#199 Snapshots of Life After The 2023 Section Hike and The Path to the 2024 Section Hike
We sometimes have to backtrack to find our way forward.
“…..Sleep in peace when day is done
That's what I mean
And this old world is a new world
And a bold world, for me, yeah, yeah
Stars when you shine, you know how I feel
Scent of the pine, you know how I feel
Oh, freedom is mine
And I know how I feel
It's a new dawn
It's a new day
It's a new life for me
Oh, I'm feeling good”
Feeling Good - Nina Samone 1965
After a few days of recovery from such an adventure, after continually eating and sleeping to refill my body, after cleaning and storing all my gear, I begin to apply the lessons learned on the trail - to refocus my attention on our family finances, to put my shoulder into supporting the success of my son’s second chance at life, to accept that the worse is in the rear view mirror, that his future will be full of promise and opportunities, if he chooses to harness his potential.
He is doing well. When he does well, my head is well.
I have a new-found optimism for the future. I have a feeling big change is coming our way, though I’m not sure what it is yet, I know it’s going to be good for our family.
Returning from a long trip leaves the traveler with a clarity of mind unparalleled by any other experience I can compare it to. The path ahead seems so clear. The mind and body feel so clean.
Jumping back into the rat-race of life begins diminishing your clarity quickly.
I tried working for a few people doing odd jobs, and had a decent run, but eventually I went back to the private school. Some towns aren’t as good as others in word-of-mouth amplification as others.
I don’t mind the work at the school, it’s just that there are way too many people surrounding me there.
Since I had resolved to making as much money as I could as fast as I could, I worked at the school, did odd jobs when they became available, continued writing (a big thank you to those who have subscribed, your support means more than you know), and for several months, I filled in on custodial duties at the church my wife pastors.
One of the things that I vowed to do while on the trail was to turn our finances around - and I did.
On Labor Day Weekend, Jimmy Buffett passes from this life to the great sandy beach beyond, and like all true Parrot Heads, it hits me hard. My wife Becky and I, despite swearing off beach trips during holiday weekends, drive to the beach on Labor Day to pay homage to the legend.
For a taste of the Parrot-Head flavor, watch this vid - Here We Are - Jimmy Buffett - 2006
We began feeling the nudge that it’s time to part ways with our Fayetteville life and follow the next one. Becky began the process of looking for her next call. After several potential churches are added and removed from her list, she starts conversations and interviews with a church in Hopkinsville KY, about seventy miles south of home. In the last couple months of 2023, we decide that’s our next destination.
We made a plan that I’d quit working for the school on the last day of March, giving me a month to pack up and label all our worldly goods into boxes.
I worked for the church for a couple weeks beyond that, giving them time to find a replacement.
We each say goodbye to the beach in our own way. Becky takes a cruise out of Charlston SC to the Bahamas with her sister and mom.
I drive my truck to the Outer Banks, camping out the back of it each night in different locations near the ocean. The stars at night were bright in the cool clear nights.
I took ferries between the Islands, stop at lighthouses, and ride my bicycle along the coast some. I was originally planning to do Part Two of the NC Coastline Bicycle Tour, completing the entire span of NC coastline by bike, but found it was logistically difficult and very expensive to get to the coast and home by rental car, so I adapted and adjusted. It was a phenomenal adventure.
The morning before moving day, we go to pick up a twenty-six-foot U-Haul truck, yeah, the big one. I take it to the church to pick up everything from her office, securing it near the back door for easy access when we get to the church in Hopkinsville.
I take the truck home to load as much as I can from the garage and small storage unit into the front of the truck, so it will be last to come out at the storage unit in Hopkinsville.
Things are falling into place…..until.
Moving day came and I call moving the crew about two hours before they were scheduled to arrive. The owner said he’s not coming because he can’t get any of his people to work a three-story job.
I begin packing boxes down the stairs and into the truck. A neighbor sees this and offers her husband’s help. I let them know I’m going to pay him well.
Becky puts the word out on social media of what was happening, simultaneously calling out the moving company for their failure to deliver. People began showing up. We paid everyone who would accept it, some refused payment.
Now that the truck is as full as it can possibly be, we drive it to another U-Haul dealer to pick up the trailer to tow my truck across the country. They walk me through hooking it up to the truck. I drive my truck onto it and strap the wheels in place.
Ready to roll, right? Wrong.
There’s a problem with the electronics - of course there is. The trailer’s lights aren’t responding to the truck’s commands. A mechanic arrives near sunset and replaces the part. A one-hour delay for a five-minute fix.
We get to the apartment after dark to grab the last of our personal things and do one more sweep of the apartment.
OH NO!!! The closet by the front door is full of stuff - coats, boxes of fragile Christmas decorations, fragile China dishes, board games, wedding photos, and other odds and ends.
I offload my truck from the trailer and go to Lowe’s to buy more straps. The U-Haul is fully loaded so everything has to go in the bed of my truck. We carry everything down to the truck and strap it down, then drive the truck back onto the trailer and strap it down once again, hoping all the fragile stuff survives the six-hundred-mile transport. It will also have to sit exposed in two hotels parking lots over the course of two nights.
Fortunately, the first hotel reservation is about an hour outside of Fayetteville, setting us up nicely for the bulk of the drive on day two.
On the road, since I’m driving a fully loaded twenty-six-foot U-Haul truck with a full-size trailer with my fully loaded pick-up truck in tow, I’m limited on where I can stop. Since I’m only driving a maximum of fifty-five miles per hour, Becky has plenty of time to drop into towns to grab food and coffee for us, catch back up, and meet me at the next rest stop.
Since we were unfamiliar with Hopkinsville KY neighborhoods, and the houses we liked and tried to get were sold immediately after being posted to Zillow, we resorted to renting a house for a year. The house was much smaller than our old house and our apartment, so half of our stuff was put in a storage unit.
We offloaded my truck at the house, dropped the trailer off at the U-Haul dealer, went to the church to offload her books and other supplies into her office with the help of one of the members, then back to the house where a proper two-man crew met us at the house and move half our stuff into the it, then followed me to the storage unit to offload the rest.
My focus was on setting up the house - minus the kitchen, she’s better at choosing where thing go in there than I am.
Her focus was on setting up her office - minus building new things she orders and picking up super heavy stuff, that’s my job.
Over time, we settle into home and office, melting into new routines, into this new phase in life.
I’m a sucker for yard sales, always on the hunt for treasures, mostly for quality stereo equipment, speakers, vinyl records, or CDs for cheap.
One beautiful Saturday morning, with the thought of where I’d like to work once we get fully settled in floating around on the back burner of my mind, I found myself in the kind of clean and quiet neighborhood that reminded me of neighborhoods I spent a lot of time working when I owned the window cleaning and power washing business.
Then it hit me - “I don’t have to get a stinking job!” I can resurrect my old business, be in control of my schedule, make a decent living, and have the power to pick and choose my projects.
Having done this from 2005 through 2018 I knew how to get the business license, liability insurance, and where to get my business cards and truck signage made.
You really can find treasures at yard sales.
As with anything, it takes a while to get the wheels moving strong in the business. After spending all the money to get legal and prepared, I was running low on travel funds. I had many calls but had to use a lot of that money on the household budget.
I was planning on postponing the Autumn 2024 trip until autumn of 2025, but know deep down that I wouldn’t want to hike then, mostly because we were planning to buy a house that spring and I’ll want to focus my attention on working and setting it up the way we want it. Plus, that would leave a huge gap in my writings.
I was disheartened and frustrated. Hurley offered to loan me the money. “This is something that needs to be done, and you need to do it now,” she said in a message to me.
Through one of the church members, I land a big window cleaning job - an eighty-six unit assisted living complex. I spent four days working on it and build up plenty of money to travel on.
After weeks of thinking I wasn’t going to hike, it was hard wrapping my head around being able to go. Timing-wise, however, this is the only smart time to do it. This is literally one of those now-or-never scenarios.
Moving back to Kentucky and resurrecting my old business recalibrated my mind by placing me back into the life I was familiar with before the darkest of days surrounded me.
We sometimes have to backtrack to find our way forward.
Thank you for hanging with me throughout this journey. Book Four stories will begin posting on January 4, 2025. It will be the first story of the new year. It will be my 200th post. It will be the beginning of a unique journey; with logistical twists and colorful characters I didn’t see coming but am thankful they did.
I’ll see ya on the 4th.
