Becoming Odyssa - Jennifer Pharr Davis [63]
Mom was anxious enough about the weather; I didn’t want to add illness to her hysterics. And even though she had completely overreacted about the rainstorm, the call had served its purpose. At least I knew that she was thinking about me.
In a strange way, it almost felt as if the pain in my feet and my nausea were connected, as if my stomach was having a physical reaction to the pain. But after an hour and a half of lying in the shelter, they both felt better.
I called my mom again to see if it was okay to hike to the next shelter. She said no.
An hour later I tried again. She still said no.
Finally, after four hours of waiting and resting, my mom called and said that the rain had passed and I could continue hiking.
Ten minutes past the shelter I heard thunder, and within the hour I was caught in another torrential downpour.
I decided that despite our advances in technology, sometimes in life and on the trail, I was simply better off with the information at hand. I traveled six miles and arrived at Lambert’s Meadow shelter at dusk, soaking wet and cold. I resolved not to let my mom perform any more armchair meteorology.
11
INSPIRATION
TROUTVILLE, VA, TO ROCKFISH GAP, VA—132.3 MILES
The Appalachian Trail leaves Roanoke and crisscrosses the Blue Ridge Parkway on its way to Rockfish Gap. People who drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway like to pull over to check out scenic overlooks and then keep driving. Thru-hikers work harder for the same views and know them more intimately. For a hiker, the prominent peaks are not connected by a road, they are woven together with hardwood forests and meandering creeks. Cold Mountain, The Priest, and Three Ridges each provide glimpses of the lofty Blue Ridge Mountains to the south and the green Shenandoah Valley to the north.
I couldn’t wait to get to Roanoke. The trail doesn’t actually go through Roanoke, it skirts the city on a high ridge and then dives down into the outlying town of Troutville. Pastor Leslie lived in Roanoke, but she was going to pick me up at the post office in Troutville around lunchtime.
I arrived at the post office earlier than expected and immediately went inside to collect a resupply box that I had sent. The mail clerk handed me the box of provisions I had prepared at home, plus another box that was twice as large and oozing something out of the bottom left corner.
I took both parcels outside. I hadn’t anticipated a second package, and when I saw that it was from my college roommates, I didn’t know what to expect—especially since it was dripping orange slime and they had paid thirty dollars to overnight it to Troutville.
When I tore through the wet cardboard, I found one shoebox full of homemade cookies and another full of individually wrapped orange mush that had created a puddle of sticky goo inside the package. Even in their melted state, I still recognized Katie’s sweet potato bars, and I immediately started eating and licking the orange goo off of the plastic wrap.
I loved my college roommates, and I knew that I always would. There was something about surviving such a transitional four years together that made me believe we would always be friends. My mom must have felt the same way, since Pastor Leslie had been her college roommate.
As I took another bite of my sweet potato bar and licked the dripping goo off my hand, I decided that my mom must have been relatively cool growing up, because she had some pretty amazing friends.
When I was a child, I was convinced that Pastor Leslie—which is what I grew up calling her—was just as much my friend as my mother’s. She would play sports with me in the yard, tell me stories that were usually reserved for the older kids, and let me drink Sprite at dinner. As I grew older, I saw Pastor Leslie less, but she remained an influential part of my life. I always wanted updates on what she was doing, and I was captivated by the mission trips she took to serve the sick and poor in Africa.
I never thought it was weird that Pastor Leslie was a white pastor at an African-American church. I had gone to