What Home Means to Me

Over Memorial Day weekend I drove down to Knoxville, Tennessee to see some of my extended family and my beloved Great Smoky Mountains. It was a wonderful trip. I love my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins dearly. I wish that my job allowed me to go see them more often.

Monday was a bittersweet day. I've long said that it's impossible for me to have a bad day when I'm in the Smokies. All troubles evaporate. I feel closer to God in those mountains than I do at any other place or time. I woke up early in the morning, met up with one of my uncles and one of my cousins, and headed for the hills. On the way over, we flew over my favorite road in the world - Tennessee Highway 416 - running right alongside the Little Pigeon River from Sevierville, through Pitman Center, and over to the Greenbriar section of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. (If you ever have a free afternoon and a vehicle that handles well, I highly recommend that you buckle up tight and take this road at about 55 mph.) Once in the park, we tackled the Ramsey Cascades Trail. It's a strenuous climb that rises about 2200 feet over four miles or so, criss-crossing the streams that will emerge as the Little Pigeon River until you reach the very top, where the cascades thunder over a 50-foot cliff. I'll try to post some pictures in a day or so.

So after such an amazing day, how could I consider it "bittersweet"? I had to come back to DC. Don't get me wrong. I love my job and my friends up here. But Monday reminded me (not that I needed too much reminding...) that East Tennessee is where I belong. I'm just not a city boy. As I was driving my pickup truck back up the interstate, winding through the mountains and then through the Shenandoah Valley, I couldn't help but dream about what my life will eventually be - sitting on a porch in a rocking chair on a summer evening with a glass of iced tea, watching the mist rise up off of the mountains and listening to cicadas singing in the trees. It'll happen, eventually. It has to. I can't do this city thing forever.