IV

As if it was some kind of strange sarcastic twist on our personalities, Molly and I met in a McDonald's.

Molly and Me in the Tulip Tree, no idea of what lie ahead

The context of that chance meeting makes the scenario more relevant to who we are. A friend had organized a night hike trip up Old Rag Mountain in Virginia's Shenandoah National Park. Our lodging for the weekend was a rustic hike-in cabin called the Tulip Tree and so our large group needed to meet someplace. With a large lot, bathrooms, and hot food, McDonald's in New Market, VA was the best rendezvous we could come up with.

In a completely un-romantic scene, I walked out of the McDonald's men's room shaking my hands dry and was introduced to the woman I would eventually marry. It was Friday, April 6, 2007.

Four cruises around the sun and now we're in a wildly different scenario.

Yesterday I was able to pull off an evening not unlike something I'd be doing four years ago. As if I had all the time in the world and nobody waiting for me at home, I rushed off to go paddling right after teaching a 3:30 lecture. It was just me, and when I got to the take-out of Fike Run just north of the WV border, I met up with essential strangers. I'd communicated with two of my partners for the day via email/facebook, nothing more. After quick salutations we loaded boats to a single vehicle and off we went. "Fikes" is a very tight but gentle stream with a handful of steep rapids worthy of a class 4 rating. It's particularly beautiful, lined with rhododendron and evergreens; a lush, green corridor within the morose brown-black woods of the PA winter. A short time after putting on the creek, we were hit with a short, powerful snowstorm, and within an hour of that, the sun was out, brightly reflecting off the riffles and blinding us. The contrasts remarkably gave me a taste of many of the finer moments that paddling secluded stretches of whitewater can provide, and more so than I'd expected in a single river trip. 

It wasn't perfect, though. The incredible place where I'd found myself on Fike Run yesterday evening would not have been possible without scores of strategically more difficult river trips over several years, as well as thousands of dollars in gear and the logistical planning of several other similarly equipped boaters. I even had to carry my heavy boat a half-mile through the woods. But, in a complicated mess of emotions, responsibilities, and conflicts, it just wasn't perfect. I though of Otis and Indie asleep in their cribs at home. I reminisced about Sugar Creek, the class 1 stream I paddled with Molly a few weeks ago, and considered this coming weekend's canoeing opportunities. I remembered Carl, my friend who drowned six months ago while paddling a different remote stream. Because of Carl's incident, I admired the water,

Hiking into Fikes

boulders and trees for their entrapment potential, and then had to remind myself to admire them for their perfect natural coexistence. I ran the creek twice, got off the river just as visibility was fading for the evening, and was changed into my street clothes before anybody else had even unzipped their drysuits.

I remember boating with people like me, when I was more like them. I told myself that my priorities would never change, that exploring the natural world and the human capacity within that world would always remain at the top of my list. What I didn't know, however, was that a few years of maturity and experiences doing the exploring with a partner would change the definition. Now I have three partners. The priority is still there. It just happens differently now. And, I won't stop paddling whitewater, it's just that my style has changed.

When addressing the Old Rag hiking group four years ago, our organizer for the weekend had

Mid-hike transfer, Red Creek/Rorbaugh Plains, Dolly Sods, 2009

referred to me as "Moses" since I was going to be leading the group of young Jews on the night hike.

There is no bad weather: Pulling Indie in her sled.

The only trace of my existence Molly had been made aware of before that meeting was through two emails that I'd sent to the entire group. In one of those emails, I mentioned that "There is no bad weather; only bad clothing," a line that has stuck with us.

Despite being imperfect, my day on Fike Run was instead perfectly timed. It was a gentle reminder of what life was like "living the dream," a bachelor's life in the whitewater Mecca of Morgantown, WV, exploring the rivers and mountains nearly every day of the week. This time I drove home to my family, and that beats the pants off my lonely loft apartment in Morgantown.

This morning, I presented Molly with her anniversary gift. It is the anniversary of a wonderful coincidental meeting that changed both of our lives forever. It wasn't a date we picked because it was best for a wedding venue or for guests' schedules; it was chance. The gift was a canoe paddle that she'll use on Sunday and on every other canoe trip we take and embossed on the blade, next to her initials, is the leaf of the Tulip Tree.

Git r dun