home again

I was nervous to see Iseminger Street in all its narrow and dirty glory upon returning home. I fretted over the right homecoming song all the way down the Schuylkill. And then I saw the city skyline rise over the horizon and I was so glad to be here. I'll always be in love with the open road and the wooded mountains, but I know where home is in the end.

Appomattox

Ever since I took an interest in Lincoln and the Civil War, maybe ever since that first day in William Gillette's American History survey class when he gave that impassioned lecture on Lincoln, I have maintained that the war was not fought over slavery. And I don't need any more proof after today, visiting the McLean house at Appomattox. No one ever mentions in the accounts of the surrender the slaves living in Wilbur McLean's backyard. I never knew until today. And I wondered idly, looking through the doors of the slave quarters, whether any member of General Grant's staff laid eyes on those slaves, maybe even looked at them. And I wondered if those slaves had a party after Lee left in defeat. And it suddenly occurred to me that the Union soldiers didn't fight and die to free the slaves, and the Confederate soldiers didn't fight and die to keep them in bondage. Because if they had, surely there would exist historical documentation of the slaves present at the defeat. And my eyes filled up with tears and I had to walk away. I know it sounds dramatic, but what a lie this country has thrived on. The price of democracy defended. What a terrible thing we do as a nation.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park, TN

I got an honest-to-god campfire tonight, and on my very first try. I think I have it down now. I also think it doesn't help that the first two nights I didn't have very good wood. First night it was all big thick logs and second night, skinny little sticks. I guess I know now what camp axes are for. Probably more all-around useful than a camp saw anyway.

So I discovered today that I hate the Great Smoky Mountains. I got myself stuck on a scenic loop and good god! are there a lot of cars. Everyone driving five fucking miles an hour in a great long line. Who knew I could get road rage in the middle of nature like that? Oh but I did. And then the ranger lady was so stern and unpleasant, and the camp sites are stacked one on top of the next with no grass and just skinny sticks of trees scattered around in between. Lucky enough I got a campsite that, although it's right next to the parking lot and so besot with car traffic, I have no neighbors. All of the campsites adjacent and even caddy-corner to mine are vacant for the night. For now, anyway, though it's already after eight and I can't imagine too many people are yet to come.

And then this morning. I went to the reenactment, though I didn't stay for the actual battle. But I'll let the pictures of that speak for themselves.

Cloud Canyon, morning

Set my alarm for six am and for the first time in three days, I actually got up when it went off. When I emerged from the tent 15 minutes later, I had to check the time again, on my phone and on my watch, because the sky was barely a shade lighter than it had been when I went to sleep, and the moon was fully shining overhead. And no birds sang. It wasn't until just before I opened this book to write that I realized I'm on the far end of the time zone. The sun rises later a few hundred miles west of home.

Cloud Canyon State Park, GA

After this morning's treacherous hike up from the bottom of the gully back to the car, I was wary of tonight's campsite, being my second hike-in. But it's only a walk-in which means a flat and easy path from the car, no more than thirty or so yards away. Last night I think that must be what they call back-country camping. After I let the fire go out I couldn't see more than a few feet in front of me, even with the lantern. And tonight I even got my fire started on the first try, though I still can't figure out how to make it big like a real campfire. I just need enough heat to cook my dinner and enough light to keep me company. Though I do keep trying, don't I?

Today I passed out of South Carolina. It made me sad because I liked South Carolina, though I don't know that South Carolina liked me very much. Gas shortage along Route 11 terrified me. All the pumps had plastic bags on the handles to indicate they were dry. At somewhere well below a quarter tank I found a station that was rationing and would sell me twenty bucks worth.


And so I made it to Georgia. I decided to veer off my itinerary today. I wanted to pass through Commerce, the town Cold Sassy Tree was based on. I was shocked no one there could tell me anything about it. I tried the gift-shop, the antique store, and the library. From the website I remembered the Civic Center was Grandpa Blakeslee's store, so I took a picture of it, and fell in love with the ladies in the antique store, but that was all I got out of that stop. That and the half-thought-out idea I should take back roads the rest of the way to Chickamauga. Needless to say I didn't make it to Chickamauga today. I didn't get lost either, but meandering along back roads sure does pass time. In Georgia, I've found, at every curve in the road there's a Baptist Church. I have never in my life seen so many Baptist churches. There are also yard sales at every house on the highway, countless autobody shops and fireworks emporiums. And pickup trucks. I don't mean to sound cliché but I'd venture to guess two out of every three cars I've seen today have been either pickups or SUVs.

I wish I had something insightful or profound to say but I don't. Poppy keeps asking if I'm having fun, and I keep telling him yes, but I'm not really. Though fun wasn't what I came down here looking for. Neither was profound or insightful for that matter. So many people are so interested in this trip of mine, and I don't want to let them down, but I don't think I'm coming home with much to say. I've found peace and quiet and that's what I was looking for. I've found a lack of fear and I've found endless roads, and I've found that I'm worthless at starting fires. And I haven't washed my hair in four days and I stink to high heaven of Deet and sweat and campfire, and I'm so content to find there is so very little I need.

Caesar's Head State Park, South Carolina

Funny how out here alone in the woods, dark feels like bedtime, even if it's only eight at night. A little family passed me on the trail back when it was still fully light and I was only just starting to try to build my fire. It took so long to build it tonight that I stopped to cry for a little while. Tonight would have been too scary without a fire. It's a treacherous hike back to the car. Tomorrow morning is going to suck. It'll be all uphill and with all that shit on my back. Then too the promise of wild animals. The park ranger lady there are bears but they've never had trouble with them. She said to hang the food though to keep it from the raccoons and skunks. And so I was afraid that if I didn't get my fire going by dark, I'd have wild animals everywhere. I did get it started though, small as it is, and I cooked my soup in it, so I had my first hot meal. The fire didn't keep the creepy crawlers away though, so I'm in the tent now. And I feel surprisingly safe tonight. I keep remembering Borge Ousland: Ghosts are in the city, not in nature. The one place I should be afraid, in all of this, and I'm not.

Alamance County Rest Stop, North Carolina

I just saw a man in an Obama t-shirt, so I thought I'd go ask him how it's looking down here. He said he's from Virginia, and Obama has decent support there. He said he knows it's much stronger in the Carolinas.

Driving is exhausting. I'm glad I went this way. I've only been on the road two and a half or so hours yet today and already I am freaking exhausted. Can't imagine if I'd have tried to do this at the end.

This morning I got gas at a station run by two middle-aged or so women, well coiffed for gas station attendants. Gossiping with a customer. Didn't say "boo" to me. Of course, I didn't say boo to them either because I'm suddenly terrified of Southerners. And I passed a small shack of a store on Beach Road in Virginia, the sign outside of which read, "Cigarettes. Ice Cream. Computer Repair Diagnostics." No lie.

Pocahontas State Park, VA

Had lukewarm beans and Ritz crackers tonight because I have no confidence in my fire. Lord help me I hope i get better at it. Had the tent up, stakes and all, in just under ten minutes. But it took me close to two hours to get the fire started. It's a weak little fire, smoky as hell and full of charcoal. That's what I can do. I can't get wood to burn, apparently, but I can turn it into charcoal like nobody's business.

I learned today that I don't like Richmond. It's a junkie little city. It seems barren: the streets are too wide for the number of people on them. Granted, I was only in the downtown area, but on a weekday afternoon, it just didn't seem right. The old man behind the visitor's desk at the Confederate Museum was appropriately cranky for his position. When I asked for directions to Tredegar, he seemed mildly offended, explained that since National Park Services moved in, their take on the war is "much different than ours." Then he asked where I was from, and when I told him Philadelphia, his manner seemed to get a little more curt still. and when I asked if i could walk there, he said sternly, "No. It's too far. And it's all downhill."

He was right about the Civil War Center at Tredegar. The Confederate Museum was warm and old; the Civil War Center was big and echoed too much; it smelled new and was full of video reels. You can tell it was built for schoolkids, and it was full of Northerners like me. The Confederate Museum had a decidedly Southern tilt, not unwelcome and not unexpected, but it made me feel a little like a damn Yankee. I heard and old lady giggle appreciatively when she read aloud that General Gordon became the first Grand Dragon of the KKK; I heard another ask her husband if "Union" means "North." He told her yes, and added firmly, "the War of Northern Aggression!"

I think in Virginia, judging from my view of the state from its northern highways, the Civil War and the Confederacy so surround the people that it shouldn't be startling to hear it called the War of Northern Aggression. Driving down I95, you pass Chancellorsville and Spotsylvania. There's a state highway named for Lee and one named for Jeff Davis. and a shrine to Stonewall Jackson. Shrine, not monument. That's deification of the best sort.

I wonder if I can go much further south than this without feeling grateful for Poppy's pepperspray.

and now the nerves

I'm procrastinating going to sleep tonight. I'm not ready to count in hours instead of days. I love the way I feel just before leaving for a trip. I feel like I'm not really going anywhere at all but just playing make-believe. And at the same time, I feel like I'm leaving forever. I look at all the buildings in the city like I'm saying goodbye, like I still haven't loved them enough to leave them yet. I appreciate them more. I appreciate the starkness of the sidewalks unbroken by trees. I fall in love with the aesthetics of the neighborhood, tops of houses against a startlingly unstriking sky. The smallness and the concrete. And I wonder how much I'll miss it while I'm gone.

thursday is almost here

It's just over three days now. I have everything I need, and I'm starting to collect it in a big pile for packing on the livingroom floor. Tonight I go grocery shopping. I would be lying if I said I wasn't getting nervous.

stonewall

I watched a History Channel DVD about Stonewall Jackson last night. One of the talking head historians noted that when Jackson met his first wife, he was in his early thirties. She was the daughter of some colleague of his and they formed a fast friendship, but he didn't realize he was in love. One of his friends had to explain it to him, that the pains he was feeling whenever he was near her were the pains of falling in love. Can you imagine a man so simple, so serious and so stoic that he doesn't know when he's falling in love? And yet, when I think back on all I've read, Jackson is the only Civil War era general of whose personal life is so rarely written. His life was military. His life was war and battle and artillery. I think we cannot imagine such a man in the modern world.

are we there yet?

With a week and a half to go, I'm starting to get nervous and antsy. For starters, things have been so busy at work and then so internally politically stressful, there hasn't been time to start downloading and printing all the directions. And of course with Matt and his internet gone, and the neighbor's wireless signal sporadic at best, I can't very well do much of it here at home either. I also realized practically last minute, thanks to Ali, that I should put together a list of hotels near my campsites in case of weather so bad I don't have the heart to brave it. Afterall, it is hurricane season down there, and though I'll be mostly pretty far inland, I should definitely have a backup plan. And then there's supplies. Is there anything I haven't thought of that I still might need? Are there any teeny details I've not worked out? I made it up to EMS last Thursday, bought the lantern I wanted and a length of rope thanks to Dan my EMS hiking guru. I've made my packing lists. I think I've thought of everything.

In Travels with Charley, John Steinbeck wrote of the anticipation of leaving for a trip. He wrote, "In long-range planning for a trip, I think there is a private conviction that it won't happen." I'm near enough now to my departure that I'm beginning to feel it fully. So I try not to imagine the trip as a whole; rather, I keep imagining driving out of South Philly, headed for I95 South with a car full of a week's worth in supplies.

I know it's not the most magnanimous trip man has ever taken. I know it's not the most adventuresome or the most foreign destination. I've watched Sara take off for India so many times, for example. I've listened to people's stories of Africa; I've watched documentaries about Africans coming to America; I've read about Arctic explorers and ancient seafaring pilgrims; desert caravans; The Heart of Darkness; the horror. But it's the most magnanimous trip I've ever taken. And that's enough to shake me up and give me gooseflesh. It's just a personal challenge. And I'm taking it fully seriously and respecting it for exactly what it is.

two weeks to go

Last night I burned Cold Sassy Tree onto 11 discs. I had downloaded it from emusic several months ago, and realized when I started planning this trip that it might be the perfect soundtrack for when I'm driving and tired of singing. It's my favorite book of all time; I'd guess I've read it cover to cover at least six or seven times, and re-read favorite chapters many more times still. It's the story of a 14 year-old boy growing up in rural Georgia in 1906. The author, Olive Ann Burns, strung together the stories of her father's childhood, and his stories of his own grandfather's scandalous second marriage. It's a pure and simple story, somewhat a coming of age story, though really more a photograph of a very particular time and place, of a small town in the South just before modernity barreled through. I have always loved it for its innocence, for its wide open spaces and its simple but profound ideas. One philosophy of the book has grown into me and become my own, and been a comfort to me in hard times and a safe place when I'm afraid. But I'll save that for another day.

Last night, too, I wrote a preliminary packing list. Sweet jesus I'm going to fill that car up. It's hard to figure the necessities when facing a week of camping and solitude and as yet uncertain weather. I'll need books and a journal and music for certain. I realized with a start over dinner last night that I probably won't drink a single beer for a whole week, but then too I won't have to do my hair or makeup or even shave. I can bring the most basic cloths: my army shorts, a dozen t-shirts and socks and underwear. I don't have to figure whether I should bring any dresses or a good pair of jeans or anything nice at all. But all that gets replaced with first aid kits and extra pairs of shoes and bug spray and rain gear and extra layers in case it's cold at night in the mountains.

And food. This is hard to figure, food. I don't want to bring any cooking gear, so the first thing to go is my percolator and coffee grounds. I'll bring a small cooler in case, but I don't plan on bringing anything perishable, so it's cans and potatoes to cook in the fire, granola, trail mix, dried fruit, crackers, and gallons and gallons of tepid water and juice. I'm hoping to try some Southern delicacies, and I hope I can find them off the highways: warm biscuits and country fried meats and greens and maybe even a taste of sweetmilk. It's not that I want to be dependent on food I have to stop to buy along the way—and I sure as hell don't plan on a single crumb of fast food, coffee excepted of course—but I don't want to miss any chances to taste real Southern cooking either. In my Yankee fantasies, it's savory and hearty and piping hot.

So. Next steps: one final trip to EMS for the last of my needed supplies, and then it's maps and directions enough to find my way blind.