Hopefully a Bear Doesn’t Eat Me This Week

I’ve been #RunningAway for a week now. I needed to escape my jobless lifeless normalcy in Charlotte, and something about South Carolina was beckoning my attention. Columbia and Charleston had been in the news these last few weeks, and both cities moved me all over again.

I camped out at Congaree National Park for a night. Did you know there’s a national park in Nowheresville, South Carolina? Yeah, me neither. Weirdest coolest place, that Congaree. The swampy trees have knees coming out of the ground there. True story.

Did I mention I buzzed my hair? Like really really cut it mostly all entirely off? I figured if my first road trip was all about accumulating facial hair, this one should be the inverse. I’m a symbolic person; makes sense to me anyway.

Oh, also, it’s so bloody hot in the South in July. My melon has never felt fresher and freer.

I returned home to my parents’ house outside Athens, Georgia for a couple days. It’s good to come home. It wasn’t always that way; indeed, I once viewed this entire state with such disdain. Such paralysis and doom.

Now, it’s kinda comforting to see giant G’s plastered everywhere. It’s nice to write at Jittery Joe’s. And of course there’s my mom’s cooking — beats all the PBJ and trailmix I consume on the road.

I’m leaving today for the Blue Ridge Mountains, the next leg in this new journey, a pivotal place of my past and perhaps my future as well. I’m chasing a week-long opportunity in the wilderness that will hopefully pan out to my long-term benefit.

Hopefully this next week inspires me.

Hopefully this next week challenges me.

Hopefully a bear doesn’t eat me this next week. I never know if you’re supposed to play dead or whoop and holler at the attacking bear. It’s one of those options; hopefully I choose wisely.

When I return to civilization next week, I still have some more wanderings in store. Some planned, and hopefully some others not planned.

Sometimes those are the best wanderings — the ones you can’t predict or script. The ones that find you.

It’s been an odd week away from Charlotte, and I’m still not entirely sure where this wormhole is leading me. But I’m following the gravitational pull forward. It’s leading me back to the Blue Ridge, and soon I will bask in her mountainous wonder again.

Until the next chapter unfolds . . .