Beyond the Blog: The Carolinas CAN Ruck For Autism

Reading my blog for this day reminds me of how out-of-sorts I was in the morning.   There was a big party in our hallway at about 11 pm and a drunk construction worker tried to get into my room.   I remember peering out and seeing him fumble with his card, then when it didn’t work, “s***, this ain’t my room”.  It would have been funny under normal circumstances, but getting 9 hours of sleep was the only thing I could count on to keep me going. It does open the topic of our country’s huge population of itinerant workers, though.  At any given time, budget hotels almost everywhere are hosting a cavalcade of both skilled and semi-skilled workers.   It is a huge part of their business, in fact.   Comfort Inn, Rodeway Inn, Sleep Inn, Red Roof, Motel 6, etc….these budget and “family” hotels are home to hard-working men and women who are forced to travel for weeks or months on end to do their job.   I met folks in construction, demolition, reclamation, teleco...

When doing a long event like this (a hike, a cross country bike ride…), days that are full of emotional and physical challenges are almost always followed by days of recovery and optimism.  As water-logged and exhausted as I was the day before, the next day proved to be an elixir of rejuvenation, because I had good people supporting me and a wonderful place to ruck.   I also had very few expectations because I did not know the area and didn’t know what lay ahead. Our day started out with meeting officers from both Rutherford County and Rutherfordton.  They had really embraced our cause, thanks to Stephanie’s outreach.   They were hugely supportive, and this was a good opportunity for them for positive community outreach.   We’d have less misunderstandings if folks got more comfortable around law enforcement, and saw all of the other things they do beyond arresting people, which is undoubtedly the worst part of their job.  It was also very timely to have Joe...

Reading through my blog post for this day, I am amazed at what I did not write about.   In retrospect, I was bottling up a lot of the negative emotions I was experiencing, which of course, is not a viable long-term strategy.   But I did this for many days, until it all came pouring out in my blog post two weeks later, on Day 21: I haven't been completely honest here.  My posts are observational but not introspective.  But after today's challenge.... But Day 21 wasn’t the only tough day.   Day 3 was brutal..I was 100% convinced of my own impending failure and didn’t have Cheryl to prop me back up.  It got better in the following days, but with 48 hrs of non-stop rain and some punishing climbs, Day 7 was another end-of-day emotional wipeout.     I’ll start at the end...me laying down at the top of a muddy trail in the Normal Wilder Forest, my rucksack about 100 ft down the trail.  Rain pattering my face, I’m completely soaked with no ...

  We don’t have a lot of photos from this day because it was non-stop pouring rain, up until the very end.  As my blog post for the day says, “ I knew there would be one day when it was going to rain all day, and we sure got it today”. I woke up groggy and gloomy because of the forecast, calling for pouring rain most of the day. We drove to French Broad Overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway. My planned leg was 3 miles rolling uphill in light rain on the Parkway, with fog shrouded vistas and relative peace. That was, until a d riving school zipped by consisting of about 25 Dodge Traverses.  I suppose it was fun, but they are missing so much....p rimordial ferns, long and haunting bird calls, a deep dark forest overlooking the valley below. Driving is about the machine and the road, which I totally get. But I prefer to be on foot, connected to the surroundings in a more immediate and organic way. I ran past Walnut Cove almost to Chestnut Grove, a 1,000 ft elevation gain ...

Our day started with a beautiful sunny morning, waking up from the dubious Waynesville hotel,  sitting atop a high hill overlooking the tangle of highway below us, and mountains off in the distance.   It was a copasetic moment, with Mike and Sheley, Matt and his dad..the five of us sipping coffee and being in the moment.  But there were miles to be rucked, and we hadn’t completely decided on where I was going to start.  The Route Tracker had me starting on 74, just below us.  I began insisting that I could hike down the very large hill directly to 74, and just start rucking from there.   My compatriots, especially Matt, began explaining that if I didn’t die getting down the hill, all I had to do was look at traffic, and clearly I would die there.  It was a convincing argument, and the hill did look dangerously steep, so we all agreed to meet at the Dam Park at Lake Junaluska and we’d take it from there.  We almost didn’t make it because Mike got t...

This was our last day at Stonebrook Lodge, as we would be finishing the day near Waynesville and it made no sense to backtrack all the way to Murphy. So it was our first big skip forward, if only for a night. The hotel situation would get worse before it got better….but for the moment, we enjoyed a good breakfast in Murphy and reviewed the course for the day. Initially, I had wanted to start on Rte 19 at the Birdtown Community Center and run on the road all the way through to Lake Junaluska. After driving the road a few times, it was obvious this route was simply non-viable (ie. “suicidal”). There was no shoulder to run on at all, so I had to start my run a few miles down the road approaching Cherokee, where sidewalks suddenly appeared. It actually was pleasant, running through the town of Cherokee and past the popular casino. It's a touristy mountain town but not completely overrun like Blowing Rock or Banner Elk. One backdraw is that the primary means of getting aro...

Reading my original blog post for this day, I see the first signs of denying the stress I was feeling.  This would be the last day I saw Cheryl for a week, and my legs were already screaming from the previous climbing of the first two days.   We set out early from a cute little coffee spot on 74 called Cardinal Coffee.   Becky and Mike left us there (I thought it was the previous night, but we actually had a good-bye drink with them on the hotel patio).  I had a nine-mile stretch of highway in front of me, all rolling hills with one thousand-foot ascent as I headed into Bryson City.   The highway here was busy, although passing over the eastern fork of Fontana Lake was beautiful.  It was still relentlessly hot with no shade, but fortunately Cheryl was able to meet me every four or five miles, which was still longer than how we would finish.   I had to exit 74 into Bryson City on a tricky off-ramp that sharply curved around an overgrown island. ...

  My thoughts were dark this morning as I mentally prepared for Day 2, with Cheryl providing support and Matt taking pictures.   Becky and Mike returned to Surfside Beach so we were on our own, and my goal was to reach a spot called Talc Mountain off of 19/74.    Leaving directly out of the hotel, I started rucking east, headed towards Andrews.   I was running in a valley, alongside a series of creeks and river branches that eventually reach the Nantahala.  Oncoming traffic was light so I got to enjoy being where I was.  My mood lightened considerably despite the climbing.  At one point, I passed a girl walking on the side of the highway, and we nodded.  She looked like a nomad, someone who lived their lives walking from place to place.   She didn’t look unhappy but it’s hard to imagine living your life like that, especially being a woman.   But who knows? I stopped by a grove of trees, nestled between the highway and the creek...

Initially, the weight of Slappy wasn’t a big deal, since I had so much training behind me.  More bothersome was the fact that it was a hot day, in the 80’s, and I was running east-bound on 74 with no shade.   The hills were non-stop rollers, which I should have been better prepared for, but Gmap doesn’t have a very good elevation function.  The other limitation to Gmap is that the distances are approximate and the actual distance is longer than what I calculated.   This is because I drew straight lines on Gmap, cutting off the actual road.  You can see this below between miles 9 and 11...Gmap is calculating a straight line, i.e. the shortest distance between two points.   But on the actual road, when travelling by foot, the distance is longer. Even on the highway, I did see plenty of wildlife on the rocky roadside.   I was surprised by a huge black snake who was clinging to an outcropping right in front of me.    When I finally made it into M...

Hello Friends! Now that the Ruck is over, and the dust has settled somewhat...it has been suggested that I write down the events of each day in greater detail, perhaps as the basis of an article or something else. Or perhaps for no reason other than to read later when I am old and decrepit, sitting on an iceberg somewhere waiting for a polar bear. In any case, to quote Mary Poppins, "Why Not? A capital idea!" (much more relevant than "Feed the Birds, Tuppence a Bag", which strangely played in my brain several times during the ruck. Go figure.) I was all nerves the morning of Day 1...why wouldn’t I be, right?  But I was also excited and anxious to get started, especially after speaking with Charlie Engle the night before and getting some of my confidence back.   Charlie, you cannot imagine how our conversation turned the ship around for me, which was about to fall off the earth. Our hotel was in Murphy, about 25 miles from the Tennessee/North Carolina state line....