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.

Braveheart 5-K

Only one week after those tough hills in Asheville, Martha decided she wanted to run some tough hills in Franklin at the Braveheart 5-K.  I recover more slowly than she does these days, but I agreed to give it a try, too, and I was glad I did.

We met Vicki and Art Heller - Vicki had been telling Martha about the race - and we all lined up on Main Street (which I think was the only level part of the course), 72 runners in all.  These smaller races can often be more enjoyable than a large one with jostling runners and Kenyans taking the top awards.  In the end, we all had good races, including Vicki, who came up behind Martha and then passed her on the fast downhill just before turning on Main Street to the finish line.  Had Martha not run a half marathon only a week before, I am confident she would have beaten her handily.  A little friendly competition is a healthy thing among runners, and I look forward to seeing what happens the next time these two women compete together.  I remember that several years ago I was pretty evenly matched with my friend Skip Taylor; he would finish a second or two ahead of me in one race, and then a second or two behind me in another.  And we both ran better because of it.

As for myself, I felt the pull of those hills pretty early in the race, and finished some five minutes behind both of these women, although I was proud of not stopping on any of the hills, even that long climb up Bidwell Street.  And I felt not a twinge from that injured knee.  It was a nice morning for a run and the course was scenic, climbing under the shade of magnolia trees, and starting and finishing on Main Street where the Scottish Heritage Festival was underway.  Bagpipes greeted us as we came in to the finish, and there were Tartans and kilts everywhere.  "Sons & daughters of Scotland! I am William Wallace!" the race website declares.

We were surprised when the overall winner, 25-year-old local Franklin runner Canyon Woodard (17:20), was knighted in a very moving ceremony.  He was asked to kneel on a little stool, and elders dressed in their tartans recited the historic words from the knighting ceremony and presented him with an impressive sword.

There was a time in my life when I might have finished toward the front of a small race like this one, and would have certainly enjoyed wielding that gleaming sword.  Now I don't think I could have risen from the kneeling-stool.

Asheville Half Marathon

It has been more than a month since I have written in this blog.  It is June in Highlands, and everything is in full bloom and in full swing - yard work to be done, friends to see, events to attend.  But we have both made time for running despite the busy schedules, as we have always done.  And the race this morning is a goal that over the past month has turned running into training - when a runner decides to not merely run for all of the other benefits it bestows upon us, but to increase mileage, begin doing some speed work, and prepare for the specific conditions in an upcoming race.  The only thing we did not have time to do was very much hill work, although in Highlands an ordinary run always includes some hills. 

My nagging knee injury has improved to the point where I have not been wearing my knee brace in the last miles of runs (although I wore it for the race today).  In May, my long runs crept up to 10 miles (Martha's went up to 12 miles), and I have begun doing 400-meter intervals and some tempo runs, too.  It was Martha who had looked ahead and said she wanted to do this half marathon, and I agreed to support her.  But I am not yet ready for a half marathon, despite the ten-mile long runs, so I signed up for the 10-K.  It is reversal of roles that does not at all make me uncomfortable - she running a long race, I the shorter. 

We left for Asheville on Friday and drove to the Hilton Gardens to pick up our race packet - always an exciting thing to do.  A volunteer noticed my Asheville Half Marathon shirt which I had deliberately chosen to wear, and I proudly explained that I had run this race seven times between 2000 (the inaugural one, if I am not mistaken) and 2009, although, uncharacteristically prudent, I would be running the 10-K in the morning.  Downtown Asheville has improved dramatically since we lived there 35 years ago, and we explored the area enough to find the Start/Finish line on Spruce Street, immediately adjacent to Pack Square Park, a beautiful outdoor venue that has been completely transformed from the days we used to go to "Shindig on the Green" and listen to music on Saturday nights.  Then we drove the course, something we always try to do before a race if we have time.  Martha had see an on-line description that indicated the course would wind through the historic Montford District, and so concluded that it had been changed from the last time we ran it, when it concluded with an ascent up Lookout Road, a relentless climb similar in grade to Horse Cove Road here and which prompted Martha to state unequivocally that she would never run this race again.

We were unable to follow the course exactly (Patton Avenue is one-way downtown, for one-thing), but we noted that it did not include any of the Montford District; we picked it up on Clingman Avenue, a long deliriously fast descent to the River Arts District where Dave Steel Company used to be located (I used to work there in another life, but now it is a vacant, fenced lot with weeds growing up in the parking lot).  Shortly after Mile 2, the course took an abrupt uphill turn off Depot Street, and then uphill again, into an area called Livingston Heights, finally winding through the campus of A-B Technical Institute before descending for a long, flat, five-mile stretch along the French Broad River.  Then we reached Mile 10 (Mile 3 for the 10-K, which consisted roughly of the last-half of the course), and turned right on, of all things, Lookout Road.  "This looks familiar," we both said.  And sure enough, up and up and up we climbed.  Finally, the course dropped down to Broadway, and back up the long, gradual return to downtown Asheville, with a steep hill up Spruce Street to the Finish at the very end.  Some of these hills, I thought, seemed to have been thrown into the course gratuitously, sadistically.

But although intimidating, we both knew that everyone was running the same course, tackling the same hills, and so in a sense even a ridiculously hilly course is a level playing field.

We enjoyed the traditional simple pasta dinner Friday night at Iannucci's on Hendersonville Road, and noticed that a blackboard next to the hostess station inexplicably but magically contained these words, meant for us:

BE

STRONG

BE 

COURAGEOUS

We had already scoped out the parking situation, so the morning went smoothly, setting the alarm for 4:00 a.m. and leaving by 6:15 for downtown Asheville.  It was one of those lovely, foggy June mornings in Asheville (which I remember Thomas Wolfe describing so well in Look Homeward Angel), but I knew it would burn off before the race was finished, so we planned to stay hydrated and consume energy gels on schedule.

The Half Marathon started at 7:00 a.m. and the 10-K five minutes later, and once again I was here, in the middle of a race, surrounded by other runners, all of us striving together toward a goal, chatting amiably from time to time in that peculiar camaraderie that complete strangers discover during a race, holding back just a little in anticipation of the hills, but still trying to play out our strength, to pace ourselves.  The descent down Broadway was beautiful, all downhill, following a little stream in the Asheville Botanical Gardens shrouded in fog that was just starting to break up from above.  We were amazed to see two gazelle-like African runners, shaved heads, flying past us, going uphill, and we realized they had already reached the four-mile point of a 10-K while we were all at the two-mile point . . . at 22 minutes.  I later learned that the winner of the 10-K, Cyrus Korir, finished in an unbelievable 31:26 (a 5-K time I would be proud of these days), closely followed by two other Africans finishing in under 32 minutes. 

"What goes down must go up," someone said.  "Oh, it's even better than that!" I said.  And suddenly we turned the corner on Lookout Road and I could hear groans from runners who were not familiar with the course, which curved upward, each bend in the road revealing more uphill, and still more.  Nearly everyone began walking, some walking so quickly with pumping arms that they did not lose any time at all (I later learned that this was Martha's strategy on the same hill).   But I was determined not to stop, and I did not, passing 20 to 30 runners, one woman several times as she stopped to walk, passed me, and walked again.  (I finally passed her on Lexington Avenue and she did not pass me again).  We finally reached the top of the hill, and then turned hard right and dropped down Campus View Drive in a grade so steep that it was more difficult than running uphill, holding back, feeling the burn in our calves.  And finally we turned onto Broadway and began climbing uphill, passing the point where nearly an hour ago those Africans had flown past, back under the glorious graffiti of the I-240 overpass, up Lexington, three more turns, and then up Spruce to the Finish Line, which I think I pulled faster than any part of the race.  1:17:45, the clock said, more than a minute faster than my last 10-K in March on the relatively flat Morehead City course.

For the next hour, I wandered through Pack Square Park, sipping water, eating a banana, listening to an excellent band set up in the amphitheater, and thinking and praying about Martha.  Where would she be on that long half-marathon course, I thought?  Would she be climbing Lookout Road yet?  "Be Strong, Be Courageous!"  I realized that I had run faster than I thought I would, so I went to the Finish line a little after 9:00 a.m, camera in hand, and waited.  What a joy it is to see runners finish a tough race! - exhausted, beaming with pride, triumphant, joyous with the effort of having given everything they have.  One little girl barely old enough to walk ran onto the course to hold her mother's hand and cross the finish line with her.

And then I could see Martha turning the corner on Spruce Street, a determined look on her race, coming in way ahead of schedule.

She had that look on her face!  Focused on the Finish Line, finishing strong, flying by me so quickly I could barely click my camera fast enough.

I caught up with her and gave her a hug and a high-five as she walked around, recovering a little, finally sitting on a wall next to another woman with whom she had run for awhile, a 68-year old (thus in another age group) who had tripped and fallen only a half-mile from the Finish, bleeding from both knees.  I went to get water for both of them, and another man, a tall, lean black man, went in search of bandages and antiseptic.  I had learned that you could enter your bib number on a laptop under the timing tent to find your finish time and I typed in Martha's bib number, 911 (there had been some good-natured joking about her bib number at the packet pickup last night), and found that she had finished in 2:20:07, two minutes faster than her last half marathon in Morehead City.  The sun was reflecting off the screen and I could barely make out her place.  I checked it twice.

"Your time was 2:20:07," I told her when I returned.  "But, you know, in a big race like this you can't expect to place well."  I paused.  "You took first place!"  Her injured fellow-runner, it turned out, had also taken first place, which I think did her as much good as the first aid which had been brought to her.  When we looked at all of the results the next day, we found that Martha had finished a full 15-minutes ahead of the second place finisher in her age group, a group of at least seven women, some of them younger than she was.

So it was a good day.  We wandered together around the park, listening to music, enjoying the sunshine, re-hydrating, snacking a little, enveloped in that sweet satisfying sensation that is so difficult to describe to anyone who is not a runner.  The joy of having been strong and courageous.  Of accomplishing another worthy goal.

 Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

- Tennyson

Ready for Summer

We have become so efficient in our unpacking that we quickly settled in, attending to all of those errands required by a three-week absence from home.  In a week's time, the lawn has been mowed, shopping has been done, a new kitchen door has been purchased, and (as of today) nearly all of the vegetable garden, herbs, and flowers have been planted, just in time for the light rain predicted over the next two days.  It was hard to believe this morning as I stood on our deck doing my morning Tai Chi, gazing up at Satulah Mountain, that only a week ago I was on the dune-top deck standing before the enormous ocean.

The deck chairs have been unstacked and placed around the table, cleaned of pollen, and the umbrella has been opened up (where two wasp nests were discovered and destroyed).  What a pleasure it is to merely sit and glory in the green, green world all around and look at the flowers and the herbs that Martha has planted.

I discovered a few years ago that the large tree directly off our deck is a Carolina Silverbell, and these lovely white bell-like flowers dangle gracefully from its branches every April; we are usually gone when this brief event happens, but this year everything seems to be a little late and we were back home to see it bloom, just for a day or two, before the petals turned yellow and dropped to the ground.

The little stream is flowing down below, too, the result of a rainy winter that we avoided, and I re-directed it with a shovel so that it cascades gently over a big rock.  As I walked around the yard to see what has changed, I let the front gate slam and a little bird, a black-capped chickadee I think, flew out of the adjoining birdhouse.  In a few weeks we will see the fledglings learn to fly.  New life is all around us.

In the raised beds we have zucchini, straight-neck and crook-neck yellow squash, green peppers, sweet potatoes, and twelve tomato plants of six different types; the cages are waiting, ready for them to thrive and fill in and (the patient hope of every gardener!) to bear fruit.

I circulated around the apple trees, which have already bloomed, and I noted fruit just beginning to form here and there; it will be time for the first spraying soon.

The 550-mile trip did not do my knee much good, but a week of running has really made the difference, that slow, patient climb back into condition again:  three miles Tuesday, six miles Thursday, and eight miles (for both of us) on Saturday.  As the summer unfolds before us we are optimistic about our running, our health, our gardens, some weekend trips already on the calendar, some hiking expeditions, some musical programs penciled in.  

We are ready for summer.