60. Look both ways before you cross the street (Waynesboro to Turk Mountain VA)

Look left

2 months past. 2 months of traveling this well-trodden path. 2 months of chasing a dream, one of thousands on a great migration northward. 2 months and 884 miles lie behind, when I look to the left. 2 months of trail towns, of benefiting from the generosity of others, of forming relationships in an unhurried way that, perhaps fleeting feels profound.

1/6 of a journey around the sun spent on a journey through a country, I have an opportunity to reflect. I can look back over mountains climbed, like Tray Mountain in the rain or Wesser Bald at night to outrun the rain, sunset and Sam on Clingman’s Dome, and frost up Big Bald. I can think of books – How to Be Perfect, Monkey Wrench Gang, Braiding Sweetgrass, and Democracy in America, plus dozens of Volts podcast episodes. I remember conversations that were most meaningful to me. I remember the funny parts, like every interaction with the Maine girls or today, when I licked my bowl out thinking it had chocolate shavings. It was dirt. I’m glad that I kept these journal entries to capture and preserve all of this. 

Look right

Some 2 months ahead. When I look right toward the long list of things that I want to write, of towns and delis I will find adjacent to the trail, of family members and friends I will meet up (several in the upcoming two weeks), I feel potential. I see a blank page unwritten, an open space on the map untraveled, empty dates on the calendar unfilled. The 1300 miles ahead represent an opportunity for learning and growth to unfold, not of its own accord but by living in the moment and using each moment for a worthwhile aim. Time out here is not fruitless.

Look left again

Nor is it easy. Looking left, flipping through my photo catalog, it appears every bit of trail is a nice view or a fine forest. Not the case. The long rocky climbs or repetitive ridge walks, the rainy days and cold winds instilled no desire or hindered any opportunity to capture something in a photograph. Yet some of those moments will remain the most vivid, the most important in my memory. 

Why am I crossing the street?

A prosaic literal reason. I find myself crossing the street a lot more. The Blue Ridge Parkway, now Skyline Drive in Shenandoah, likes to meander across my path every so often. Each crossing is a reminder to stay in the moment, looking left to reflect on the journey to this point looking right to dimly anticipate the future.

Otherwise, Shenandoah National Park, feels no different thus far than the preceding ridges. It is quiet, except when the whippoorwills call or the squirrels rustle the leaves. I hear there is free National Park entry this Saturday for Earth Day. Personally, I do not look forward to this at all.

Leaving another trail town

Waynesboro was a major checkpoint along the trail, a large town I loved. It was friendly and felt more vibrant other trail towns, perhaps from size. Intriguingly, I saw today a map of changes in population within the state of Virginia since 2020. Broadly, the northern part of Virginia has grown in population while the southern part has lost population. If population is a proxy for vibrancy, and I think it crudely is, then I have entered the more vibrant half of this long state, which altogether comprises more than a quarter of the entire Appalachian Trail.

Waynesboro, like Hot Springs and Erwin during my first month, felt like a reset, a chance to eat well and enjoy fruit, to stay indoors and clean everything and resupply myself with gear and food for another phase. Of course, I will resupply food throughout the month, but these fewer, more substantial stops are opportunities to change out the longer-lasting items that wear out: toothbrushes, sunscreen, spork (rip), toilet paper, plastic bags, water filters, or shoes that end up cycling through throughout a thru-hike. These are also opportunities to send things home in an ongoing quest to lighten a pack that seems to grow heavier with each food resupply. This time, I sent home my rain pants and light jacket, calculating that their weight in warm weather was not worth my while.