- Mon Apr 01, 2019 6:39 pm
#115054
Hey folks - I've been meaning to get back on here and let you all know how everything worked out, but I don't spend much time on this site anymore. Actually, I've started several versions of this post, trying to detail my hike down the AT and how my friends rallied around to support me in my trek - but figured that no one really cared about my hiking journal. Suffice it to say that many of the folks that you met through my previous story to this point participated. Mike and another Marine buddy came and hiked with me through parts of New York, Marie met me in Pennsylvania where we spent a wonderful couple of nights in a low-rent motel not far from the AT (yes, we finally, finally consummated our relationship - stoking and quelling the fires that have been burning for so long - and yes, it was amazing!) Mike and Natalie met me in Maryland and we hiked into Virginia. Surprisingly, J.D. met me for a resupply and, well, platonic couple of days in Southwestern Virginia. My hike from the Mount Rogers, Virginia area to Springer Mountain, Georgia was largely solo, with the exception of a few casual companions out hiking south as well. I was surprised by a welcoming committee of Mike, Jenny, Marie, and JD when I came off the trail at the Len Foote Inn.
Okay, so that summarizes my journey.
Now, for what I felt that I needed to come back and share with this community... JD and I are together now, and it looks like it'll make it for the long run. Turns out, through a combination of my absence and her imagined extreme solitude of my hike, along with the Catholic priest scandal that broke out over the most of 2018, JD did some heavy soul-searching and tried to make peace with her faith and her church - two widely separate and, apparently, divergent things. By the time she met me near Mount Rogers, she had pretty much made her peace with leaving the church. When she and the group met me in Georgia, she told me that she had done a lot of difficult reflection and, if I was willing, would like to try our relationship again. I had to admit that I had thought about her a great deal while on the trail - and that since her surprise visit at Mt. Rogers she had pretty much been on my mind constantly.
Long story short - within a week of my return home, we picked up about where we had left off after our weekend with Marie and Bob at the beach house. Shortly before Thanksgiving, JD put her house on the market and moved in with me... and it's been pretty great.
So, forgive me for my long absence here, even after I got back and gave you the "Fred is still alive" post. Chances are, I won't be back here much - but I might still stop in every now and then. You folks take care and keep living life to the fullest - because life is definitely good!
Fred