Wildacres Day 14 / Mount Pisgah Day 1

View from the Wildacres patio.

Saturday, July 13, 2013, is the day I said good-bye to my dear, dear friends at Wildacres.
I had been meditating every morning at 7 a.m. with Marci. This morning I overslept. I was sound asleep in my bed when I began to hear a voice downstairs calling my name.
"James, James? Is James here? Has anyone seen James?"

I stumbled out of my door, and there was Marci, who was very concerned that something had happened to me. Her concern touched me deeply. I got dressed and caught up with Marci at breakfast. We decided to go meditate together after breakfast. Then we hugged and cried. In less than two weeks, she and I had become close personal friends. It was beautiful.




Marsha, James, and Marci, after a Wildacres hike.

There were many tearful hugs this morning. The depth of connection we felt shocked me. I didn't make friends with all 90 writers on the mountain, but I certainly felt close to about half of them, and extraordinarily close to a few. I will always treasure my friendships with  Will, Victoria, Janna, Marci, Marsha, Linda, Carol, Eli,  Radha, Bridget, Fasil, Bo, and so many more.

It was damp, foggy and rainy as I left Wildacres and headed south on the Blue Ridge Parkway toward Mount Pisgah.

*  *  *

... Driving south on the Blue Ridge Parkway, I found the fog just got thicker and thicker as I approached Mount Mitchel.
And then--suddenly--a "ROAD CLOSED" sign in the middle of the Parkway. So I turned around, gave my Parkway map to some confused motorcyclists, and found my way down the mountain to Asheville.

I arrived at the Mount Pisgah campground around 3 p.m. I was able to select the same site where I camped last summer. It was upgraded and improved over the winter, so the new tent platform was high and dry, despite two weeks of wet weather. I walked around the campground and had a nice talk with the park ranger, who has a Mazda Miata even older than mine. We exchanged stories about the joy of driving a Miata in these mountains.

I left a note with the campsite number for my son Brandon, who was working the night shift at the Pisgan Inn. (In the morning, he told me he had found the site at 10 p.m., but he heard me snoring and decided not to wake me.)