 52.

Getting started was a bit strenuous, my muscles were already sore from previous days of pushing myself. As I passed down 52, there were no colors. Charleston. It is the middle of November and the sun still feels like summer. In my heart I exclaim, "when will there be color," and as I travel further, I see more occasional yellow trees, but it still doesn't feel like fall. One of my favorite points is where there is but a thin veil of trees covering a marshy reservoir on one side and railroad tracks on the other. At one point, it was like the world exploded before me as the sunlight suddenly hit everything. The close forests burst open to fields of brush and tall grasses, and all I could do is pedal as fast as I could, intensely whispering in my heart, "YES!". A lot of the grasses had tall light-tan heads, whose filaments glowed a spectral white when seen through the two-hours-before-dusk light. They stood there in the air like skinny ghosts, all to my right side. Amazing. An open field is a stupendous, captivating thing.

Musically-Inspired Geographic Location of the Day
I really wanted to hit on this one because eastern Tennessee has, since August, been a holy land of sorts to me -- that mystic, seemingly unattainable land where things are even more full of hills, more dramatic, and sun-soaked. Every attempt to go there has been denied me, whether by car, or by bicycle. I am well aware that Memphis is in the opposite corner of Tennesse, but it seems to grasp that invisible pull westward, with its location looming teasingly at the edge of the Mississippi, the great river dividing the two worlds. I really want to visit the musical mecca Nashville, and just chill there for a week or so and really settle into the rhythm of it. I don't know anyone there. Sometimes that yields the best experience. They say you most long for what seems unattainable, but I plan to, after serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, buy a Jeep and live in it for a few months, traveling all over, and meeting people on the way, picking up hitch-hikers, soaking it all in on my terms and time frame. Sounds beautiful doesn't it. I wish I could tell you something about Memphis, but I cannot. Just imagine the dusty city with all of its lures and opportunities, and I'd like to cross-reference to another song, Pretty Girls, City Lights by Ralph Stanley, and the chorus goes like this:

Pretty girls (pretty girls), city lights (city lights)
Just had to play the game
When I got out I didn't have a dime
Didn't even know my name.

Notice the similarities to John Prine's Daddy's Little Pumpkin

I'm goin' down to Memphis got three-hundred dollars in cash
Yeah I'm goin' down to Memphis got, three-hundred dollars in cash
All the women in Memphis gonna see how long my money can last

View From The Ravenel and The San-Joaquin

To view the song while reading about it in the Location of the Day, right-click the title above and select 'open in new tab'

I have grown totally tired of downtown Charleston (about eight months ago), and North Charleston too, it becoming drab again after just a week of being back. However, Sullivan's Island has always held a special place in my heart, as well as the drive through Mt. Pleasant to get there. Here is Sully's Island http://tinyurl.com/ydsbljf (right-click, open in new tab). It is a small island that is mostly residential, has no hotels, and is protected by the government (The Park Service if I remember correctly) such that development is kept sustainable and low-impact. My favorite part of the Island is a result of these government land-development regulations: one has to walk through about 500 feet of vegetation (mostly brush, but some pathways to the beach have nice fields at the beginning) to get to the often-unpeopled beach.

Another part of Chareston I am still fascinated and excited by is the Arthur Ravenel, Jr. Bridge. The longest cable-stayed bridge in the western hemisphere, it towers over Charleston, and could easily be the tallest point, not even mentioning the two towers that hold the suspension cables. It is a grand work of architecture, and always arouses the deepest admiration in me (I wanted to be an architect as a 3rd-6th grader). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Ravenel_Jr._Bridge

Biking to the beach from downtown felt like such freedom. Even with the clouds hiding the great blue from view, being able to see all of Charleston and the complete panorama, seeing many miles up the Cooper River and all of Charleston harbor where, off in the distance, overcast skies ripped open and eerie light flowed down on the water in thin beams. I could see Mt. Pleasant, the lighthouse (which holds much sentimental value) on Sullivan's Island, and the green trees that stretch far beyond all of it, and all of this made me glad I am still in Charleston (but probably not glad enough to miss it when I'm gone). The giddy-with-fear emotion I felt as I looked down at the water from at the highest point of the bridge could be shared with the man who looked down at the sea from a cliff in Edgar Allen Poe's The Maelstrom. After waving to a ship as it passed right under my feet -- it couldn't have been more than 50 feet shorter than the height of the bridge -- I zoomed downhill (top gear and speed, I maxed out sooner than a quarter of the way down), and before I knew it, I was in Sullivan's Island. The closer I got, the more the sky bled light and the more frequently the glorious blue sky revealed itself. My friend was right, its always sunnier in Mt. Pleasant, and I counted on it. I swear, everything got more and more beautiful as I got nearer that bless-ed sandbar. By time I got to the dinky draw bridge that crossed the international waterway, there were shadows and full sunlight. As I got into Sullivan's Island, I made no turns, I went straight down the road until it became grass. By this point, I don't remember there being any sound, just light and clouds and green. Biking the boardwalk over brush and bushes to where it ends in sand, I can only say it was surreal. It was the most beautiful thing in the world. It climaxed here, and the other-worldly beauty of it all held precariously as I bared my feet and walked in the water and continued my gaze at the clouds. I knew I had only a certain amount of time to get back downtown for the earlier bus home, so I was just to put my feet in the water, then bike back out. After immersing my feet in the water, I knew all of that didn't matter. Time disappeared -- its just an illusion anyway. Pick your favorite cloudset, watch it pass across the sun and out to sea. Half of the sky was unclouded by now. Pick your favorite shade of blue, whether it be near the horizon or straight up, and let your eyes soak up the light. After what could have been one minute or half an hour, I walked back to Middle Street and bicycled back downtown.

Musically-Inspired Geographical Location of the Day

Beyond this Location, I feel I have already come to a point where I cannot think of any more places besides the big town (though not as big then) of Atlanta, Georgia, the musical mecca of Nashville, Tennessee, and others that have been sung about enough times and in the same ways as to make them cliche lyrics. Today's location runs in sequence with Kerouac's On The Road, from the madness and sadness of San Francisco to the fleeting love of the San Joaquin valley.

I first heard about San Joaquin in the road-of-life song -- in all of its holy twists and turns that in the end are part of the master's plan -- Wrecking Ball, by Gillian Welch. I've talked about this song before, with its rite of passage in leaving home, perhaps "just a boy passing twenty," making it on ones own, and struggling, but oh the joy of and within that struggle, the simple pleasure of hardship, the inevitable disappointment, one after the other, and failure after failure. Gillian has a wonderful talent in assuming the identity of the song's character, who will narrate their own story (especially considering she assumes the identity of a young man in one stanza, maybe even Jack Kerouac himself) She is often directly or indirectly (in the case of becoming another character, or maybe being "under a pseudonym") speaking about her own experiences. To make clear the relevancy to On The Road, after Jack leaves Frisco, he meets a Mexican girl on a bus and falls recklessly in love with her and they experience struggling together for a few weeks in the San Joaquin valley, among the grape vines. He goes back home to New York in October; for "everyone goes back home in October". Ah, the literary and emotional power of the melancholy.

Jack Jean-Louis and "Frisco"

To listen to the song while reading about it in the Location of the Day, right click the title above, and select 'open in new tab'

After working 10 hours today (sounds tiring, but not that bad), I was anxious to get to this blog. Anxious because I have to be in the right mindset to do it the way I would like. These frames of time where I feel "ready" are fleeting, and when I am in a position that I can pinch it at the top, I hasten. I have to turn the TV off; there has to be little other noises than the clicking of each key, sometimes working up a small sweat if the mind is generous enough to allow idea flow that precipitates exceptionally-intense typing.

I wanted to write tonight mostly because where I am in On The Road dictates that I start to focus on the Musically-Inspired Geographical Location[s] of the day. Unfortunately (for this blog, and somewhat for my reading experience. Kerouac wanted to portray that "life on the road is fast" through On The Road. It simply just takes adjusting to), the pace of the book zooms three-thousand miles across the American continent in a matter of some fifty pages and back east in considerably fewer. I am immensely enjoying my new-found access to Charleston County Library's CD collection, and it is only day one. I quickly realized that only being able to have 5 CDs checked out at a time would alter my experience, but I have found that it helps me listen to those CDs that I especially like a few dozen times. I have already listened to Alison Brown's Fair Weather three times today. I revel in being able to enjoy multiple CDs of musician's I've been wanting to listen to for a long time but whose music I have not had ready access to, such as Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Alison Krauss. There's even a copy of Lyle Lovett's Pontiac at my neighborhood branch that I am especially hankering over after getting a taste of Cash.

Musically-Inspired Geographical Location of the day
This Location on the tenth day of November is San Francisco, California. Before I continue, it would be arrogant and dodgy of me to say that I simply threw a curve ball at the audience (if there's anybody reading. Hello? anybody out there??) by placing the location of "Frisco" in Texas. It is more the case that Kerouac's writing curved me to think that Jack was taking a bus to Texas to spend time with his fellow west-going travelers before hitting the Pacific Coast, because it was written that he would visit Neal and Allen. There is a Frisco in Texas, but Frisco is common-knowledge slang for San Francisco (not common to me, embarassingly). He was of course heading to grand ol' San Fran, and would actually not join with his friends in Texas as planned this time around.

San Francisco has most assuredly had one sentimental air after the other cast on it, from Bob Dylan to Gillian Welch. It needs no introduction; no background information. I focus on the song Wayside/Back In Time. I hold this first Location as beautiful and even holy (in the sense of one's road of life being a holy journey), for Wayside/Back In Time is the first Gillian Welch number that hit my ears, in a small, local music venue on the island of my childhood. There weren't many people there. Joel Timmons, Ward Buckheister (who played a beautiful trombone) and "noodle" were on stage, singing out her mournful, melancholy chant: "back baby, back in time, back. . . when you were mine". There were very few (maybe ten) people hearing their music, and even fewer listening -- heck, probably just me listening, whilst everybody set it in the background to their laughing friends and alcohol (again, that perfect moment: a one-on-one soul-commune, just Joel, Ward, and "noodle's" voice one-ness to me). The lyric goes

Peaches in the Summertime, apples in the Fall
If I can't have you all the time, I won't have none at all

Well I wish I was in Frisco, with a brand new pair of shoes,
'Stead I'm sittin' here in Nashville, with Norman's Nashville Blues

There's nothing else to say now

Adjustment to Living Indoors

As my sister drives us back home from Orangeburg, where I accepted an offer to be picked up (her home in Ladson, and my home, in North Charleston, but ten miles southeast of hers), I stare at my new copy of On The Road (The Original Scroll) in my lap, deliberately growing the hankering to finally read it. As I said earlier, delayed gratification is the muse of the wise and seasoned. While I don't ascribe those qualities to myself, I feel I am just beginning to develop them. I will discover in the next few days that I have a better ability to budget my time, less laziness, and a greater aversion to television to show for my three-week absence (I will still snag thirty minutes every other day or so, don't get me wrong, but I now tend to read when tired from the day, when once in a blue moon I get bushed enough to read from tiredness). My sister and I talked about her younger years, her youngest daughter and oldest niece of mine, her husband, her job, my plans for the next few days.

Simply put, the adjustment to living indoors. . . there was no adjustment (especially considering I had really been sleeping indoors since last Saturday, though I'd be out the door by 8am). I found myself driving A LOT (some 170 miles Friday the 6th and Saturday the 7th). It just happened. The constant movement of the lifestyle I have had over the last month simply transferred to city life and the schedule I had previous to and again resumed after these journeys.

My plans for the next few days included (I hate getting even a few days behind in blogging. Having to use the past tense is a real bummer. If I write about it the day it happened, I interpret it with that day's mindset, and feel good about using present tense) going to the beach in the early morning, followed immediately by contra (if I would be able to soak up all of the day's sun while at the beach). Things to get done included cashing a check, clearing my fines at the library (again, I really wish I had gotten up this post before posting where my blog would now be headed), and loading up on CDs, books on tape, and, of course, literature (particularly from my reading list of novels that Chris McCandless carried with him on his travels).

Waking up early in the morning, as I am now wont to do (I also usually get to bed before midnight. It's great), I headed out to the beach, listening to my new CD, Short Trip Home, by Edgar Meyer and Joshua Bell w/ Sam Bush and Mike Marshall, which was teary and beautiful for the ride through the island of my childhood. The complexities and rhythmic intensities that the CD also provided were enormously appreciated as well. Falling asleep on the beach, in the warmth of the sun, covered in a blanket, shielded from the wind that would otherwise rob my of comfy heat, was something I had desired for about a week now. I awoke in time to get downtown for a class I like to sit in on. The drive home was slow going. Oh, but that drive home, how I missed it, and how ritual it was to do. The game of it -- taking bursts of speed where the curves hide the car from radar, timing lights to avoid heavy breaking, meandering through the cars like a maze when traffic is just too. darn. slow. I even cherished the slow-going at that ever-so-consistent I-26/I-526 merge, for it allowed me time to read On The Road, gaining sneak insights from commentary and wonderment from the first few five pages, which I had actually already read, if any readers recall. I relaxed the rest of the afternoon until Contra. Contra wasn't exciting until the fun kids showed up.

A Look into Which Direction This Blog Is Heading

Since I am back home, this blog will focus on, of course, more music. I am going to be expanding my listening palette enormously in the upcoming months. I am clearing my fines at the library -- which come out to about 40 dollars -- in order to stock up on much of the country section of the CD collection. I will be spending much more days doing chinese delivery in the next month for sure, so not only will much new music be available to me, I will have a LOT of time to listen to it all (I listen to music constantly while I am driving deliveries for ten to eleven hours a shift). I like to listen to a CD a dozen or so times before I set it aside for a while. If its really good, I'll listen to it a dozen or so times consecutively, such as Mercury Falling by Sting and This One Is Two by Ralph Stanley II (that album is a rarity for me in its inexhaustible-ness). I might place a nice bike ride route or other moment in travel or imaginings of such to a CD or particular song, but it will usually just be the music.

I will also feature what I will call a 'Musically-Inspired Geographical Location of the Day' most posts. A sneak preview: The first one will be on Frisco, Texas. I include references to a Gillian Welch song and a Keruoac novel (those who are keeping an eye on this blog will be able to guess the novel, and perhaps the song).

Summary of 10.15-11.05 and Reflections on

Summary

I carpooled with Logan up to LEAF. It was cloudy Friday and Saturday. Contra dancing was wonderful, though I caught the passion of it more on Friday and felt only occasionally on Saturday. I did not enjoy having to volunteer on Sunday (not proud to say, but this schedule was agreed to prior to the festival). It was not in the Spirit of the Sabbath, and I made a resolve to never go to an event that would compromise that. I missed church due to an error on my clock.

(Monday 10.19) I walked to Black Mountain monday morning to get a bolt for my bicycle. I camped on Beaucatcher Mountain that night. (Tuesday 10.20) I biked into downtown Asheville in the morning, and camped alongside the Blue Ridge Parkway that night (mm 382). (Wednesday 10.21)I mostly walked to Mt. Mitchell the next day, on account of the continuous uphill slope, except the last 5 miles which were mostly downhill and when I got a 5-mile boost from a couple in a truck (in order to set up camp along the park's trail before dark). (Thursday 10.22) In the morning, I hiked Mount Mitchell, had my picture taken by a nice couple from Florida, then biked mostly downhill all the way back to Asheville, had the time of my life dancing contra at Warren Wilson, prancing and clapping through the sore shoulders and aching legs. I stayed at the Skroski's house, because I could go no longer and needed a day's rest (had I paced myself a little more, this wouldn't have been necessary). Saturday, I prepared to be on my way, and explored the backwoods trails between their house and the BRP. The colors were beautiful and upclose in the valley. Riceville was in perfect color this time of year. By this point, the most majestic views had been seen and the majority of the tears of awe, joy, or melancholy had been shed. I biked south on the BRP towards where it goes into the Nantahalla National Forest (where one can camp anywhere on it, so long as it is 100 paces from a road and 50 feet from a trail or water source, which translates into a lot less pressure to make a certain location by nightfall). It was a very nice night.

(Sunday 10.25) My bicycle got a flat, and I foolishly did not check to see if everything was in good order with my bike before I ended my travels for the day. I only got to church (5 miles away from my campsite) by the grace of a newlywed LDS couple in Arden. I spent the day with a man named David Dunbar, who fixes bikes for a hobby. He helped me out and sent me on my way. (Monday 10.26) After being dropped off at mm399, a bit beyond where I set up camp Saturday night, I continued and set up camp early, desiring rest. The next day was drizzly, and I set up camp 1000ft or so up the MTS trail very early near mm414 to get out of the rain. I left my bike at the trailhead, not taking time to secure it. The only thing that mattered was getting out of the rain. This is how the bike was stolen. I left it unattended overnight. (Wednesday 10.28) The clouds were below me, and a few peaks jutted out from the clouds. It was a pleasant sight as I walked to the nearest lookout point to proposition a ride to where Brother Dunbar could pick me up. Over the next two days, he took one of his many bikes in the garage and fixed it up, then drove me out to mm414 Thursday night. I gave him twenty dollars for all of his help (ten for the bike, which is the price he usually sells them for at the flea market, and ten for all of the miles he drove in my assistance). I wish I could have given him more.

(Friday 10.30) Bike rides like a champ. It was overcast again the next morning. Rather, the cloud was on the mountainside. I biked to Graveyard Fields (mm 418), enjoyed the dismal beauty of the fields, and had lunch atop Devil's Courthouse (mm 422). I biked down 215, heading out to 281, where I'd see Hwy 11, Lake Jocassee, and all the wonderful memories they brought of my first lone wanderings. However, after the bike's back wheel became wobbly, and I could not fix it, I decided to just head into the Piedmont and see if I could get help fixing it in Clemson. It was a perpetually showering and overcast Friday and Saturday, and at that point, I was much ready to end my journeys. The cloud sucked the beauty out of the land, and while going down 281 and SC 107 to 130, there was nothing to behold but grey. In order to be in Clemson by Sunday and to get to church (which I promised to myself I'd do. I was very regretful at placing myself in a situation where I was unable to keep the Sabbath, such as being at LEAF), I had to ask the help of a friend in Clemson to come some 20 miles to pick me up. I then stayed with someone at Clemson House.

(Sunday 11.1) Church had such a sweet spirit, and I enjoyed the time I spent with the YSAs I had just met. The CES Fireside was very heartwarming and laughter-filled. Monday I searched for a more-reliable back tire (Daryll loaned me a tire that belonged to his room-mate) in Anderson. Tuesday, I tested the back tire, riding up to Hwy 11, Table Rock, and Lake Jocassee, but did not foresee the tire wall giving out. Unfortunately, I required more help in transportation to get back to Clemson. (Wednesday 11.4) The next day, I packed the last of my things in my backpack and took a bus to Anderson, then rode some 40 miles to get to Ninety-Six. I then biked nearly 80 miles to Orangeburg, and instead of laying my tarp out in a cornfield, I accepted a ride back home from my sister. I had come this far, I'm sure I would have easily finished it with a laid-back start in the morning and 10-mile-at-a-time pacing.

Reflection

I rolled into Charleston dirt-broke (.37 in my bank account and pennies in my pocket), just the way I wanted it. This, the fact I mostly completed my trip home on bike, and the first four days (Monday-Thursday. Oh, beautiful beautiful Thursday. Singing from the high, blustery ridges of mountains, and Contra dancing at Warren Wislon, bringing me out near-collapsing from exhaustion, re-energizing my soul, and catching the passion) were about the only things that fully pleased me. I felt the first four days were the only genuine ones. After staying at someone's house for a well deserved rest, it wasn't the same. I was not fully equipped with the knowledge to deal with the problems that arrived in my way (I knew how to replace a tire, and change a tire wall, and I brought replacement tubes and the tools to do all of that, as well as a ratchet and all the sizes needed for any nut on my bike. I did not realize a back tire rim axle would break from just sharp turns). I did not enjoy requiring so much assistance when my bike was only useful for riding downhill. Bike troubles most certainly spoiled the last half of this adventure. My original plan was to enjoy Oconee county (most northwestern county in SC), then head back up and bike in northern Georgia, but after seeing that my new bike might keep breaking, I realized that my wanderings were over, and that it would be smartest to head down and make a beeline for home. I figured I should make the best of this situation, and because I loosely planned to visit friends in upstate SC on my way back, I should stop in Clemson for a few days and just not focus on what went wrong, but make whatever positive experience I could. My alone period ended as I came down from the mountains. That was Friday, October 30th. I wish I could have afforded a better bike, or that I knew how to approach every situation on my own, but I could only have done so much. Though it frustrates me in part to know I had to receive so much help, I thank each and every one of you that helped me get from point A to B to C and so forth, especially David Dunbar, who made absolutely sure I got home by bike. There was always the option to call my parents to come get me, and option they told me not to hesitate to use. I would not do that. Although I had to be rescued 20 miles out twice, I did the best I could with the problems that arose. There were a few instances where I fell victim to my own carelessness, such as the flat tire in Arden, or the faulty tire wall 20 miles north of Clemson, and, of course, the stolen bike. I again give thanks to everyone who assisted me, though I personally thank them as well.


This will probably happen again, and next time I'll know how to address every problem that might occur. I will also have my own camera.

Ninety Six

I woke up at eight forty-two AM. Forty-eight miles out of Anderson, I arrived in Greenwood, just nine miles west of my destination with just enough sunlight to make it. My pack weighed forty-two pounds, and my body weight had decreased thirteen. I accepted to be picked up at the County Library, to allow more time to spend with my friend. After looking through many many libraries, a copy of On The Road was to be found here, and, sitting down to read it and slowly enjoying the first five pages, I awaited my friend's arrival. It had been a patient endeavor to come in contact with this book, said to be the sojourner's bible. It is said that patience is rewarded by making the eventual happening sweeter and more savor-able. I was definitely feeling that.

The next day it was eighty-one miles to Orangeburg. I hit North at nightfall. Onto Orangeburg. It was my first time really riding long distance in the dark.

(Almost) every song that flowed through the chambers in my mind during the last three weeks

(Okay, so a lot of these songs embody the adventurous spirit, and a lot of them don't, at least for me. You decide which fill your soul with the desire to roam. Oh, and they're alphabetized by artist name now!)

Alison Krauss - Down in the River to Pray, I Will, I'll Fly Away (w/ Gillian Welch)

Bob Seger - Against The Wind, Old Time Rock and Roll

Church Hymns: Carry On, Our Savior's Love, True To The Faith, other sacrament hymns.

Doobie Brothers - Black Water

Earl Scruggs - 'Til The End of The World Rolls 'Round

Edgar Meyer and Bela Fleck w/ Mike Marshall - Big Country

Gillian Welch - too many to mention all, but Wrecking Ball, Black Star, Acony Bell, Ballroom Girls, Everything is Free, Annabelle, One More Dollar (A long time ago, I left my home, just a boy passing [the age of] twenty), My Morphine, I'm Not Afraid to Die, Hickory Wind

Grandpa Jones - Turn Your Radio On

Herp Pedersen - Cora Is Gone (including the breakdown, oh yeah!)

Jim VanCleve (with Mountain Heart) - Devil's Courthouse

Jimmy Buffett - Everybody's Got A Cousin in Miami, Fruitcakes

Joel Timmons - Orangeburg

John Prine - Picture Show, Daddy's Little Pumpkin, I Want To Be With You Always

Kenneth Cope - More, Father's Child (this song always makes me feel God's love big time, and it reminds me of going to Lake Norman out of Charlotte. It makes me think of heaven), Tell Me

Ralph Stanley - Pretty Girls City Lights, Shady Grove (upon seeing a street sign of that name)

Ralph Stanley II - L.A. County, Georgia (although I never got to go) Lord Help Me Find The Way, Carter, Loretta (the contra-dancing theme for me), They Say I'll Never Go Home (Will I ever see the old homeland, smell honeysuckle in bloom, and walk down by the river, and love me for I love the moon? How can they treat me so wrong, they say I'll never go home)

Rhonda Vincent - Is The Grass Any Bluer?

Ricky Skaggs - Walls of Time, Uncle Pen (another contra-dancing theme)

Something Coporate - North (upon seeing a sign marking a town of that name)

Steely Dan - Reelin' In The Years

Sting (also, a little of The Police) - Don't Stand So Close to Me (both versions), Why Should I Cry For You, Little Wing, Wild Wild Sea, Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot, The Hounds of Winter, Fields of Gold

Union Station - The Boy Who Wouldn't Hoe Corn

Van Morrison - Sweet Thing

Yonder Mountain String Band - Half Moon Rising, On The Run

Soldier's Joy

more to come as I think of all of them

Quotes on Insanity

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results
- Albert Einstein

If we couldn't laugh we'd just all go insane
- Jimmy Buffett

Laughter is but a mild form of insanity
- John Kotab

I don't suffer from insanity. I enjoy every minute of it
- Anon

They danced down the street like dingledodies, and I shambled as I've been doing all my life after people that interest me, for the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirious for everything at the same time, who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars
- Jack Kerouac, On The Road

Clemson, Air Pressure, and Clouds Make Me Happy

After two more days at 81 Blake, I got back out on the Blue Ridge Parkway. As I could guess, I had become domesticated from the time of plentiful food and indoor rest. I awoke in a cloud. I know I got a late start because of it. I had to walk down the trail to the road to realize that it really wasn't raining. Although the fog seemed to stretch time and to dampen progress, I came to really like it, so much so that I wished it had stayed. It adds a surreality and beauty you can't without it. It made Graveyard Fields perfect. Solemn, slightly morbid, barren and moist, a beautiful eeriness. The idea of a field covered in burnt oranges and tans and dark browns is the most amazing thing to me. The mist and occasional gnarly, bleached, denuded dwarf trees tranced my mind to a very contemplative state. It was a barren, beautiful wasteland covered in cloud and past endeared memory. It was actually very similar to a dream I had as a young teenager.

The previous night, I biked for the first time under a bright moon, with a rather unnatractive view of the valley towns beneath: dirty, dingy, actually brown. The sky was wonderful, and biking alongside a mountainside, blasted-away rock sections ashine from the precious lifewater bleeding from them. I sang so loud, my bike screaming down the hillsides as well. 3rd gear, speed 6 (3;6) was unlike any speed I've experienced on two wheels.

Things were constant trouble for my new bike as I roared down 215 and towards Whitewater Falls (on 281 just north of the NC/SC border). Back wheel became wobbly, and by the time I got to the end of 215, I could only ride the bike downhill (an all-too-familiar situation). I was appalled that everything was uphill on 64, and luckily got a ride from one Russel in a maroon truck, because I was caught short of Whitewater Falls some 6 miles, and had to set up camp in a very conspicuous spot between the road down below and a private drive above. A dog protested my presence while I set up my tent and tarp in the near dark. The clouds kept overhead, and filled the fading day with a grey I swiftly tired of. That night, as the water still partly made its way in, I dreamt of being driven home from James Island and being with my sister's family, and I was glad to finally be back home. I swore I had made two trips back home by time morning came (which was just a lighter grey, how I tired of that color). I knew my adventures were done and going downhill would end my adventures and give way to much sore-inducing travel by bike, as soon as I was in Clemson.

The trip to Salem was mostly a 4-hour walk. As I type this, the song Hickory Wind , by Emmylou Harris, makes me think of the pines and scenery that changed with just having come out of the mountains. My friend picked me up in Salem Saturday, and we were in Clemson in a matter of minutes it seemed, and the traffic (both of rubber and leather) was immense but surprisingly not overwhelming. The game between Clemson and Coastal Carolina had just finished. I was still wet (I had been such for almost 2 days now, I was beginning to forget what it was like otherwise, but I'm glad I had Dunbar's tarp to keep my backpack relatively dry. Sunday was wonderful. Much spiritual nourishment, and I truly enjoyed my peers' company. The day was mostly filled with church service and a CES broadcast. Absolutely wonderful. Warm smiles and laughter were abound from Dieter F. Uchtdorf's inspired words.

Monday and Tuesday revolved around making sure my bike was suitable for the ride home. Monday, I took a bus to Anderson and looked in the thrift stores for a back tire. I stayed at Daryl's place Monday and Tuesday (nicest guy in the world btw), and biked to Table Rock via 133. The cloud that rolls down from the mountains every morning, combined with the air sucking moisture off the lake, open dew-soaked fields (with an occasional lone tree -- so perfect), and mountains in the distance, made the ride there everything I had hoped it would be. Of course, the tire wall was too weak (it had seen many many miles) and on the way to Lake Jocassee, the air pressure forced the tube through the hole in the tire wall and popped. Called Daryll, had him come and get me (it was his tire that got me into this mess anyway, though he was right, I could have biked around closer to Clemson), and while walking to Hwy 11 (with hills one mile from one crest to the other), the clouds in the late afternoon sun were amazing. Hot reds paired with white blues at a different altitude. I couldn't help but be in awe and smile. There's not much more to say. . .