Things I Learned in the Mountains

By Sunny Fry

1) That my husband is a master camper, and if there's something better than eating McClellanville shrimp by a crackling fire, while sipping Maker's Mark and perched next to a gurgling mountain stream, I don't know what it is.

2) That there is a beautiful plant called jewelweed, which has lovely small orange blossoms beloved by hummingbirds.  It is said to be a cure for poison ivy, which is providential, since it is also said it tends to grow in the same area as poison ivy.

3) That there are muscles flatlanders forget they possess until they start screaming when you climb a high ridge.

4) That on a warm afternoon, fresh unpasteurized apple cider is as close to nectar of the gods as anything found elsewhere on earth.

5) That people in the high altitudes are never going to have great jobs or industry, due to transportation issues, but poverty is relative.  How much do any of us actually need, anyway?

6) That if you hike to the falls at Chimney Rock, you'll be walking with bearded men who look like they just came off the mountain, and little yuppies in their eco-cars and sensible shoes, and men who carry Yorkshire terriers in backpacks, and surfer dudes in baggies and no shirt, carrying cigarettes and tossing back their shoulder-length hair, and a small group of Hispanic gangsta types who blast their music and speak no English, and a Muslim woman with her long pants and long sleeved shirt and proper scarf covering all her hair, holding hands with her young husband.  And if you only barely restrain yourself from barking, "Get down this minute!" at those young Hispanic men because they're bounding around the rock outpost with a sheer drop, and ask if they want you to get a picture of all three of them, they'll grin shyly and hand you the camera and smile big and make gang symbols as they pose.  And if you're shaking your head about the Muslim woman and how hot she must be, and how women are treated so poorly in Islam, you might be surprised at the end of the trail when you find her sitting comfortably, having sent her husband to get the car because she's tired, and then get to share her excitement at having secretly planned an offroad trip for him on their venture to Biltmore the next day.

You might also run into a muscular young show-off jogging up that trail, and have to restrain yourself from the urge to trip him.

7) That rest stops, welcome centers and state and national parks are fantastic uses of my tax dollars.

8) That the pride of people in the mountains, their self-sufficiency, and their strong faith, might have something to teach us about how to treat the Afghans who want to work with us to eliminate the Taliban.

9) That if you go on a whitewater rafting trip, there will really be precious little actual white water, but your guide may be an extraordinarily interesting human who knows more about early American history and the founding fathers than anyone you've ever met outside of academia; and that he lives just above poverty level, but he's interested in life and history and lore and living exactly on his own terms, doing what he loves and is good at.

10) That chestnut trees used to comprise about half of the trees in the mountains, until the blight got them, and that the entire ecosystem suffered greatly from loss of that one food source.

11) That when you're on the Parkway and able to help an older lady and her even older aunt and 89-year-old mother as steam pours from their radiator, and you have extra water (because of that camping skill of husband mentioned earlier) and cold bottled water for each of them, the blessing isn't theirs -- it's yours.

12) That there's a lot of truth to the notion that you have to leave home to realize what a treasure it is to pull into your own driveway, even if the boys haven't washed a single dish while you've been gone.

 

3) That there are muscles flatlanders forget they possess until they start screaming when you climb a high ridge.

4) That on a warm afternoon, fresh unpasteurized apple cider is as close to nectar of the gods as anything found elsewhere on earth.

5) That people in the high altitudes are never going to have great jobs or industry, due to transportation issues, but poverty is relative.  How much do any of us actually need, anyway?

6) That if you hike to the falls at Chimney Rock, you'll be walking with bearded men who look like they just came off the mountain, and little yuppies in their eco-cars and sensible shoes, and men who carry Yorkshire terriers in backpacks, and surfer dudes in baggies and no shirt, carrying cigarettes and tossing back their shoulder-length hair, and a small group of Hispanic gangsta types who blast their music and speak no English, and a Muslim woman with her long pants and long sleeved shirt and proper scarf covering all her hair, holding hands with her young husband.  And if you only barely restrain yourself from barking, "Get down this minute!" at those young Hispanic men because they're bounding around the rock outpost with a sheer drop, and ask if they want you to get a picture of all three of them, they'll grin shyly and hand you the camera and smile big and make gang symbols as they pose.  And if you're shaking your head about the Muslim woman and how hot she must be, and how women are treated so poorly in Islam, you might be surprised at the end of the trail when you find her sitting comfortably, having sent her husband to get the car because she's tired, and then get to share her excitement at having secretly planned an offroad trip for him on their venture to Biltmore the next day.

You might also run into a muscular young show-off jogging up that trail, and have to restrain yourself from the urge to trip him.

7) That rest stops, welcome centers and state and national parks are fantastic uses of my tax dollars.

8) That the pride of people in the mountains, their self-sufficiency, and their strong faith, might have something to teach us about how to treat the Afghans who want to work with us to eliminate the Taliban.

9) That if you go on a whitewater rafting trip, there will really be precious little actual white water, but your guide may be an extraordinarily interesting human who knows more about early American history and the founding fathers than anyone you've ever met outside of academia; and that he lives just above poverty level, but he's interested in life and history and lore and living exactly on his own terms, doing what he loves and is good at.

10) That chestnut trees used to comprise about half of the trees in the mountains, until the blight got them, and that the entire ecosystem suffered greatly from loss of that one food source.

11) That when you're on the Parkway and able to help an older lady and her even older aunt and 89-year-old mother as steam pours from their radiator, and you have extra water (because of that camping skill of husband mentioned earlier) and cold bottled water for each of them, the blessing isn't theirs -- it's yours.

12) That there's a lot of truth to the notion that you have to leave home to realize what a treasure it is to pull into your own driveway, even if the boys haven't washed a single dish while you've been gone.