A secondary search through the pond

You have heard of taking a blue trail, right? Well, I think I took a Blaze Blue a little too far, because I ended up in the United Kingdom!

(For the context, this trip was planned long before I decided to make the path of the Apalaches this year. I had bought tickets for a highly anticipated show at the Bristol racecourse almost a year in advance. So I knew that the trip would come long before I stepped on Springer Mountain).

London

My mother had never been in London before. And as we were flying to the London Heathrow, it felt bad to avoid such an iconic city. So we chose to spend a few days there to overcome our jetlag and see some of the views.

London hit me like a noise brick wall and modern convenience after months of life in the forest. Suddenly, I was sailing the tube instead of the white flames. My greatest daily decision changed where the water would be filling next to whether first for the London Tower or Westminster Abbey. The city was overwhelming in the best possible way. There is so much history and culture full in every corner! And I definitely did not say the coldest temperatures and the inner plumbing. We managed to reach the classic tourist places, but the highlight was our one -day excursion to Dover, where we walked through the white cliffs.

There is something beautifully ironic to leave a hiking route of 2,000 miles to go on an excursion to another place, but Dover’s cliffs were worth it. The views were spectacular, cold marine air was a refreshing change in mountain moisture, and was walking with what seemed like a day full of air on my back.

Hiking in Wales

Wales decided to give us the complete experience of British hiking, also known as all possible climatic conditions within a few hours while walking towards the side of the mountain (I think the changes are illegal in the United Kingdom). We go to the beacons Brecon with great hopes and decent equipment, only to be supplied by the wind and rain that made the storms of the Appalaches look gentle spring showers. My mother, for her credit, took everything easy.

After a funny walk of type 2 correctly miserable above and more of PEN and Fan, the weather cleared when we headed to Fan and Big. The sunset that night was one of those moments that makes you forget every uncomfortable step that took it. There was golden light spilling in the valley. The sun was almost trying to illuminate the magical place that are the beacons. Standing there with my mother, both, the two a little soaked but absolutely triumphant, we feel like the perfect culmination of our Welsh adventure.

Friends + Theater

But, as I mentioned earlier, the real reason for all this detour from the United Kingdom was a show at the Bristol racecourse, which gave me the perfect excuse to visit friends and dress with something more than my wool hiking attire for the night. After months of entertainment that consists mainly in «what is doing that noise in the bushes,» sitting in an adequate theater felt almost surreal. My friends in Bristol were incredibly patients with my stories of trails and only moderately horrified by my tan lines, which had reached really impressive levels of ridicule at this point.

The show was fantastic and it was worth the detour that brought me thousands of miles. When it was time to return to the United States and rejoined me to the path of the Apalaches, I felt renewed in a way that I could not have achieved any amount of zero days. Although it was difficult to say goodbye to family and friends once again, Mama K is calling.

And now it returns to its regularly scheduled programming …

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