Our first sojourn into Western North Carolina took place in July 2013. We had left Raleigh on a whim and ended up in Asheville. We had a hotel there for the night but as we had arrived early we had plenty of time to explore the city.

It is a very interesting place. In the mountains and yet a pretty good size city. There were a lot of shops and restaurants and we had fun looking around. One of the things we noticed was how many of the downtown area shops were focused on arts and crafts, especially local artist. I thought the work to be quite good. I was very interested in the photography as I was just then starting to develop more than a causal interest in it. There were street performers and a little park in the center of town that was a bit of a hangout. We noticed many street people, some seemed pretty young.

I found myself thinking of my younger days. I was a child in the fifties and became a young adult in the sixties. I think of those two decades as real turning points in our culture. There was a certain air of innocence lingering through the fifties, but that innocence had the pressure of rebellion bubbling under it. The sixties saw the lid come off of that pressure cooker and the world seemed to turn upside down. The fifties ushered in an era of music that exploded in the sixties. Musicians were larger than life. Art was bold and expressive of contemporary trends. Authors were writing about journeys to places I’m not sure they even began to understand. The mantra for so many became “Turn on, Tune in and Drop out.” For many in our country this seemed to much and the opposition was strong. There was a real struggle as people attempted to identify themselves and align with values that seemed relevant as we transitioned from yesterday into tomorrow on a today that at times seemed like a runaway train.

By the end of the sixties I was a hippie and our visit in Asheville brought back strong memories of that period in my life. Asheville reminded me of a small Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco at the end of the sixties. These were not bad memories but in looking back I see those days much differently now than I did then. I spent so many years “looking for myself,” trying to connect with other people searching for value and meaning to life that I could hold onto, while drifting along like seaweed on the ocean tide. I do not regret the times or the experiences, they were stepping stone to where I am now.

But true or not I felt a kinship to these kids living on the street because I have lived that life. It can be difficult and survival can be hard, but when you are there it is something that you just have to do, a process of being part saint and part sinner. I wished them comfort.

But our path was leading us to the West. Now I could go into a real litany of things that I believe and things I don’t, but I will choose to forego this list it at this point. I will say that I believe in a power greater than myself and energy factors into it in a huge way. Whether the mountains were pulling us to them, or if there was an attraction of energy each exerting force on the other, we were willing players. Asheville was nice but even then we realized we wanted more space and the freedom that comes from a more spacious lifestyle. Asheville seems to be a Mecca for many, but to us it was the gateway.

That night we arrive at the Kephart Cabin in the Great Smoky Mountains.