Deja vu

The entire Admissions department of Saint Anselms College in New Hampshire was looking out the window, seemingly pondering the question, “Who is driving that red Tesla?” Their stunned reaction was visible across the parking lot when Prior Augustine and I approached it during our tour: “The monk hiking the AT is driving it!” Well, I had rented the cheapest car at Hertz to get me from Maine back down to Dalton, MA; Hertz just happened to want to unload an EV onto another location. I was not complaining —at least when I wasn’t trying to turn on the wipers while going 70 mph down the highway, relying only on the drive assist and computer representation of the highway to buy me time to find the controls section of the computer program to enable wipers! This whole journey is a wild ride!

So I was talking with an old schoolmate, Benjamin, while driving, and he commented that the people at St Anselms probably remarked that they could see a little red devil on my shoulder. Really?

The timing seemed right to listen finally to the Robert Plant and Allison Krause progressive bluegrass collab, at high volume and high velocity — I mean, I had the red Tesla and I had spent the evening and morning in a monastic choir, so the balance even seemed right. So, I passed the afternoon under the influence of Robert Plant’s music, and I could kind of hear my grandmother say, “This is devil music.” I found myself repeatedly blasting this heavy, heavy bluegrass tune, thoroughly intrigued by its lyrics, originally written by Townes Van Zandt:

I kept thinking, “This song isn’t as dark as its lyrics; there is something even perhaps spiritual about it.” Well, according to the following podcast, there is that possibility, as Townes Van Zandt had been reading The Last Temptation of Christ around the time he wrote it, and one interpretation of the song is that it is Christ to Our Lady. That would make this song the heaviest bluegrass-gospel music ever. I simply needed to be added to the repertoire here.

I made it back to Dalton, MA and officially started back down the trail as a southbounder (SOBO) to fill in the section I skipped earlier.

Who would I see on trail on Day 1 Sobo? The exact three people I saw day 1 Nobo back in Georgia. What are the odds?! Here’s Bob again, now much trimmer:

He had just reached Great Barrington, MA and jumped up to his parents’ house in Dalton, MA to hike southbound with me for the day. We caught each other at the Cookie Lady’s free cookie stand and swapped trail stories and notes for the afternoon. It was great fun.

Then that evening I caught up with more Day 1 hikers, Mike and Trish (aka, Atlas and Carebear), plus their new hiking mate Jan, and we passed the evening and early morning telling hilarious trail stories and prepping each other for each other’s journeys ahead.

It was such a great moment to see old trail mates and hear stories about other ones. Unfortunately, we may be the only ones still on the trail from the starting day of April 22, as several have quit. (Only 20% who begin the AT end it.) That said, I have the hope of running into more old trail mates in the coming days, as these guys had been a little in front of me and others when I skipped northbound. (Chipmonk, Zipper, Nick, and Cassandra, I’m looking for you; look for Cassian on Far Out and send me an email at frcassian@priory.org)