Saturday, September 8, 2012
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Holy Thursday
Extraordinary service on Holy Thursday. The Mepkin community gathered at lunch and before the meal Abbot Stan and Mother Morena washed everyone’s feet as Jesus did with the Disciples at the Last Supper. Then all sat quietly as I read the Gospel of John, Chapter 14, also Jesus at the Last Supper, including "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me." Quite moving. I was filled with the Holy Spirit and brought to tears. Am blessed to be part of it. Sadness tho, because Abbot told us that Bishop AJ is nearing Death. AJ was a voice of strength on the phone when I called here from the Appalachian Trail, always ending his calls, “God Bless you Grasshopper.” God Bless you, AJ.
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Walking the Walk, Backpacking for the Soul
Brother Paul asked me to share a word as we were leaving Thursday morning Vigils. It was 4 a.m. and, being a bit childlike, I wondered if I had done something wrong.
The monks of Mepkin honor the Grand Silence until after Mass three hours later, so I quietly followed him from the sanctuary, relieved that he was smiling but quite curious as to what might be on his mind. Brother Paul is guest master at the monastery; I had been on spiritual retreat here for four days.
“Would you be willing to give the Second Reading at Mass this morning?” he asked.
Surprised, my brain quickly flooded with possible objections. He continued, not giving me a chance to say no. “It’s a short reading from St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians. When I signal you, just walk up the center aisle, and do the reading. You’ll do fine.”
The morning’s Mass on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception was more elaborate than the others I had attended here. This was only the second time I had been here on retreat, but I had never seen another guest read during services. I used another verse to gird me as I stressed about reading from the Bible to an audience of bishops, priests, and monks.
“O God, come to my assistance. O Lord, make haste to help me.”
The reading from Paul went well.
Mepkin is a place of comfort for me, a natural paradise up the Cooper River from Charleston. Since my last spiritual retreat here I have spent nearly seven months thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail, following its white-blazed footpath from Georgia to Maine and then hitchhiking home to South Carolina.
Hiking with the trail name “Grasshopper,” I had lived a dream and challenged body, mind and soul while exploring the amazing country that God created. I was blessed to share with trail with a wonderful community of thru-hikers and we all were blessed by countless angels on and off the trail.
Angels appeared with a ride to town or a kind word; angels left us cold drinks and snacks in unlikely places; angels came as shooting stars over bare mountaintops, as sunrises over lakes and sunsets over cliffs and ridges; angels appeared as butterflies bringing a “hello” from Jesus when it was needed the most.
Now I am back with the angels at Mepkin Abbey and even in December, its grounds and gardens are as majestically beautiful as any of the wonders I saw on my hike. This may be the holiest place I know.
Two months off the trail, I came back to reflect on my travels and on my spiritual growth. I’d had long talks with God while hiking, often asking for His help with the challenges I faced on the trail – and off it – and giving thanks for His many blessings.
Memories of my hiking adventure were still strong, but post-hike depression and resurgent bouts of doubts left me struggling to make sense of my time in the wilderness and to pray for understanding and for God’s help on the path ahead.
Fourth-century Egyptians took to deserts and lived as hermits in caves to pray and meditate on the Scriptures to give their lives to God in contemplative worship instead of to Caesar’s taxes and his wars.
After two short visits to Mepkin, I am ready for a deeper journey inside my faith while unplugging from the secular clutter of everyday thoughts that too often smother the messages we can hear from the heart and the soul. I am taking to the monastery for 30 days with the brothers of Mepkin, a guest sharing their life of work and worship in a quiet community dedicated to prayer, meditation, and reflection -- and work to the glory of God.
A recurring mantra from my hike returns as I wonder if this path is the right one. “Patience, Grasshopper. And trust in the Lord, thy God.”
I am again trusting in the Lord and I am on a monastic retreat through Lent and Easter. It is time now for me to do the hard work and dig deeper – and look higher – to see who I am and what I am as I continue to grow in the Lord.
The Cross and White Blazes
“Are you a minister?” The stranger’s question puzzled me, and I paused in confused reflection, seeking the proper way to respond.
“You’re wearing a cross,” he said, filling the silence of my hesitation. “I thought you might be a minister.”
Another pause, and I said, “No, I am not. I am just ... I am just a Christian.”
This profession of my faith came atop Maine’s Mount Katahdin, the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail. My faith had unfolded and sustained me along the long walk north from Georgia, and I knew I had come nearly 2000 miles due to God’s good grace.
My decision to accept Jesus the Christ as Lord and Savior had surprised but comforted and gladdened me. My faith puzzled some non-believer friends, and one of them openly wondered if I had hit my head on a tree limb and offered to help with an intervention.
My faith is private and deeply personal, and I avoid loaded descriptions like ‘born again’ or ‘saved.’ I do not evangelize and have not sought to persuade or convince other hikers to accept Christ, but I will share my beliefs with others of faith and those who ask.
But I knew what I would do when I finally reached the summit of Katahdin and stood on the AT sign to celebrate my thru-hike. Raising my hands to the heavens, I said “Thanks be to God.”
I left Georgia in the spring, being blessed or perhaps cursed by having six months available to spend chasing a dream of hiking the Appalachian Trail. At 60 I chose to take a long hike to challenge myself -- and with three layoffs and hitting a career wall, long patch of unemployment and disappointing job searches, find purpose.
This was backpacking for my soul, bringing spiritual challenges to my merry woodlands adventure. I toted a heavy spiritual pack through difficult psychological terrain, dark forests and ravines leading to joyful vistas, insights, and discovery. My heart and soul came alive as I followed the seasons up the Eastern seaboard, struggling with a 50-pound pack and a lifetime of regrets, pain and bad choices.
Hiking can be mentally and physically grueling and it often becomes tedious, as minutes become hours and morning blends to afternoon. The solitude is at times comforting, but isolation and exertion take their toll. Body and mind are both stronger and weaker, and the elements and extreme conditions challenge the will and demand discipline and mental toughness to stay with it day after day after day.
On you go, plodding along toward a distant goal and digging deep to make it up a climb or through some off-trail personal tangle, hoping for a different outcome this time as familiar tapes play again and again in your head.
But just as I learned to lighten my pack, I also found ways to forgive myself --and others.
Grinding away through memories of past struggles as I labored over mountain after mountain, I found a way to let myself off the hook and get the spiritual help I needed to forgive myself for my trespasses as I worked to forgive those who had trespassed against me.
I restored my faith in the Lord and in myself, and I laid down many burdens along the way. I was tested in ways I had expected and in ways that I had not.
Walking the Walk
Lightning crashed nearby and the downpour turned to hail as I crouched in the open near Beauty Spot Gap in Tennessee, 300 miles into my hike, and prayed for safety from the storm.
Water filled my boots and I was soaked to the bone when I made camp and a quick dinner and then scrambled into dry clothes and my sleeping bag and shivered in my tent. I woke in a panic in the dead of night, clawing at the walls as if fighting to get free from a coffin. It was 4 a.m.; I made it out but could not see for the fog or cloud that covered my campsite and the mountain.
I had been looking forward to the hike over Roan Mountain and staying in the Roan High Knob Shelter, at more than 6200 feet, the second highest shelter on the trail. A cold drizzle and thick fog made for a difficult climb up Roan and I nearly missed the spur trail to the shelter; my spirits were low and I was deep in the dumps for the first time since leaving Georgia.
I prayed and decided that the demons of doubt were testing me and the devil was trying his best to get into my head. I would rely on my faith in God and my faith in myself.
I made it up Roan and through a three-day weather crisis with prayer and variations of a hymn of praise -- "Holy. Holy. Holy. Lord God Almighty. Help me climb this mountain, and bless me as I go.” Or, "Bless me as I hike this trail, I praise Thee as I go."
A hundred miles later and after three days of rain in Virginia, I was hiking through another late afternoon downpour on the thousand-foot climb up Mount Rogers when I snapped, screaming at the weather and shouting at God. “What’s with all the rain,” I asked. “Are you trying to send me a message?”
Night was falling and so was the rain when I arrived at a wilderness shelter at the same time as a southbound hiker. We nodded wet greetings and each worked to get dry after snagging the last two slots in the crowded Thomas Knob Shelter.
God made a miracle and sent me the message I had asked for as I walked northbound through the rain.
The southbounder’s trail name was “Messenger.” He was taking his first backpacking trip while on vacation from his work at Mepkin Abbey where he was a caregiver to the brothers. We both knew that God brought each us to this place in the rain and that we probably would never have met had we both not sought shelter on rainy day.
Messenger gave me a group photo of the brothers and mementos from the monastery. We shared stories of the brothers and spiritual support for each other as he headed south to Damascus and I went north. I was 500 miles into my hike, about a fourth of the way to Maine.
Dysentery or some other dread intestinal disorder struck hard as I moved through Virginia and the fabled Virginia Blues set in. I began questioning my resolve and commitment to hike the entire trail and to stay in the woods for another four months. My fear of making the destination made me lose sight of the journey and the wonders around me day after day.
Nearly 2000 hikers left Springer Mountain headed to Maine and Mount Katahdin in the early spring. Many dropped off the trail, and there were fewer than a thousand of us still hiking and fighting the heat wave that baked us across Pennsylvania and into New Jersey.
We were a disparate tribe that evolved into a community of fellowship and of shared pain and joy. The secular and social adventure was nearly as rewarding as the spiritual one, and I dedicate my hike to the friends of every age who I met and came to know along the way.
When camped, I sometimes read from the Gospels and Proverbs and from a wonderful little book -- More Than a Carpenter, which offered proven historical documentation to Jesus' life, ministry, death, and resurrection. It satisfied the journalist in me that Jesus was/is God and neither a liar nor a lunatic nor a fraud, and somewhere in Virginia, I asked for his Salvation. He said, “Yes.”
My faith and belief in myself were restored as I passed the 1000 mile mark and was more than halfway to Maine. My faith sustained me twice in Pennsylvania – first when I was lost and scared in a steep boulder field on the Superfund climb out of Palmerton, and again near the Eagle’s Nest Shelter when I nearly stepped onto a fat rattlesnake coiled on the edge of the trail.
I had called Mepkin Abbey the day before the snake scare, hoping to talk to Messenger. He was not at work, but I was able to talk with Father A.J. and we caught up on news from the monastery and the trail. He closed with a wonderful goodbye that replayed in my thoughts many times along my way to Maine and home:
“God Bless You, Grasshopper.”
Get Thee to a Monastery
My long walk brought me to New York at about the time my son, Noah, had to be in Manhattan, and I was able to juggle my schedule and jump off the trail to meet him.
I caught a ride to the Greymoor Spiritual Center, a Franciscan monastery near the Hudson River, and sat out two days of steady rain there. I shopped in the monastery gift store, shared some laughs with other hikers, and attended morning Mass while waiting for a ride to Pawling where I would catch a train to the city for the day.
Manhattan was like Mars after life in the woods, but my spiritual journey took me into St. Paul’s Chapel near Ground Zero, and to St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
Graymoor was one of many sources of faith-based respite and comfort along the trail. Churches near the trail hostel hostels or brought dinner hikers, made churchyards available to campers, and one even left a box of socks in a hiker box on a table alongside flyers and tracts and pledge cards.
But none of these places could be as special for me as Mepkin Abbey, and I am eager to return to where I began a serious return to the Lord at a retreat nearly two years before. Then a newcomer to a religious life, I felt lost.
But my return now to the monastery is far more evolution than great leap because as my life has been a slow slide toward monasticism, solitude, and simplicity. I will travel light. Packing simple clothes, a Bible, and a few books about the life of Christ and spirituality, a notebook and a pen. I look forward to the rhythms of the Abbey.
During my first spiritual retreat at Mepkin, I used “Urgings of the Heart” to guide me into imaginative contemplation and into the life and times of Jesus for a journey of self-awareness through meditation and through Biblical lessons and teachings.
This retreat took me into the shadows where we are taught that we deserve our failures, pain, and unhappiness and convince us that we should not love ourselves. I have been to the poisonous places where we judge our lives and the lives of others, or obsess on past slights, failures or mistakes, and where we fear for the future, doubt ourselves and question our faith.
But I have now hiked the Appalachian Trail, conquered mountains, fears and doubts and completed a 2,000 mile journey of faith and discovery.
I return to the monastery today better and stronger than the man who came here in retreat nearly two years and a lifetime ago. I have laid down many burdens and I have come a long way, but I still have far to go.
Starting today, I give up the secular life for Lent and hope to live the monastic life until Easter. I believe that my months in the wilderness have strengthened my soul and my long talks with God on the trail have prepared me for this new journey.
While I breathe, I hope, but I also know this path is the right one.
“Patience, Grasshopper. And Trust in the Lord, Thy God.”
-30-
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Thru-hiker to Hobo – Home the Hard Way
The scraggly beard and the backpack were badges of honor along the Appalachian Trail. Both served me well as I walked from Georgia to Maine. The honor slowly faded on the long hitch home.
In South Carolina, I was seen as just another homeless guy in need, so Samaritans pressed dollar bills on me, gave me food, and spoke v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y, using the simplest of words.
“We are leaving you at McDonalds. You can get something to eat. They will let you use the bathroom,” the woman patiently explained while her friend eyed me with suspicion. “That road over there will take you to the Interstate.”
I thanked them for the ride. And laughed.
Two men in a pickup stopped as I shed my pack and asked if I need money for lunch; another gave me two dollars and a lift to Summerville in the back of his truck. Two young guys in a truck pulled over later and handed me a carryout chicken dinner.
I was a quarter-mile from I-26 and two hours from home, but a ride was unlikely, so I ducked into the trees beside the Hess station and made camp for the night.
What a trip!
Since leaving the Appalachian Trail, I Occupied Maine, dined with a diplomat, was rousted by a Maryland state trooper, and busted by a Florence county sheriff’s deputy for doing something that was common on the trail. I camped behind a shopping mall, near truck stops, and under a tree between an on-ramp and I-95.
Easing back into the world on my long journey home, I stopped in Charleston for classes with my Boston tai chi master and then worshipped with the monks at Mepkin Abbey to thank God for His many blessings.
Nearly seven months after taking the midnight bus from Columbia to Atlanta for the long walk to Maine, the thru-hiker known on the trail as “Grasshopper” is almost home.
I have restored my faith in the Lord and in myself and have laid many burdens down along the way. Thanks to the fellowship of other hikers, support from friends at home and the generosity of countless strangers along the way, I hiked the Appalachian Trail and lived to tell the tale.
The end was bittersweet; the hike took its toll. Proud and humbled, I was awed by the accomplishment and filled with melancholy that the journey was almost over. Six months in the woods brought isolation, exhaustion, doubt, and pain, but I came home physically, mentally and spiritually stronger than at any time of my life.
I would head to Georgia and do it all again if I could. And I wouldn’t change a thing.
My heart was glad, and I was ready for what comes next, nourished by a recurring lesson, my mantra from the trail – “Patience, Grasshopper. And trust in the Lord, thy God.”
There and Back
It had rained every day for a week when I reached the west bank of the Piscataquis River, and the guidebook warned that this knee-high fording could be dangerous after heavy rain.
At another crossing earlier that morning, I had foolishly chosen to wear sandals and keep my boots dry. Unable to see my feet through the dark and swirling waters, I slipped on the rocky bottom and nearly went under, but while my backside got wet, my backpack stayed dry.
Lesson learned, I kept the boots on for this fording, but struggled to find stable footing and force my way across the current as the icy waters of the Piscataquis fought hard to push me downstream. I grinned and whooped and savored the moment.
I made it safely to shore. And then I got lost.
The sun was setting when I found myself back at the river where the afternoon had begun. Irritated at having somehow turned and hiked in the wrong direction, I camped alone, tired, and discouraged. I had the wilderness of Maine much to myself.
I left Georgia in the spring, hiking through North Carolina and Tennessee as the trees and flowers came alive and then through Virginia and the Mid-Atlantic states in the heat of the summer. Jumping ahead of Hurricane Irene into New England, I hiked above the tree line and through ice and snow in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Mount Katahdin and the lake country of Maine were reaching their autumn finest in late September when I reached Baxter Peak and the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail. Red, silver, and golden leaves shimmered across the 100 Mile Wilderness and covered the footpath like falling snow.
My Appalachian Trail journey was ending, but more adventure lay ahead on the re-entry to the civilized world – a hitchhike from Maine to South Carolina. I had promised my trail companion “Strider” that I would hitchhike home with him; not yet ready for our adventures to end, we put out our thumbs on Highway 201 near the Kennebec River at Caratunk, trusting in the Lord that we would get home safely.
Given our 40-year age difference, most assumed Strider and I were father and son, though someone in Massachusetts asked if we were brothers. Nope, we were hiking buddies who shared the trail and adventure since meeting in North Carolina many, many miles before.
A young lady in an SUV went 15 miles out of her way to take us to Bingham, and, after a short wait, an older woman in a sedan happily carried us 23 miles to Skowhegan and within striking distance of I-95. On the trail, all we needed was a flat spot with room for our tents, but this world had other rules and we knew the authorities might quibble with our choice of campsites. Options limited, we slipped into the tall weeds behind a strip mall, pitching our tents out of sight of security guards who might be making late night rounds.
After breakfast at Burger King and browsing a discount warehouse, we walked into town looking for thrift shops and bargain clothes more appropriate for the highway than our hiking gear. Ten dollars bought almost-new corduroy jeans, a shirt, and a belt, all fit for a man smaller than the one who left South Carolina in the spring.
We waited barely a minute in town before getting a ride to I-95 and one exit south to a truck stop where we dined at Subway and talked strategy to get us to Strider’s home in Virginia Beach and me home to South Carolina.
We used a Sharpie and rummaged cardboard to make signs – 95 South – and talked to a trucker who said insurance forbids riders, but we already knew there was little chance for two of us (with packs) to get a ride in a big rig.
Pedestrians are forbidden on the Interstate, but hitching is OK at on-ramps and access roads, so we put out our thumbs and waited, hoping our smiles and backpacks signaled we were interesting companions – not evildoers.
The Subway manager ferried us down two exits where we waited for nearly an hour before a young woman, a yoga instructor, took us south to Portland, Maine. A cold drizzle and reality set in as we stared at the city skyline and wondered where we might stealth camp and get out of the rain.
We found refuge at the Miss Portland Diner, a converted railroad car, and the local newspaper answered our silent prayers -- Occupy Maine was camped in Lincoln Park and our home for the night was six blocks away. Sweet!!
The protester who welcomed us said ours were the 25th and 26th tents in the park. We never mentioned that we were thru-hikes hitching south. We happily stayed for a lazy day off in Portland.
The next day, a retired used bookseller in a station wagon saved us from the morning rain and took us 50 miles and into New Hampshire. We were walking away from the interchange looking for shelter from an approaching storm when a man in a Honda offered to drive two hours south. He was a hiker and jobless and had the time to be a Trail Angel.
Accustomed to hiking 10 mile days in Maine, we now quickly covered 200 miles and made it from Maine into Connecticut, our wilderness memories stoked by a driver who knew where we had come from and what it had been like.
Still attuned to a world where 8 p.m. is “hiker midnight” and where hiking starts early and ends early, we spent the evening in the Pilot truck stop restaurant and gift shop, met the uncle of a thru-hike we knew, and then camped in a spillover truck lot behind the depot.
Ten minutes at the on-ramp the next morning brought us a screaming man, who hollered “Come on! Come on!” as we struggled to force our packs into the back of his late model Cadillac. Mostly deaf and screaming to hear himself, he was 85 and he drove 80 and angry, weaving through traffic one-handed for a scary two-hour ride into New York.
“I’m going to the Tappan Zee Bridge so I’m going to drop you here,” he said, pulling to the shoulder outside Rye, NY, and dumping us into the buzz of traffic at a busy freeway off-ramp.
We were in the New York City suburbs, no longer thru-hikers and wilderness adventurers, just two guys with packs beside the road, barely visible to the families out running errands on a sunny Saturday morning.
But the Lord takes care of thru-hikers — and hitch-hikers. Jann and Nicole raced by, but knew we had no chance of a ride at that suburban on-ramp, so they went one exit down 95 and circled back to take us 200 miles and into Maryland.
Jann is a Czech national and cultural attaché at the embassy in New York; his wife is an American jewelry designer and silversmith.
She invited us to join them at their cabin on the Susquehanna River, but we decided to keep moving south and bade them farewell at a rest area. A state trooper soon rousted us for hitching, and ran our IDs through his computer to check for outstanding warrants. We both were clean, but he made us sign a trespass notice, saying, “If anybody complains about you, I’ll have to take you to jail.”
Nicole was a phone call away and happy to come back and rescue us. Their rustic cabin in the woods offered us our first beds in weeks. Valerie and Linda, neighbors from down river, joined us for pizza and a raucous Saturday evening beside a roaring campfire.
We were back at a lonely on-ramp by nine the next morning and waited barely 15 minutes before three Latinos in a jeep offered us a lift. We shoved our packs into the back, and I squeezed into the backseat and rode the hump between two guys who smiled a lot but didn’t speak English. Strider rode in front, sharing stories of faith with the driver who spoke some English, but was difficult to understand.
They were planning to go just to Washington but happily volunteered to take us on to Richmond, where Strider’s stepdad, Bill, was waiting to take us to Virginia Beach.
Strider’s mother and I had met by phone and text, and I was her path to her son when his cell phone died. She was eager to meet Grasshopper, the old guy who had shared the trail with her son and had helped convince him to keep hiking when he had nearly quit just short of halfway.
I considered taking Greyhound home but did not like the notion of 25 hours on a bus, so Bill and Strider hauled me back to 95 on Wednesday morning.
“I love you, Grasshopper. God bless you,” Strider said as we hugged a quick an emotional goodbye before they drove away, leaving me quite alone for the first time since the spring.
A
n old man with a dog gave me a ride to Fayetteville, and a young mechanic carried me to Lumberton. The sun was dropping at a busy cloverleaf and I sought my bearings over a Waffle House omelette. With no good options, I pitched my tent under a tree between I-95 and the on-ramp and slept like a baby, a good day’s hitching from home.
Fortified by two large cups of gas station coffee and pair of frosted blueberry pop tarts, I had my thumb out early and a young Latino man soon answered my silent plea. We didn’t talk much, but he said he had nowhere to be and could take me into South Carolina. He didn’t ask why I was on the road. The Appalachian Trail was so far out of context that I felt no need to share my tale.
The coffee caught up with me and I began to fidget as we passed South of the Border. With no exit in sight, I finally begged him to pull over soon. Having lived six months in the woods, I was no stranger to outdoor relief.
“Hurry. Hurry,” he said, waving urgently as I turned back to the car. I saw the patrol cars in the median a few hundred yards away, but didn’t think much of it until the blue lights came on behind us at the next exit. Welcome to South Carolina.
The Florence County Sheriff’s Deputy approached my window and said he had seen me beside the road a few miles back. He asked for my ID and for the driver’s license. I explained that my ID was in my backpack and asked to get out of the car and retrieve it; the driver said he did not have a license.
The deputy gave him a $150 ticket for driving without a license, but I was let go with a written warning (and terrific souvenir) for public urination and the admonition “don’t do that again.”
I felt terrible that my bladder had caused problems for someone who had helped me. The deputy said I should drive because was licensed, so I took the wheel for the first time in months and turned back north to get the Latino man headed home. Feeling guilty, but not so much as to offer to pay his ticket, I gave him $20 and an apology and walked down to the on-ramp in search of my next ride.
A man heading to Florida with a backseat filled with fruits and vegetables took me to I-26 and then one exit toward Charleston, and two rides later I was reunited with a friend I had met on the trail in Virginia.
Tai chi with old friends at a dojo in Mount Pleasant helped ground me and ease my reentry, but I was still drawn to the woods and not yet willing to let my adventure go. I went to Mepkin Abbey and prayed with my monastic friends before finding the Palmetto Trail, potentially a hundred mile walk through the woods to Columbia.
But the lakes and South Carolina flatlands were tame after the wilds of Maine, the highway now was more appealing than the woods, and home was more appealing than the road.
After 3000 miles to Maine and back, the journey was over for the thru-hiker turned hitchhiker turned hobo. It was time to put down the pack and to lay that burden down, trusting in myself with faith to guide me as my journey continues.
“Patience, Grasshopper. And trust in the Lord, thy God.”
-30-
In South Carolina, I was seen as just another homeless guy in need, so Samaritans pressed dollar bills on me, gave me food, and spoke v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y, using the simplest of words.
“We are leaving you at McDonalds. You can get something to eat. They will let you use the bathroom,” the woman patiently explained while her friend eyed me with suspicion. “That road over there will take you to the Interstate.”
I thanked them for the ride. And laughed.
Two men in a pickup stopped as I shed my pack and asked if I need money for lunch; another gave me two dollars and a lift to Summerville in the back of his truck. Two young guys in a truck pulled over later and handed me a carryout chicken dinner.
I was a quarter-mile from I-26 and two hours from home, but a ride was unlikely, so I ducked into the trees beside the Hess station and made camp for the night.
What a trip!
Since leaving the Appalachian Trail, I Occupied Maine, dined with a diplomat, was rousted by a Maryland state trooper, and busted by a Florence county sheriff’s deputy for doing something that was common on the trail. I camped behind a shopping mall, near truck stops, and under a tree between an on-ramp and I-95.
Easing back into the world on my long journey home, I stopped in Charleston for classes with my Boston tai chi master and then worshipped with the monks at Mepkin Abbey to thank God for His many blessings.
Nearly seven months after taking the midnight bus from Columbia to Atlanta for the long walk to Maine, the thru-hiker known on the trail as “Grasshopper” is almost home.
I have restored my faith in the Lord and in myself and have laid many burdens down along the way. Thanks to the fellowship of other hikers, support from friends at home and the generosity of countless strangers along the way, I hiked the Appalachian Trail and lived to tell the tale.
The end was bittersweet; the hike took its toll. Proud and humbled, I was awed by the accomplishment and filled with melancholy that the journey was almost over. Six months in the woods brought isolation, exhaustion, doubt, and pain, but I came home physically, mentally and spiritually stronger than at any time of my life.
I would head to Georgia and do it all again if I could. And I wouldn’t change a thing.
My heart was glad, and I was ready for what comes next, nourished by a recurring lesson, my mantra from the trail – “Patience, Grasshopper. And trust in the Lord, thy God.”
There and Back
It had rained every day for a week when I reached the west bank of the Piscataquis River, and the guidebook warned that this knee-high fording could be dangerous after heavy rain.
At another crossing earlier that morning, I had foolishly chosen to wear sandals and keep my boots dry. Unable to see my feet through the dark and swirling waters, I slipped on the rocky bottom and nearly went under, but while my backside got wet, my backpack stayed dry.
Lesson learned, I kept the boots on for this fording, but struggled to find stable footing and force my way across the current as the icy waters of the Piscataquis fought hard to push me downstream. I grinned and whooped and savored the moment.
I made it safely to shore. And then I got lost.
The sun was setting when I found myself back at the river where the afternoon had begun. Irritated at having somehow turned and hiked in the wrong direction, I camped alone, tired, and discouraged. I had the wilderness of Maine much to myself.
I left Georgia in the spring, hiking through North Carolina and Tennessee as the trees and flowers came alive and then through Virginia and the Mid-Atlantic states in the heat of the summer. Jumping ahead of Hurricane Irene into New England, I hiked above the tree line and through ice and snow in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Mount Katahdin and the lake country of Maine were reaching their autumn finest in late September when I reached Baxter Peak and the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail. Red, silver, and golden leaves shimmered across the 100 Mile Wilderness and covered the footpath like falling snow.
My Appalachian Trail journey was ending, but more adventure lay ahead on the re-entry to the civilized world – a hitchhike from Maine to South Carolina. I had promised my trail companion “Strider” that I would hitchhike home with him; not yet ready for our adventures to end, we put out our thumbs on Highway 201 near the Kennebec River at Caratunk, trusting in the Lord that we would get home safely.
Given our 40-year age difference, most assumed Strider and I were father and son, though someone in Massachusetts asked if we were brothers. Nope, we were hiking buddies who shared the trail and adventure since meeting in North Carolina many, many miles before.
A young lady in an SUV went 15 miles out of her way to take us to Bingham, and, after a short wait, an older woman in a sedan happily carried us 23 miles to Skowhegan and within striking distance of I-95. On the trail, all we needed was a flat spot with room for our tents, but this world had other rules and we knew the authorities might quibble with our choice of campsites. Options limited, we slipped into the tall weeds behind a strip mall, pitching our tents out of sight of security guards who might be making late night rounds.
After breakfast at Burger King and browsing a discount warehouse, we walked into town looking for thrift shops and bargain clothes more appropriate for the highway than our hiking gear. Ten dollars bought almost-new corduroy jeans, a shirt, and a belt, all fit for a man smaller than the one who left South Carolina in the spring.
We waited barely a minute in town before getting a ride to I-95 and one exit south to a truck stop where we dined at Subway and talked strategy to get us to Strider’s home in Virginia Beach and me home to South Carolina.
We used a Sharpie and rummaged cardboard to make signs – 95 South – and talked to a trucker who said insurance forbids riders, but we already knew there was little chance for two of us (with packs) to get a ride in a big rig.
Pedestrians are forbidden on the Interstate, but hitching is OK at on-ramps and access roads, so we put out our thumbs and waited, hoping our smiles and backpacks signaled we were interesting companions – not evildoers.
The Subway manager ferried us down two exits where we waited for nearly an hour before a young woman, a yoga instructor, took us south to Portland, Maine. A cold drizzle and reality set in as we stared at the city skyline and wondered where we might stealth camp and get out of the rain.
We found refuge at the Miss Portland Diner, a converted railroad car, and the local newspaper answered our silent prayers -- Occupy Maine was camped in Lincoln Park and our home for the night was six blocks away. Sweet!!
The protester who welcomed us said ours were the 25th and 26th tents in the park. We never mentioned that we were thru-hikes hitching south. We happily stayed for a lazy day off in Portland.
The next day, a retired used bookseller in a station wagon saved us from the morning rain and took us 50 miles and into New Hampshire. We were walking away from the interchange looking for shelter from an approaching storm when a man in a Honda offered to drive two hours south. He was a hiker and jobless and had the time to be a Trail Angel.
Accustomed to hiking 10 mile days in Maine, we now quickly covered 200 miles and made it from Maine into Connecticut, our wilderness memories stoked by a driver who knew where we had come from and what it had been like.
Still attuned to a world where 8 p.m. is “hiker midnight” and where hiking starts early and ends early, we spent the evening in the Pilot truck stop restaurant and gift shop, met the uncle of a thru-hike we knew, and then camped in a spillover truck lot behind the depot.
Ten minutes at the on-ramp the next morning brought us a screaming man, who hollered “Come on! Come on!” as we struggled to force our packs into the back of his late model Cadillac. Mostly deaf and screaming to hear himself, he was 85 and he drove 80 and angry, weaving through traffic one-handed for a scary two-hour ride into New York.
“I’m going to the Tappan Zee Bridge so I’m going to drop you here,” he said, pulling to the shoulder outside Rye, NY, and dumping us into the buzz of traffic at a busy freeway off-ramp.
We were in the New York City suburbs, no longer thru-hikers and wilderness adventurers, just two guys with packs beside the road, barely visible to the families out running errands on a sunny Saturday morning.
But the Lord takes care of thru-hikers — and hitch-hikers. Jann and Nicole raced by, but knew we had no chance of a ride at that suburban on-ramp, so they went one exit down 95 and circled back to take us 200 miles and into Maryland.
Jann is a Czech national and cultural attaché at the embassy in New York; his wife is an American jewelry designer and silversmith.
She invited us to join them at their cabin on the Susquehanna River, but we decided to keep moving south and bade them farewell at a rest area. A state trooper soon rousted us for hitching, and ran our IDs through his computer to check for outstanding warrants. We both were clean, but he made us sign a trespass notice, saying, “If anybody complains about you, I’ll have to take you to jail.”
Nicole was a phone call away and happy to come back and rescue us. Their rustic cabin in the woods offered us our first beds in weeks. Valerie and Linda, neighbors from down river, joined us for pizza and a raucous Saturday evening beside a roaring campfire.
We were back at a lonely on-ramp by nine the next morning and waited barely 15 minutes before three Latinos in a jeep offered us a lift. We shoved our packs into the back, and I squeezed into the backseat and rode the hump between two guys who smiled a lot but didn’t speak English. Strider rode in front, sharing stories of faith with the driver who spoke some English, but was difficult to understand.
They were planning to go just to Washington but happily volunteered to take us on to Richmond, where Strider’s stepdad, Bill, was waiting to take us to Virginia Beach.
Strider’s mother and I had met by phone and text, and I was her path to her son when his cell phone died. She was eager to meet Grasshopper, the old guy who had shared the trail with her son and had helped convince him to keep hiking when he had nearly quit just short of halfway.
I considered taking Greyhound home but did not like the notion of 25 hours on a bus, so Bill and Strider hauled me back to 95 on Wednesday morning.
“I love you, Grasshopper. God bless you,” Strider said as we hugged a quick an emotional goodbye before they drove away, leaving me quite alone for the first time since the spring.
A
n old man with a dog gave me a ride to Fayetteville, and a young mechanic carried me to Lumberton. The sun was dropping at a busy cloverleaf and I sought my bearings over a Waffle House omelette. With no good options, I pitched my tent under a tree between I-95 and the on-ramp and slept like a baby, a good day’s hitching from home.
Fortified by two large cups of gas station coffee and pair of frosted blueberry pop tarts, I had my thumb out early and a young Latino man soon answered my silent plea. We didn’t talk much, but he said he had nowhere to be and could take me into South Carolina. He didn’t ask why I was on the road. The Appalachian Trail was so far out of context that I felt no need to share my tale.
The coffee caught up with me and I began to fidget as we passed South of the Border. With no exit in sight, I finally begged him to pull over soon. Having lived six months in the woods, I was no stranger to outdoor relief.
“Hurry. Hurry,” he said, waving urgently as I turned back to the car. I saw the patrol cars in the median a few hundred yards away, but didn’t think much of it until the blue lights came on behind us at the next exit. Welcome to South Carolina.
The Florence County Sheriff’s Deputy approached my window and said he had seen me beside the road a few miles back. He asked for my ID and for the driver’s license. I explained that my ID was in my backpack and asked to get out of the car and retrieve it; the driver said he did not have a license.
The deputy gave him a $150 ticket for driving without a license, but I was let go with a written warning (and terrific souvenir) for public urination and the admonition “don’t do that again.”
I felt terrible that my bladder had caused problems for someone who had helped me. The deputy said I should drive because was licensed, so I took the wheel for the first time in months and turned back north to get the Latino man headed home. Feeling guilty, but not so much as to offer to pay his ticket, I gave him $20 and an apology and walked down to the on-ramp in search of my next ride.
A man heading to Florida with a backseat filled with fruits and vegetables took me to I-26 and then one exit toward Charleston, and two rides later I was reunited with a friend I had met on the trail in Virginia.
Tai chi with old friends at a dojo in Mount Pleasant helped ground me and ease my reentry, but I was still drawn to the woods and not yet willing to let my adventure go. I went to Mepkin Abbey and prayed with my monastic friends before finding the Palmetto Trail, potentially a hundred mile walk through the woods to Columbia.
But the lakes and South Carolina flatlands were tame after the wilds of Maine, the highway now was more appealing than the woods, and home was more appealing than the road.
After 3000 miles to Maine and back, the journey was over for the thru-hiker turned hitchhiker turned hobo. It was time to put down the pack and to lay that burden down, trusting in myself with faith to guide me as my journey continues.
“Patience, Grasshopper. And trust in the Lord, thy God.”
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