from atlanta to the Carolinas! part 2 of tres

i had a lot written and blogger stopped saving it....and started freezing up. i lost all of it so i am rewriting it. that sure is annoying.
I left Atlanta that morning after waking up in that comfy walmart parking lot. Next main destination was some old calvary chapel bible college buddies, Jared and Cassie! They live real close to Greenville South Carolina.
On the way there i will be passing up the beginning of the Appalachian Trail (AT). It officially starts in a town called Dohalonga or something like that and i found a campground called the Amicalola Falls State park which is just 8 miles away from the start of the AT. I was at this point driving up the foothills of the AT. it was great! winding thru the curves of the georgeous Georgia with the colors of Fall beginning to shine their face was a pleasant experience. it was easy to sing aloud in my car with such surroundings screaming life and change! it's what i'm looking for.
I got a camp spot and set up camp. Pictures are currently not downloading to this thing. hopefully they will by the time it's time to post!

my spot

I went for a couple of hikes. I came a cross an amazingly huge praying mantis! i took this as a sign to call out to the Lord. so i mimicked his form and got on my knees and prayed right next to him. i learned my new pose from a praying mantis. it seems so natural. i'm just kidding. i didn't do any of this. all i did was take a couple of pictures. these were some thoughts.

my blurry praying companion

I wanted to pick up this fantastic looking creature. but i didn't. i lacked the knowledge about this critter that would give me the freedom to touch and to handle him intimately. If I had known, i woulda handled him, looked at him closely and admired him from my own hands. he in my world and i in his. but fear, based on my imagination prevented all of this. I imagined in my mind what would happen if i picked him up. maybe he would jab those praying little arms in my eye balls and start sucking out my brain. maybe he would bite my finger. maybe he'd call his other friends and they would all jump on me and suck out all my blood! i had no clue. if i had known that they were harmless creatures in my youth, i had certainly forgotten it at this ripe old age of 31. My relationship to this mantis has been my experience to people and the world around me to some extent. without going into too much detail, as a kind of distant person, being limited in my exposure to different types of people and personalities, i tend to imagine what people are like based on appearance or based on whatever is in my mind. I conjure up untrue ideas about people and how i might be placed in an uncomfortable situation which i want to avoid at all costs. i guess it's something we all do to some extent. we all make judgements on who we spend time with. who we let into our circle. who we open up with. i tend to do it quite a bit. or at least i had the tendency to do it quite a bit. getting close to people, people groups, other religious ideas and learning about them takes the fear away. it's the true knowledge that removes that preconceived false notions i might have had.

Hiking right along.

We are all on some trail in our lives. a spiritual journey. a marriage. an eduction. a personal trial. u name it. it's a path that has a destination. a trail that has been walked on before. a trail that has been blazed before us! those who went before worked hard. They took many of the surprising blows that come with new territory. The trail we are on has been walked on. the sights have been seen. There are people who can tell us the pit falls. the woes. the delights. the struggles. they have wisdom. We can glean from them. We can avoid many of the pitfalls and enjoy many of the delights if we listen. or we can not listen. maybe we have no one to listen to and it seems that we are blazing our own trail. It seems that no one has taken this road before. We feel alone. we feel confused. We don't see a trail to take. we don't know if going left is right, or if going right is right. there is mystery. the truth is that there is a trail just beyond the way. somewhere. we might think we are alone. but we soon will come to a trail where there are others on. They will tell us..."i've been there". They tell us, "it's good what u are going thru". it gives us hope. sometimes we just see the traces of a trail. get a glimpse that some other person had been here before. i don't know how to end this trail story so i'll stop there. =)

this guy was screaming wisdom. or yawning.

moving along. this day was a breakthrough for me. u see....i'd been eating ham and turkey sangwiches for friggin ever for lunch and dinner and cereal for breakfast! all day! every day! this time i had hamburger meat.. and i cooked it.  made a yummazing burger for lunch and some fantastic ramen noodles and hamburger for dinner. mmmmmmm. change it up!

this dog was on the road trip also. too cool.

Steven and his mother Annette (i think)

the night time. chilly. cold. 2am i was awoken by the sound of HARLY'S. two of them. and they didn't turn off their engine..i don't know why. the next morning i went for another hike and then came back to tear down camp and wash my laundry. i saw the harly davidson bikers. they looked cool. their bikes were loaded with gear like that were travelling bikers going across the country. they looked fairly young. a cute young woman and a handsome young man. I was curious. i rode over to them on my motorless cycle and asked what they were about and what they were doing. the young man replied, "my name is steven and this is my mother". whoa. his momma looked young. anyhow. their story is pretty neat. he just graduated with a construction engineering degree and can't find work in this economy with that degree and  his mom has the time......so they bought some bikes and are taking a road trip all the way from Florida to New Hampshire hitting up the sights and seeing some of the beautiful parts of creation. Mom and son! touring the country. i thought it was cool. i called my mom and told her we will do this one day! =)

the place of my new found short hair do.

I left the campground. (this takes forever to write this stuff... ugh=)  off to South Carolina! i stopped to get my hairs cut by a neat sweedish woman.  

My friends. it was good to catch up with them. They were very hospitable. have two beautiful boys and a girl on the way. due in just a couple of weeks! Leaving their house, Cassie loaded me with yummy goodness! even some meat that i haven't eaten yet. ha! but i will soon enough when i have the chance! hopefully i wont get sick. it's been 1 week since i recieved this yummness! (i tried posting a pic of their beautiful family.. but it's just not loading now, maybe it was not meant to be. =)

Wednesday night i went looking for a place to dance. swing dance that is. u should go do it. it's a clean and fun type of dance. i hadn't danced in a while. so i found this bar that was doing "shag" dancing. i don't know what that is. i got there a bit early and when i walked in to this place i realized this was an older crowd. i seemed to be the youngest person in the room. they ranged from 40-60ish. talk about out of place. i wanted to leave.... but what the heck. i'm not trying to pick up a chick or nothing. i just wanted to dance. i went to the closest person to me and made some small talk. she was older and she was kind enough to introduce me to some other men (which is more uncomfortable for me, men intimidate me, but what the heck...u can't lose with bullshit small talk). i talked to this philipino guy. he was very blunt. when he found out that i was single he said something like this.

"why u don't have wife? i have some good hard working girls u might like. They work as accountants and engineers. i can give u their email. u can talk on email and when u like eachother more than friends u can get a marriage visa and bring them here to marry them. great young women. what is your number. or i can give u their email. (pulling out pen)."

ha! he was trying to hook me up with Philipina women. too funny. i kindly declined. i did ask him to show me how to do the shag. so we stood up and he showed me. it was kinda confusing. slightly different that my normal 6 count swing move, but close enough. he then said,

"There's a woman, go ask her to dance. What are u waiting for? she's just sitting there. go dance with her"

ha! this guy! quite pushy. well. it was what i needed though. i was quite intimidated by the quality of these peoples dancing and thought i might make a fool of myself. But man...let me tell ya. i felt like the sh*t out there. all these old folks were looking at me. the lady i danced with said i was good. when i got back to my chair, the philipino guy (whom i forgot his name) said. "ur better than me, u are real good, what are u doing telling me u can't dance? u know what u are doing!" this guy cracked me up. He then said, "look theres another woman. go ask her to dance! she's by herself. go dance with her.!!"
i said, "(name), ur a little too fast for me.. hang on man... let me take a breath." i needed this push though. it's what got me going to do what i wanted to do.. but was fearful to do. so after the song finished i went up to the cutest woman in the room. i was extremely intimidated.  she looked closer to my age. i don't knwo when she snuck in. she looked 25-35 ish.. but i was guessing about young 40s. i went up to her and asked her if she would like to dance. she said, "i just want to say i don't know the shag, i know west coast swing". i said, "thats great, i don't know the shag either. but i do know the east coast swing". we didn't know the difference. so we went for it. we got to talking and she has a 24 year old and another one right on up there. she was 48! what is it with these young looking older women. they are very deceptive.
That was that adventure. i had to leave early to get to cassie and jareds house before it was too late. i snuck in 5 or 6 dances with 3 different women. well worth the free price.

earlier in the day i hit up the local greenville downtown. this too was pretty. no convos though. here's some pics.

I crashed my final night there with my friends and left for North Carolina where i know some more bible college people and also to meet an old business connection from Amcon, my former job. Christy!
(to be continued)