Jacob's Ladder

Although this blog has been languishing, Highlands Roadrunner has not!  Upon return from our anniversary trip, I realized that it was time for training mode to begin in earnest.  The event I am training for is the Bethel Half Marathon, that same half marathon that I was prepared to run last October but had to cancel because of my brother-in-law's heart attack.  So this will be a matter of unfinished business, a redemption of sorts.

The Bethel Half Marathon was the very first half marathon I completed, in October of 1998, exactly twenty years ago.  If I can arrive at the starting line uninjured I have no doubt that I will cross the finish line, and it will be the fifth time that I have done so.  I ran it with Fred that first year, and I remember thinking when I finished that if I had trained just a little harder and slowed my race pace by a minute or so, I might actually be able to run a full marathon, which I went on to do in December of 1999 at the significant age of 50.

Bethel is a lovely place, a community just outside of Waynesville in a long valley surrounded by mountains, with pastures surrounding a river which mysteriously changes its name from Bird Creek to Rocky Branch to Inman Branch to Poplar Branch.  The Blue Ridge Parkway winds along the crest of the mountains to the south, and the foliage is usually at the height of fall color in mid-October.  The name "Bethel," I discovered, means a holy place, a name given by Jacob to that place where he fell asleep and had a vision of a ladder stretching between Heaven and Earth and thronged with angels.  So I like to visualize Bethel as the end of a long climb up the ladder of training, step by step, making incremental progress and walking on that fine line that a runner who will be 70 years old next February must be careful not to cross.  Martha will say, as I leave the house for another hard run, "Don't overdo it!" and I will reply, "Yes, but I don't want to underdo it, either!"

Training mode:  it is good for a runner, or at least for this runner, to be following a plan.  So for the past four Mondays I have climbed Big Bearpen, and then logged a day of speed-work - 400s and 800s - later in the week, an easy rest day, and a long run on Saturday increasing from 8 miles to 10 miles.  Weekly mileage has increased from 20 to 22 to 24, half the distance I would be logging ten years ago, but enough, I hope, to be able to acquit myself well at the finish line.

This morning I had not planned to run because yesterday was a Bearpen Day.  But I looked at the weather forecast and realized that I had a small opening before two or three days of heavy rains.  So I hurried out the door and completed another six mile run, and was so glad to see Martha out doing the same thing, aiming for the same race.  Another page for both of us, I told myself, ambitiously dog-eared in the book of training, another rung higher on the ladder.

Anniversary Bells

On the morning after our anniversary, we continued the celebration of 39 years of marriage by carrying on a tradition we began several years ago.  We walked out to Sunrise Point at the Lodge and rang the big bell hanging there 39 times, once for every wonderful year, listening as its deep tones reverberated and sang out over the valley below.

We had read the guest book the night before - a little, bound book on the bedside table containing comments and poems and reflections from the guests who have stayed here over the years, many of them celebrating anniversaries and birthdays.  Martha read one to me that sounded familiar and I realized that I had written it several years ago.

And this is what I wrote in 2003, our first time visiting this place, still memorialized in one of the guest books for others to read:

Snowbird Lodge

On our twenty-fourth Anniversary, after more than one

Wrong turn in Graham County, we found this place,

In the hardwood high above the clouds:

Squirrels in the feeders, finches in the trees,

Deep silence accented by birdsong, and

The music of fountains always playing.

To rediscover your love for someone--

What a wonderful thing!  To know that

Hearts can be exchanged and lives shared

For good.  So Happy Anniversary:

We can take this place with us when

We leave, and we will always belong here.

Snowbird Mountain and Joyce Kilmer

In past years, we have enjoyed canoeing on Lake Santeetlah while staying here, and we had planned to do that this year but the road to the lake had washed badly.  There was an alternate route, but it was a rough, one-lane road that our Mini would not have enjoyed.  So we decided to hike in Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest, which is just down the road from Snowbird.

The old-growth forest, named after the author of the poem "Trees," is a favorite place that we have hiked often before.  Many of the trees here are 400 years old, some more than 20 feet in circumference and 100 feet fall. 

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.

The loop trail passes between these huge giants that soar overhead, poplars mostly, all hardwoods since the hemlocks were destroyed several years ago by the hemlock woolly adelgid; their fallen trunks lie scattered all around us.

As the trail loops upward and around, we noticed that there is a shorter trail going directly up to each of the trees, as if made by reverent hikers who want to approach them and touch them in worship, lean up against them and feel the rough bark on your back.

After the hike, we took a long ramble in the Mini, around Cheoah Lake, the outflow from Fontana Dam, finally crossing over below the dam and stopping at Fontana Village to eat our picnic lunch (which, together with dinner and breakfast, Snowbird Lodge provides).  We know a little place there with a picnic table where we have eaten lunch many times in the past.

At last  we returned to the Lodge, and had some time to relax on the screened-in porch there, where we have lovely memories of being trapped in a summer rain shower.  But it did not rain on this perfect, cloudless day.

Deep Creek

I mentioned (see previous post) that our guide on the Freedom Train was both entertaining and informative.  One of the places he told us about was Deep Creek Park, which we had never visited before today.  The Firecracker 5-K course crosses this cascading little creek (which looks shallow to me), follows the valley north, but then turns left on Deep Creek Church Road and returns to Bryson City.  This morning we continued past that road, going by the Deep Creek Tubing Center and Campground, and then entering Great Smoky Mountains National Park on a cool and shady morning.  There was plentiful fishing, camping, picnicking, and hiking in the park, and we decided to take the so-called Three Waterfalls Loop trail.

The first of the falls is called Juney Whank Falls.  I presume they are named after a real person with both an unusual first and last name, but I have been unable to discover any information about her.  But the little waterfall was lovely, a bridge spanning the creek below it.

The trail was a wide one and we saw signs that horses had been here.  As we continued on, we heard a group come up the trail behind us on horseback, hooves clattering over rocks, and stepped aside as they came by. 

A little farther on we saw these Indian Pipes, also known as the ghost plant.  We do not have these in our area, or I have never seen them here. 

On the other side of Deep Creek, we could see Tom Creek falls, flowing down a series of rock shelves into the creek, which we now noticed was filling up with visitors from the Tubing Center we had passed down the road.

Our last waterfall was Indian Creek Falls, the largest of them all, and we stopped to take this "selfie" with outstretched arm.

At this point, the trail narrowed and continued on - a hike for another day - and this was where most of the tubers were putting in, having carried their big inflatable vessels a long way up the trail.  Martha stood on a rock and watched several families deploy around her, preparing for the long, leisurely float downstream.

Now it was late in the morning and there were so many tubers that we had to dodge them as they walked up the trail.  A couple was carrying a tube between them in which slept a tiny baby, too young, we thought, to be in any kind of tube over these rapids.

We returned for lunch in Bryson City, and then started up the road to Robbinsville and our destination, Snowbird Mountain Lodge.  On  the way we discovered Wehrloom Honey, a small operation that makes candles, lotions, lip balm, soap, and even mead from the hives on site.  We took a little walk through their gardens, past a small herd of goats, and watched these industrious little creatures through the windows of a little building.

Late in the afternoon, we drove past Santeetlah Lake, and then higher and higher, toward the Cherohala Skyway, and finally up the steep, familiar drive to Snowbird, a place that holds so many cherished memories for us.  We have spent many anniversaries up here since the first time in 2003 - our 24th Anniversary - and it never fails to provide that sense of peace and serenity that we love so much.

It is the same every year we come here:  we enter the 1941 lodge, walk into the big library, smell that wonderful fragrance of a cold fireplace, and then go out to look at the view from the patio.  Home away from home.

39th Anniversary Trip

Our friend Barbara wrote to me yesterday and said she would try to keep up with my blog, and it was then that I realized I last posted here on June 16.  But that is not surprising.  The summer days are long in Highlands and there is a lot to do!  There are plays and concerts and Center for Life Enrichment events (I love their motto, "The Curious Mind Knows no Bounds.")  And we want to be outside as much as we can, traveling in the area, or working in the yard, or (the ostensible subject of this blog) running.  But I have already worked some in the yard today and I think I will take a break this afternoon from working on the little rock enclosure I am building under this study, where I sit and work on this blog.

So I thought I would look back two weeks, re-set the date to July 4, and pick up from there in describing an activity-filled trip we took for our 39th Anniversary.

Fourth of July in Bryson City:  we drove here yesterday and spent the night at the Relax Inn, which is clean and family-owned and, according to its website, is both "biker-friendly" and has the "biggest pool in Bryson City."  We decided it must have been the only pool in Bryson City:  Its main attraction for us was proximity to the start of the Firecracker 5-K, a race that we have both run many times before and planned to run this morning.  

We were up at an early hour and I went outside to assess the rapidly-building July heat and humidity.  Some of our friends were rubbing shoulders with 55,000 other runners in the Peachtree Road Race in Atlanta this morning, so it was nice to be able to run with only 272 runners, who spread out quickly as the gun went off, crossing the railroad tracks and continuing up one side of Deep Creek and back again.  It is a relatively level course and the sun was still low in the sky, so conditions were good.  I was so proud of Martha, who once again came in first in her age group in a time of 28:36, a full three minutes ahead of the second-place finisher.  This humble blogging runner did not fare as well, however, in the ten-year age groups - I am 69-1/2 year old.

The afternoon was spent recovering, walking from one end of Bryson City (where temperatures had risen into the 90s),  and waiting for the special treat that Martha had planned for dinner:  a barbeque dinner aboard the "Freedom Train" on the Great Smoky Mountain Railroad. departing from the depot in Bryson City, going out to the trestle over Fontana Lake, and then back again.  

The railroad embankments for the first part of the trip are dense with kudzu, that famous "vine that ate the south," which was introduced from Japan in 1876 and now flourishes in nearly the entire South.  It is our most noteworthy invasive species, and in many parts of the South it is seen rising up utility-pole guy wires, climbing trees, forming huge topiary monsters that hang over the highway, and in some cases completely engulfing abandoned buildings.  The view out the window:

But then the track slowly climbed out of the jungle of green and we had some fine views of fields and kudzu-free woods.  This little outbuilding proclaimed, presumably for the benefit of train passengers, that "Thieves Will Be Shot."

A small herd of horses was frolicking in the beginning of a cool evening, perhaps excited by this long lumbering passenger train blowing its whistle at all the crossings.

Finally, we reached Fontana Lake, created by the construction of Fontana Dam in the 40s for the purpose of providing power for ALCOA aluminum, which was needed in World War II, we learned from our entertaining and informative guide.  House-boats were anchored here in quiet coves, and deeds for the land that was long-ago flooded were passed on from generation to generation.

So we sat on a historic trestle and watched the sun set and ate a surprisingly delicious barbeque dinner (for a train, after all), and then slowly began the trip back to Bryson City. 

As we came into the depot, we could see families all along the way, in yards and in parking lots, cooking out and sitting in lawn chairs, waiting for the impressive fireworks display that we, too, were able to take in just a few minutes after disembarking. 

A memorable Independence Day!  And an eventful beginning to a three-day anniversary trip.