The AT – Another Chapter Begins

I have to admit, it has been quite a while since I’ve visited my own website. Honestly, what brought me back was trying to figure out something on another site I have been tasked with editing. I was comparing some of the editor features between my site and the other one and trying to get my bearings again since I’ve been so long away from WordPress editing. While visiting my site, the first thing I noticed was several inappropriate comments (no, I don’t endorse off-label Viagra.) As I was dispensing with these spam comments, I noticed several comments that I hadn’t seen before. One asked specifically about Angel and Bullfrog and there were several others offering encouraging words to Hawkeye and me after we ended our hike earlier than planned.

First, let me update you on our trail family. Though we parted ways just a day or so into New Jersey, they continued onward to Kent, CT before they made the decision to leave the trail. Not long after, Angel and Bullfrog were engaged and had planned to be married at an old church in the Cataloochee section of Great Smokey Mountains State Park. They chose this church because Angel’s grandmother had lived nearby and Angel had visited it as a child. As luck would have it, Gavin and I had hiked past this very church in December 2018, while doing a training hike for the AT. They had asked my dear friend Paul Sink to officiate. I thought that was really cool since they didn’t know him from Adam’s housecat other than having met him on the trail the two times he came out to provide trail magic for us and other hikers.

The wedding was planned for May of 2020, and of course, you how that story ended: their reservation for the church in the Smokies was canceled due to COVID. There was a happy ending, however. Paul offered up his scenic backyard pond as a venue for their wedding. Because of distance (FL and KY) and COVID protocols, none of their families were able to attend, but we streamed the wedding live on Facebook for them. On May 25, 2020, with my family and Paul’s famiy as witnesses, Angel became Mrs. Bullfrog and there was much rejoicing.

Angel and Bullfrog moved back to Kentucky to be near his family and we have kept in close touch since. He went back to driving a truck, and at least once a week while he was out on the road, he’d call me to check in. We’ve gotten together a few times in the intervening years, usually when they were heading to Florida to visit her family. I have to say that I was surprised at the news he shared with me in a call 6-8 months ago. He told me that they were going to get back on the trail. Not in Kent, where they left off, but back at Springer Mountain, GA. Angel and Bullfrog want to be thru-hikers, not just 2,000-milers, and that means starting over. This news brings us to today.

This afternoon, Hawkeye and I, with Beth and Griffin, arrived back home safe and sound from our VRBO in north Georgia. This weekend we were able to be together as a family and trail family (tramily,) along with Angel’s mom, to see Angel and Bullfrog off on the next chapter in their lives. After spending Friday night in a rented cabin, Angel’s mom headed back to Florida by way of Mountain Crossings at Neel Gap to drop off the first resupply box, and the rest of us loaded up for the drive up Springer Mountain. By 11:00, after hugs all around and perhaps a few tears, Angel and Bullfrog took their first steps on a nearly 2,200 mile journey toward Mt. Katahdin in Maine. I look forward to hearing from them often as they journey north. I also hope that we’re able to go out and be with them as they come through North Carolina, Tennessee, and southern Virginia to provide encouragement and “real food.” We implore you to send up prayers for a safe and swift journey for them.

Many of the comments I mentioned above had words of encouragement for Hawkeye and me after the disappointment of an aborted thru-hike. We sincerely appreciate those well-wishes, and I’m sad that I didn’t see them before today. Looking back now, a few years later, I can say that we are proud of what we have done. There aren’t many people who can say they put life on hold for six months to walk 1,325 miles. As the comments indicated, we should be proud of our accomplishment, and we absolutely are. But we aren’t settled or content.

You see, when I was just fourteen years old, while completing the application for my Eagle Scout award, I was asked to write an essay on my life’s purpose and goals. I can still remember Rev. Mullis reading part of that essay at my presentation ceremony and saying, in an unbelieving tone, “and he says he wants to hike the Appalachian Trail from Maine to Georgia.” And I do. Not part of it – all of it. Hawkeye does too. And he, like me, like Angel and Bullfrog, wants to be a thru-hiker. This means that we don’t rent a car and drive back up to New Jersey for an 850-mile “finish.” It means that someday Hawkeye and I will be back in Georgia, standing on the summit of Springer Mountain-like we were this weekend as we waved goodbye to our friends-with a really long walk in front of us.