Roughly two weeks ago, I knocked out the first of hopefully many summer goals. On that Tuesday morning, I headed out to Virginia, where I spent the night camping in Grayson Highlands state park. The next morning, I hiked the Rhododendron Trail out to Mt. Rogers. The following day, I hiked Old Mitchell up to Mt. Mitchell. The day after that, I hiked Low Gap and the Appalachian Trail up to Mt Cammerer and managed to not get eaten by bears despite other hikers telling me that they had just seen one. It was the hike to Mt Cammerer that provided my opportunity for finishing a goal as it is located on the far east side of Great Smoky Mountains National Park and I camped at Cosby Campground the night before. Yay! One goal done.
Coming into the trip, I knew there was the possibility of rain each day and hiking in rain, or especially in thunderstorms, takes away a lot of the fun. I received good providence and didn't actually have to deal with rain while hiking. On the Mt Rogers hike, the weather started beautifully but once I had summited, a quick check of the sky showed that ominous clouds had rolled in and I started busting butt back home on the way back so as to minimize the time I would spend hiking in the rain. Thankfully, that amount of time turned out to be zero, which is minimal. My hike of Mt Cammerer had beautiful weather, but again, there were supposedly bear sightings. The hike of Mt Mitchell provided the worst weather. While it didn't rain, I was hiking in clouds for the vast majority of the hike. Getting to the summit earned me a spectacular panoramic view of roughly a couple hundred feet in each direction. This begs the questions - if you can't see anything, is the hike worth it? Most of the time, I'll answer yes without hesitation. This one certainly was. Yes, if there isn't much of a payoff once you've reached, the experience has been slightly diminished but certainly not to the point where the journey isn't worth it. I love walking through the woods and climbing over rocks and getting out and being active and just generally being a sweaty mess. If the final view isn't there, oh well, but I still had fun and this gave me another state high point to claim.
If I really want to stretch this as a metaphor, and apparently I do, I'll compare this to the rest of my life. The day after I got back, Lindsey and I were meeting with the couple who will follow up with us on our premarital counseling. Lindsey and I ended up getting in a heated argument shortly before we were to meet with them. The drive over to their house was basically done in icy silence. It wasn't a great way for us to prevent ourselves so at that point, the payoff wasn't really worth it, but I've certainly enjoyed the process of getting there. We've worked everything out to this point and I certainly still love her, so yeah, even though things don't always work the way I want to, it's still been a blast getting to this point.
Technically, I have two goals done. Yesterday we bought a house. More on that later though.
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