Becoming Odyssa - Jennifer Pharr Davis [41]
Standing there dumbfounded, I saw a white pickup truck approaching. I took several steps away from the road and stood aside as it passed. But as it roared by, the loud vehicle began to slow down, and a few dozen yards in front of me, it stopped completely. I wasn’t sure if it had stopped for me or not, and if it had, I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad.
A sturdy man with blond hair stuck his head out the driver’s side window and yelled out, “You need a ride?”
I wasn’t crazy about the idea of climbing into a truck with a man I didn’t know, but I thought maybe he could point me in the right direction.
“Um . . . I’m trying to get to the Appalachian Trail on 19E to meet some friends.”
“Well, that’s a good ways from here, and you’re walking in the wrong direction. But I can take you just up the road to where you can call your friends.”
I knew that I had said no hitchhiking—or rather, my mom had said no hitchhiking—but someone offering me a ride was different than me soliciting one. Right?
Hesitantly, I nodded. “Okay . . . th-that would be great.” I placed my pack in the truck bed and started to climb in the back.
“It’s illegal to ride in the back,” he said. “I won’t bite, I promise.”
I approached the side of the truck and cautiously climbed inside the cab.
Butch, the driver, seemed friendly. He smiled and asked me about the trail, which helped to ease my nerves. However, when he insisted on taking me back to “his place,” I began to second-guess my decision.
“It’s just up the road,” he said. “you can use the phone there for free.”
“Oh, no, really you can just drop me off at a gas station or restaurant or something.”
“Nah, don’t worry about it,” he said. “My place is closer than the nearest gas station, and it should be pretty quiet this morning.”
Quiet? I nervously checked to make sure the passenger door was still unlocked.
Butch continued, “You see, on a Friday or Saturday night there can be a lot of commotion there, a lot of drunk locals with nothing better to do. But today it will just be you and me.”
I slowly moved my hand toward the door handle in case I needed to jump out at a moment’s notice.
When we pulled up to Butch’s Beer Wash, everything made sense. It would have helped put me at ease if Butch had told me from the beginning that he owned a bar.
At Butch’s beer Wash I called Heather, and in the thirty minutes it took her to arrive, Butch fed me breakfast and told me stories from the summer that he had hitchhiked from Tennessee to Alaska.
“So many people were good to me that summer and went out of their way to help me out. Now it’s my turn to help others. I know you have friends near here, but if you need any more help or a ride back to the trail, here’s my number. Just call me and I’ll be happy to help you.”
I felt embarrassed for having been so apprehensive during the car ride. Sure, Butch looked worn and tough, like he was from the remote mountains of Tennessee. But that was who he was: a third-generation Appalachian mountaineer, hardworking, decent, and kind.
The Smiths were lifelong family friends who lived a few miles from the trail in neighboring Banner Elk. Heather was my mom’s friend, and I was better acquainted with her grown children, but I had known the family my whole life and had been looking forward to this visit since I started the trail. And while I had felt a little bit guilty getting off the trail and going home after the Smokies, I had no qualms about spending time with the smiths in Banner Elk.
Before I started the Appalachian Trail, I had decided that this trip was about more than just hiking. Granted, a lot of it was about hiking, but I also wanted to invest in the people and places along the way. Experiencing the towns and cultures en route was just as important to me as my time spent on the trail.
The day I spent in Banner Elk was wonderfully ordinary. It was Sunday, so we went to church, where Heather’s husband, Jeff, was