This was supposed to be a blog post about Charleston with beautiful pictures of historic homes and the fort and harbor, but Mother Nature had other plans so we headed to higher ground. Higher ground turned out to be Asheville. Asheville without our backpacking gear? What could we possibly do?? Uhm, duh. Beer and Biltmore.
Gatlinburg was crazy. Imagine Disney World covered in camo, $6 parking and Ripley’s Believe It or Not. But my stomach was empty and my camera batteries were dead and I just wanted a quick recharge at a fast food place where I wouldn’t bother anyone or be bothered, so I ventured down from a long sunset at Clingmans Dome in Great Smoky Mountains National Park through the dark twisting mountain path into the bright lights of the valley. A gas station and big sign proclaiming “GATLINBURG: Gateway to the Smoky Mountains” bedazzled me when I emerged from the forest and it took me several minutes to get my wits together.
Every once in a while, I do a crazy thing where I run around hoping to get a shiny medal at a finish line. It's part of what I do. This time, I decided to add some more meaning to my race.
If there were a good reason why bestselling hiking memoirs don’t turn into great movies, it should be that in novels the protagonist’s internal transformation and growth is readily portrayed through narrative, while films struggle to show these internal changes. It should be that the protagonist’s venture out of their comfort zone and into the unknown and then back again as a transformed character is limited in how it is portrayed, either as changes in their actions or via subtle visual changes – a slow thinning of the waistline, tanner skin, scars and bruises from the rough road, and the powerful resolve and acuity visible in a face after hours on the hard trail. These should be the challenges – portraying the narrative without incessant, droning voice-over.
Should.
If you're one of those travelers this Labor Day weekend - either to the beach, to see family, or you're off on some rugged adventure - here are some tunes to get your wanderlust riled up.
“Excuse me, I don’t mean to alarm you, but I just wanted to let you know something very big was swimming near you just over there.”
We were about thigh-high in the surf of Oak Island beach off the North Carolina coast when this woman approached my two bikini-clad friends and me. The woman’s adolescent daughter was body-surfing the small waves in the shallows. The woman was calm, pleasant and non-alarmist, which I appreciated. We thanked her and moved to the shallows where sea and sand swirled around our ankles.
I had lived in North Carolina for 15 years and I’d never been to the Outer Banks, so I decided running the Outer Banks Half Marathon in November 2014 would be an excellent excuse to explore. I recruited some friends to drive with McCrae and me to Manteo, and we piled into our compact SUV and headed east.
A while back, I was assigned John Updike’s “A&P” for a writing class. I was a little wary. I’d heard Updike had a reputation for not being the most sympathetic writer to women’s perspectives. I was certainly alarmed when I read in the assignment.
