My springbreak '08

On our way home from Chapel Hill the ride was boring and melancholic, and as I expected, Charlotte was not going to leave much of an impression on my friend Trevor. Charlotte is the definition of urban sprawl. Everything is so spread out and land is so well wasted, that the city is so extensively sparse that it really doesn't draw much attention to itself. During the day we visited my friends at a HS Rugby match and guys from all over the east coast were there to share in a little southern hospitality with my friend and wonderful coach Ramon Villacura of the East Mecklenburg HS Rugby team. Later on that evening, the nightlife proved to be not so under 21 friendly either, as on Saturday night we looked for a good sports bar to watch the game but to no avail. We ended up at a bar called the Alley Cat and we tried to watch the UNC-DUKE game but they didn't
have on the sound. A little while later they did and we saw our team school Dook and Danny Green teabag dunk on G. Paulus. It was a great and an even better way to end the ACC (#1 ) and start March Madness. That was quite a moment but soon the game was over and my mom was calling me to come home. Man I sure do hate having a curfew every time I go back to Charlotte. I don't usually stay out late, but at least give me the freedom too. I am an adult, aren't I? Or is that just what the government wants me to think...

So on Sunday morning, after dropping my mom off at the airport for her Mexico adventure, Trevor and I departed for our Western NC Mountains adventure and our first stop was the dirty hippie loving town of Asheville. Actually it's not dirty (maybe the hippies) it's quite a beautiful city and on a Sunday morning as we found out, you can observe a very lazy and lax attitude amongst the city goers there. This picture shows the mountains way off in the distance and the groomed grid pattern that the whole of downtown is fashioned. We ventured around the highway for a bit to find places to shop and we also even found a shortcut through tunnel road to the shopping area that would have saved us a 12 mile mistake. I bought my own camping stove and some other minor gear and by about 2 pm we were off to find out way around to the Blue Ridge Parkway. Little did we know though, that the park service had something else planned for us.

The Blue Ridge was closed! I couldn't believe it when I saw it. My first instinct was to run through the barricades, but then I thought about the huge fines that may follow that move, so I decided then to try and find another way to my favorite place in the Blue Ridge. So Trevor and I made a detour through some little known mountain highways and as we were driving through, we saw signs to Cold Mountain. Our map which was extremely disproportional but at least reliable as to what roads met together, told us that a variety of side roads went up towards the mountain. As we quickly found out, these side roads really only consisted of random houses and trailers with unchained dogs looking wearily at us and ready to attack if we were to approach. So we decided, as the sun began to set, to make our way to the blue ridge and camp anywhere that was convenient. So at about 8 pm we arrived at the Cold Mountain overlook on the blue ridge near the 412 mile marker.

The sun was setting, the sky was flawless and I was really sad that we weren't on Black Balsam enjoying the limitless views. We made camp about a mile down the road at Wagon Road Gap Overlook.

I woke up at about 10:45 the next day, and I went down the trail about a mile and I found something that made my heart skip a beat - it was the Mountains to sea trail blazer!!! I thought that since the trail was so nearby, that our mountain would be too and Trevor and I cleaned up camp and made way towards the mountain. We decided it would be fun to take the trail so for about two to three miles we took the mountains to sea trail instead of the Blue Ridge.

We saw some left over ice from the weekend's storm that closed the parkway and we also realized that the trail was much longer then we thought. Yet it was such a beautiful day and the trail was so much more interesting then the road, with all of its views and the feeling of walking along a ridge line is unlike any other. But after two hours on the trail we got a bit scared and decided to head back to the road as soon as we saw sight of it. Well the good thing is, that we did find the road. The bad thing was that we had no idea how far away our goal was and we had NO idea if the Mountains to sea trail connected to where we wanted to go. I had a general idea that it did because it was traveling in that direction, but the only trail I knew for sure to go to Black Balsam was the Art Loeb Trail. After getting back to the road we were slowly and steadily gaining elevation. There were few breaks in the steady uphill course we were going because Black Balsam is at an elevation of 6214ft (1894 m) and we were coming from 4542ft (1384 m). As we trekked, there were many opportunities to absorb the surroundings.

After about 4 hours of walking, we grew weary and Trevor was telling me that it would be best to turn around now so we could get on the road to Florida. My spirit of adventure and my stubbornness to achieve my goal drove me on and I convinced him to at least go see what was around the bend in the road that was in front of us. We walked onward and the road began to steepen sharply. At around the sixth mile (mile marker 18) we saw at an elevation closely approaching 5000ft (1524 m) the reason why the parkway was still closed.

The Ice on the walls were very unstable and at night the water on the ground would freeze and cause hazardous conditions, thus I could understand now. We stopped parallel to this wall of ice before even reaching the bed because I saw the sun was setting quickly and my feet were KILLING me. I sat down in my crazy creek chair (thank goodness I brought it) for a while as Trevor threw rocks at the wall to see the Ice crash to the ground. I could see through the trees a waterfall, and I embraced the beauty of it all amidst my foul feelings for having to give up our goal. As we trekked back, I have to admit I felt very unfulfilled about not making it, and I hope I didn't make Trevor feel to bad. He can walk a lot faster then I can, and I kept getting frustrated that I was falling behind but I know that he wanted to get back to the car as badly as I wanted to. The walk back wasn't totally unforgiving though, the beautiful sunset that followed made opportunity of many photos that evening.

It was a great evening and we made it back to the car around 9pm. We started hiking about 2:30, so it took us 6.5 hours or so, with stops to rest and eat included to hike 12 miles. I don't think that is too bad at all. This marks the end of my journey to the mountains...

And the beginning of the long ride down to Jacksonville. It was really fun going down the twisty mountain bends and learning how to use the lower gears of the engine, but after leaving the mountains on I-26 the ride through SC and GA was so boring! I have determined that there is too much flat land in the south! Very boring scenically but it was also night time so that was taxing on the eyes. We made it to J-ville around 5 am and I spent the rest of the week with my family. I went fishing with my Uncle in the intracoastal, and that was tons of fun. I caught three whiting which I also had for dinner on friday night and I caught a blowfish and a baby Bonnethead shark! That was total luck because a little octopus was eating the bait on my line, and a shark happened upon the octopus and when the hook was caught in his mouth I thought I had a big one! Yet it was just a ferocious little shark, and I let him back into the water. On saturday night, I went to Jax and hung out with Trevor. We went to the County Dock and took int the sights and a very windy evening, and on sunday we left for Chapel Hill. That pretty much sums up my whole vacation, and I know that it was totally biased towards the first half of the trip, but what can I say, I am a sucker for nature!

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On this reoccuring topic...

There is nothing that relieves me more then when (in personal and life affecting matters) I can be sure that I am hearing the plain old unadulterated truth from those that I care enough to care about. Similarly, there is nothing that bothers me more then when someone lies to me. I just wish everyone that I explain it to would believe me that I would rather hear the nitty gritty truth then to be lied to and find out later.

Now, let's clarify some things: I respect the whole, don't ask don't tell policy. If I don't ask about something, and it has nothing to do with me, then I don't expect to hear about anything that doesn't involve me when it comes to personal matters... buuuuut, when I ask about something then I would expect to hear what really happened. That I think is a plain and simple matter. I hope it is not too hard to understand. I feel like few people believe me when I say that I get over things rather quickly and I avoid holding grudges - I avoid this by letting people know how I feel, when I feel it. I used to be abash, and shy, and never let someone know when I was bothered by something and etcetera, but I have learned that it is important for my mental health to relieve these daily stresses, or else I will explode - no, a better word would be to implode. So to my friends who I care about a lot - whether you or I like it or not, sometimes you come by things that you don't mean to come by, or you figure out things from little slips of the tongue - that is bound to happen - but when this is in the context of a fabrication, and when I personally recongnize this as deceit it hurts me greatly. The daily toils of life doesn't hurt me as much as when people try to do what they think is best for you. This whole topic is controversial, but for me whenever a friend hides something or feels like they shouldn't be honest with me, they lose an ounce of my respect towards them. I currently feel like I would be better off without friends because of all they stress they cause me. But then they cause me great joy as well. It is a fight to the finish that only the strong can achieve, and I am a passionate and determined person, but I will only put up 50% of that fight, the other half comes from the 2nd hand of the relationship. So to my friend(s), please trust me when I say to you that I don't care about the things that you do, trust me that I will be ok, and trust that I will always expect you to be honest with me, and not hide things - but when you do, expect that I will not revere you as highly as I once did, and that trust and respect will be hard to regain.

On a lighter note,

I have been going to bed by about 1 am lately, because I am ridding myself of the habit of being up late nights (3 am type deals...) It's making me feel good, and I can wake up at a good hour without an alarm. Spring break (WOOO) is only a week away, and I can't wait to go on my adventure. Although now with it approaching, I really wish I could go into the forest alone, and be there with just my thoughts and the wind. I love my friend Trevor a bunch, and I am glad that we are going together, but a part of me wishes that I could partake on this journey alone. Maybe for a first time camping outside of a group, this is a good step forward. I've done some backpacking but its always been with at least four people. Spring break I hope with be loads of fun.

Also, I finished my book today!!! One of the books for ENST I just finished: YAY only 3 more to go! WOOT WOOT

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