Postcards from the Trail |
1| 2| 3| 4| 5| 6| 7| 8| |
Location: Hot Springs, North Carolina
4/26/06
Today’s Miles: 26.2
One of the charming aspects of hiking the AT are the numerous visits down Main Street America. Although the trail is 99% woods, mountains and wildlife, a stroll down such towns like Hot Springs, North Carolina always brings a smile to this hiker in a Mayberry RFD sort of way. Here the children call their parents Pa and Momma. They’re more beer drinkers than wine and a visit to the Tractor Supply Store is one where everyone piles into the truck. You can walk the length of town in four minutes; they have no traffic light to slow you down.
The people of these small towns embrace the commerce that comes with the hiker bubble of March into May – We help them, they help us.
The Post Office closes for lunch and the daily special down at the diner usually involves something with gravy. That rich, white, pepper gravy – Mmm! (For the record, no body makes better white gravy than my Dad). If you need catching up on the goings-on in town, this is where you come for breakfast. Any newspaper, if there were one, would fail miserably to stay up with the current events.
Woven into the texture of this town are the hikers, walking up and down, some in crocs and pajama bottoms (me), others with loaded packs stuffed with a resupply of food headed north, following little white rectangles two inches by six inches back out into the woods of the Appalachians.
There’s the town hot-rodder who guns his engine to get looks and a couple of ten year olds on stingrays sporting T-shirts with the numbers of their favorite NASCAR driver team.
What goes on here goes on everywhere in America everyday (taking us out of the picture). It’s the backbone of this country, the small places that Interstates detour around so those in a hurry are not bothered. They don’t make reality TV on such places, but occasionally Hollywood reminds all of us in a hurry that these places are real, they do exist… we grow envious of their speed.
For those of us traveling by foot, we adapt easily to the pace. The countless miles reintroduce us to patience, not to mention down home politeness. I feel the tug to say “Yes Mam” and “Appreciate it” with a touch of country in my voice. In turn, I too am treated with warmth and a generosity that comes to them naturally. Most who hike the AT have no idea what awaits them, those who have made it here to Hot Springs will most likely make it to Damascus. These are milestones every bit as important as Stateline’s. And in the process we get a glimpse at life the way Norman Rockwell so brilliantly painted it. Only we don’t just look at it, we thru-hikers step inside and live among the brushstrokes.