Prima Fauna and The Gold Sedan
After waking up from a dream that I was friends with Buffy the Vampire Slayer who kept trying to get me to work retail in a tiny glass box at her wedding while Xander tried to seduce me but I wouldn’t go with him because I didn’t have my contacts in and then we all fought off a zombie invasion with Giles, Willow, and Kendra, the other Slayer, I headed up to Clingman’s Dome for day three of location scouting.
The drive to Clingman’s Dome is a windy, single lane road with speed limits posted between 25 and 35 mph. And yet… the Gold Toyota Sedan at the head of the two dozen vehicle caravan was going, on average, 20 mph. Slower around curves. Not dramatic curves. Just. Any. Curve. And 10mph through the 20-ft long tunnel. Yesterday I crossed a 30-ft stream faster than that on foot. Now, don’t get me wrong, the drive is gorgeous, but I had plans for my the next 20 years that didn’t involve going to prison for vehicular homicide and I really didn’t want to have to change them.
Was this performance art? Was some deity trying to tell me to slow down and enjoy the journey? If so, they were doing a miserable job of it. 60 minutes, much cursing, and a lot of Santigold later a gaggle of impatient drivers reached Clingman’s Dome:
Clocking up at 6,643 feet, Clingman’s Dome is the highest peak in the park. I hiked the steep half mile from parking lot to peak, which is capped by a kind of weird, alien, concrete monstrosity that people climb to get… even better views than those from the mountain they’re already on top of? IDK. People are weird. But I found a spot along that trail that will work for performance so yay! Side note: I did break a fence that I was using to stretch my legs out and about fifty people saw me do it. I’d’ve taken a picture but I panicked and put it back together as fast as I could. Here’s a rendering of the observation tower instead:
On my way down to the parking lot I met Ben, a google trekker who is mapping trails with a fifty pound camera on his back:
Back in my car, I breezed down the road toward home and stopped at Newfound Gap to check out the monument and the views. I pulled out of the parking lot and back onto the road behind a Gold Toyota Sedan.
No. NoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNo. How is that even possible?! Clearly I didn’t learn whatever lesson I was supposed to learn on the drive up so I spent another chunk of my life in purgatory watching the cars whiz past me in the opposite direction while I wondered in a Becketian fashion why I didn’t leave that stupid monument 10 stupid seconds stupid earlier.
After 45 minutes I couldn’t take it anymore so I stopped for an impromptu hike. I pulled into a parking spot at The Chimney’s and set off for the peak. And oh am I glad that I did.
There’s a certain feeling that comes with hiking to the top of a mountain that I can only describe as the feeling you get when you see a friend you haven’t seen in a while and it’s like you never left each other. Waiting for me at the top of that rocky summit was a simplicity of feeling that I rarely experience in city life. It was like waking from a dream where you’re being chased by zombies to find that you are in fact a goddess on Mt. Olympus with not a care in the world. The sun was shining, a bird was hopping around near my feet, an orange and black butterfly stretched it’s wings by my fingertips and a large black bird swooped overhead casting shadows on the mountains. Bumblebees buzzed in my ears the scent of earth and Azaleas lingered in my nostrils. The peak was nestled in among the other peaks in the valley creating a perfect elixir of vistas and a kind of sheltered coziness. I sat like that for a long while.
The view from the chimney top: https://youtu.be/XRJtCJufLU8
After two years of graduate school focused on breath and gaze it’s easy to forget that these things come naturally to us. When the air is fresh and clean it’s impossible not to take deep breaths. Whatever tension I carry in my chest, whatever resistance to breathing deeply the compressed air of a basement studio or the exhaust fumes along Girard Ave, it doesn’t exist in the mountains. Out here, breathing deeply doesn’t make me want to cry, it makes me want laugh. So I did. I sat up on top of that mountain giggling until I was so sunburnt that I had to come down lest I start to regret every decision I ever made in my life that led me to that point.
As I climbed down to the wooded portion of the trail I stopped to observe two little birds and a baby brown squirrel who were paying me no mind. They weren’t the least bit skittish. They were just living their lives, eating bugs and nuts and flitting or scurrying off as they chose. Harmony, I thought. We are all of us, big and small, occupying the same space with peace and prosperity.
Obsquirrelvations: https://youtu.be/UlMjrffThk4
Lost in thoughts of a gentler world, I almost didn’t notice the stranger at the side of the trail:
Fortunately, the family of five standing on the other side of her taking pictures caught my attention. They continued down the trail in the direction I was headed but I was stuck behind the bear, who was slowly moving toward me, meandbearing through the woods: https://youtu.be/kvcWif-TOcA
Honestly, it was about the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. I understand why people want to feed them. They’re so cuddly! That wobbly little butt? Come on. Don’t tell me you don’t want to curl up with that little bit of a thing to watch a movie and nosh on popcorn tonight.
Eventually she passed to the other side of the path, peered out at me through a break in a bush, and then bumbled her way up into the woods. When I got down to the bridge just below the bear sighting the family of five was waving at me. They’d waited to make sure I got past okay. Southern hospitality.
I headed home, took a shower, and immediately began to regret every decision I ever made in my life that led me to this point. My arms were cherry red and stinging like mofos but thanks to years of paleness induced trial and error, I knew I had options. First, I took Ibuprofen. Then I went out and bought a head of lettuce to put over the burns to draw out the heat. I learned this one from that time I forgot to put sunscreen on the backs of my legs and went out surfing. I got some weird looks from people passing me in the parking lot while I applied lettuce leaves to my shoulders but when your arms are being attacked by invisible bees you don’t much care about social norms.
When I got home I applies compresses of apple cider vinegar. I’d just like to take a moment here to give a shout out to ACV. Is there anything this stuff can’t cure? I got turned onto it when I had a never ending sinus infection a few years ago and have worshiped it ever since. Sure enough, the compresses cut down on the stinging by about 90%. It’s one drawback is that it’s too odiferous to sleep with so I put on some after-burn spray and cortizone cream, which are only mildly helpful, but the ACV had done the trick and I was able to fall asleep without too much trouble.
