Sunday, August 09, 2009

Hiking the Appalachian Trail

NO! I am NOT Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina. Come on! I've just spent a few days in the wonderful Upper Connecticut River Valley with beloved teacher Anne S. By the way, I now understand why she gets so excited when I come and visit because I have students who I have taught for whom I feel the same way. When the likes of Emily D., Alicia D., Peilin C., Nick J. and Evan B. find me to connect, I must get just as excited as she does.

A couple of the highlights of this past few days has been the discovery of the Upper Valley Aquatic Center (an amazingly nice pool that is open for lap swimming ALL the time), seeing my friend David C's mother who is the director of the Prosthetics unit at the VA Hospital in White River Junction, seeing the movie "(500) Days of Summer" (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, when did you become such a hottie) and having dinner with Carlos P. in Brattleboro, VT. Anne and I drove the North-South leg and Carlos the East-West leg coming from the Albany, NY area and we converged for dinner.

However, the most enlightening part of the few days was spending a couple hours hiking a tiny section of the Appalachian Trail in New Hampshire.









Doesn't it look like the tree is growing out from the rock itself?






Anne S. and see if you can spot her dog Mr. Bunsby!


What was enlightening you ask? As many of you know, I have this romantic desire to hike the length of the Appalachian Trail. I was planning on hiking Georgia and North Carolina portions in late June/early July but I chickened out. I have always imagined that the hike would be full of inspiring vistas and a beautifully maintained trail itself. Boy has that been shattered. Anne and I spent a couple hours mucking through mud, fighting off the bugs and in the "green tunnel". As seen by the pictures above, it was just a wall of trees. Not a vista for miles. I'm rethinking this hiking the Appalachian Trail thing, well, at least, I have a more realistic vision of what it will be if I ever tackle it!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I can't believe I'm in your blog (which I read regularly or as regularly as you post)!!!!! All my teachers shaped my life in some way or another and I certainly hope I never took it for granted then...because I don't now :)

COME TO NYC!