This occurred back in June, when I went to Florida for a week with my family.
[Note: I began to write this post immediately after returning from Florida, but I got distracted and never finished. Here follows what I had written:]
My journey by SUV to Panama City Beach, Florida, made me gulp back some misgivings about this plan. Somewhere in Alabama, under the feeble shade of a gas station’s pumps, beside a road paralleled by strips of powdered dust, I realized two things:
1. It was hot. Ridiculously hot, and we still had miles upon miles of southbound travel ahead.
2. It was flat and shadeless, like a desert.
Now, I’m no stranger to warm climates. Yes, I’ve hiked in the jungle. Cambodia is about as flat and desert-like as you can get, complete with dusty, barren plains of cracked earth. Malaysia was hot and humid, but climate changes are like jumping into cold water. No matter how used to it you are, you never jump in and go, “That’s not cold at all!” It’s always cold for that first minute until you get used to it, and no amount of practice takes that away.
So while I was confident I could adapt to the heat, there was that pang of dread: I know what this is like, and it’s gonna take some getting used to.
Having arrived at our condo, I got in the pool. Then I went to the beach.
THE OCEAN
That first glimpse of the ocean as I passed the row of hotels blocking the view was magical. So flat, like the land all the way from the Florida border, but more completely so. Like the flat land, but without a bush, curve, building or car. And boundless. A few ships shimmered in the far distance, some miles away, but beyond the first hundred yards of waves and swimmers, nothing. Just water, a water that spans the world.
[Now I'm writing from more distant memory]
The first night we arrived was a Saturday night. There wouldn’t be another one for me in Panama City, so I had to make it count. I put on my dancing clothes and took a long walk by the beach — to Club LaVela, the largest nightclub in the United States.
LA-VELA-LOCA
I would recommend this club to anyone. There is a large room for live music; not my thing, but to each his own. There is a huge pool area to escape the beats (why would anyone want to do that? But again, I’m noting the variety). There are dance floors for just about every kind of music, and the main room plays very danceable samples of top songs.
There was also a House room, appropriately decorated with gothic furniture and splashes of vampire-red upholstery, plus the occasional leopard-print. There is a bed, stripper pole, and large, framed photos of nude women on the walls. This room, perfectly named the Pussykat Lounge, is staffed by 1. smart attendants in suits, as opposed the usual janitorial or riot police-look of club bouncers (think more secret service, right down to the earpieces) and 2. a DJ spinning high-BPM, vocal-free House tracks that send you into a trance of ecstasy — so this place was basically designed for me. Breakdancing ensued.
It was to be in the House room that I met two guys who popped like me, and we ended up, without really talking to each other, moving around the club together all night rocking out and making everyone else look terrible by comparison. Our trio was diverse; I was the Caucasian complement to one black and one Asian. We could have been an example in a textbook. These guys were dancers after my own heart: there for the pursuit of the beats, for the craving of the music, for the swoon of hours of dancing dehydrated and hot.
Now let me pause to explain something. Once upon a time, when I was young and dumb (I’ll pause for you to laugh), I thought that women, like men, would be impressed by physical feats, like when we were all children. Surely what they want most in a mate is not financial stability, not a comfortable lifestyle, not compliments, not a shoulder to cry on, not empathy, not flowers. No. Don’t women want a guy who can do backflips and cross monkey-bars well? So, I reasoned at the time, since I immensely enjoyed breakdancing and would be doing it in their vicinity, surely girls would be attracted to my moves and come rushing up to dance with me when I bounded up on both feet from spinning on the floor. Well, that dream died years ago in Knoxville. Something about a man rolling on the floor just doesn’t get women hot. Clearly they are all crazy. It works in Atlanta for some reason, and apparently in Florida. So you can imagine my surprise when I danced with two extremely pretty girls, who sought me after after I did some breakdancing sets in the main room.
There was a remarkably high concentration of attractive young ladies at this club, and the smiles and compliments exchanged between myself and many more of them would have made the night worthwhile even had the music sucked, which it most certainly did not.
I also won the admiration of a house gogo girl who was the perfect mix of amazingly fit, pretty, and skilled at dancing. Self-esteem = +12.
Another reason I loved this club: it stays open late, 3 or 4 a.m. as I remember. When I had soaked all my clothes with sweat and danced to a hundred great tracks, when the club thinned out and the drunks got handed over to the asphalt, when I was filled to my eyebrows with endorphins and bliss, I got a shot of Bailey’s (one drink included in cover, you see), I got a cab, and I slipped back into our rented condo to sleep like a baby.
That’s another club in this world I have gotten to experience, and not just experience, but take over. Clearing the floor and taking the spotlight has always been a thrill for me, and in a town without many breakers, I could tell it was appreciated. I don’t just want to be there, I want everyone to know I’m there, because I want to offer something, I want to take it up a notch, I want to be free when I’m dancing to show others it can be done.
The life of adventure isn’t about being a spectator of the world, it’s about seeing the stage set by a dance club’s platforms, a mountain peak, an ocean wave, a snowy slope, and getting on that stage. It’s about experiencing the world, not just looking up at it.
I’ve never jived with the crowd who thinks on nightclubs as seedy stains on the service economy, on par with biker bars, billiard clubs, and strip joints. Churches may see a perfect world as free of all nightclubs, but in my world, there would be a whole lot more.
Club LaVela is a great establishment, one that helps people escape the workaday routine of being mortals and create moments of perfection to be remembered forever. For by day we may work, eat and drink, and succumb to fatigue, but at night we may become filled with power, we are beautiful and strong creations totally complete, that seize boundless bliss, if even for a few hours. People go there to get everything they want more deeply than survival. Connection to others without words or prejudice, sparks of excitement between the sexes, harmony with the tune and the beat that shakes the building — it is a place to answer with our fellow man the call that beckons us to just move, enjoying our bodies and our lives.
I’ve got a new favorite club in Knoxville. I guess it’s technically a lounge, but this place has big ambitions, and I hope it succeeds. It is the nicest place I’ve danced in a long time.
Sobu is a restaurant on Kingston Pike that looks like any other, except slightly more upscale. Bearden Hill is not exactly known for its club scene, but this hidden treasure is what I’ve been waiting for.
WHY IT’S SO GREAT
1. The dance floor is small, but CLEAN. Two Friday nights there, and I’ve seen one dribble of liquid hit the floor. For a breakdancer, a dry floor is a must. Clean is better than big; clean is better than well-attended. This place makes the Valarium look like a frat house in the Fort. No immature college kids with low alcohol tolerances fresh off the parental leash to be seen.
2. The dance floor is the correct amount of slickness vs. grip. Not too rough, not too smooth. Perfect.
3. $5 cover charge. Reasonable. No one hassles you to buy drinks.
4. It’s located far from the strip and the comparative inconvenience of downtown parking. There’s a parking lot at the restaurant/lounge, so the door is 20 paces from the car, instead of 4 blocks. As an added bonus it’s about 5 minutes drive from my front door.
5. They serve sushi until midnight at the restaurant, connected by an outside smoking patio with heaters. Good sushi. The kind of sushi you should go try on Tuesdays or Thursdays when it’s half price and no less generously filled with actual meat.
6. The bar has sake. Most clubs do not. They have premium sake too, hot and cold. This, as well as the whole Asian theme, draws in a large well-dressed Asian crowd of regulars. You know there’s going to be people there.
7. No dress code. The Valarium is denying entry to ladies in tennis shoes, as if they want to dance! How dare they! I’m sick of these pretentious clubs in Atlanta and New York repeating the same old mantra: “No hats, no jerseys or sports gear of any kind, no sneakers, no shirts without collars,” and the worst phrase of all, “Dress to impress.” Please. When is somebody going to open a place worth its salt and say, “Dance to impress. This is a DANCE club.” Because what the other guys are saying is, “Stand around, buy lots of drinks, gawk at girls who are already taken, and drive home pasted. Oh, and make sure you wear your Sunday best while you’re in the nastiest place you’re likely to visit this week, where the liklihood of spills, falls, and rubbing up against sweaty strangers is at its highest.” It’s bad enough multimillion dollar venues in Atlanta are doing this dress-to-impress thing, but Knoxville? Seriously, we’re not that big or great a city. No club here should be that arrogant. I saw a guy in Sobu wearing a reflective metallic mask, black hoodie, camo pants with boots, and a backpack equipped with strobe lights. That’s what I want to see (I’m completely serious). Breakdancers need skull caps to do headspins, sweat bands, shirts we don’t mind to ruin after a few months. Elbow pads and knee pads help to. Nobody tells ballet dancers they have to wear loafers and sport coats. And back to the guy in the mask. Some people are no doubt a bit frightened of this, but I tell you from experience you’ll have a better time dancing in some spikes and leather with chains BDSM club than in some painfully mediocre jeans with sport coats club where fat guys flash their cash to a bunch of college girls right out of a sorority rush. The weirdos aren’t that scary. Average everyday pride, smugness, and desire to fit into the right crowd is what we should avoid. Okay, so some ravers MAY be on MDMA and cocaine at the same time; at least they can dance. And that, in my book, makes them more human than the Jagerbomb and Patron crowd.
8. Good seating. Couches arranged comfortably for groups. The U-shaped couch arrangements with low tables are kind of a like a dugout for the tired dancer.
9. Better music. Electronica, House, Drum and Bass. Enough said. Few top 40 radio songs, hip hop beats slower than a geriatric turtle, or F word-filled G rap. The DJ at Sobu has my compliments, and between you and me, I have very good taste.
10. Reputation. Sobu is the latest venture of a successful chain of great eateries. Soho cafe in Western Plaza was my favorite restaurant when I was a freshman. It at once impressed me by serving Oolong by the pot at an appropriate temperature (If you have to sip with a slurp to avoid burning your tongue, it’s too hot; if you can take a full gulp or two right out of the pot, it’s correct. If the tea is left in the pot to stew, go somewhere else). Now the owner has expanded to create more top-notch restaurants, this being, I believe, the first lounge. These guys know how to run a tight ship and stay in the game.
11. In journalism school, you learn never to leave a list at 10. It’s always “13 ways to impress your boss” or “51 kids Halloween costumes” or “22 hot vacation spots on a budget.” I want you to feel like you’re getting more. So we’ll call this one the X factor. Sobu just feels great. Check it out.
Also, I’ll likely be at their New Year’s Eve party, so if any of you want to persuade me to join an adventure in person, be there.
I love being in the spotlight, right? I love giving speeches, performing in front of crowds, publishing my life online. Dancing always gives me great opportunities to be the center of attention. I like it when everyone in a dance club is watching me spin around.
Thanks to Rob Baldus’s posting of a youtube video, some bboys got noticed by the production people working for the University of Tennessee basketball teams. UT got in touch with Rob, who put them in touch with one of the dancers. And guess what? Someone thought to put me on the court too. Now that’s what I’m all about. Getting notice in a big club is great, but what about a stadium? I joined the newly formed crew Concrete Angels. I started practicing with them and got the awesome opportunity to dance for the fans at halftime.
Two friends and I got boxed seats along with the rest of the crew. They motioned us down about 10 minutes before the half so we could warm up backstage, courtside. I wasn’t nervous in the least. I felt exhilerated and ready to rock, and the feeling didn’t wear off. Here’s how it looked at the women’s game on Dec. 1, as well as at the men’s game on Dec. 2. Enjoy!
Perhaps this is just the beginning for Concrete Angels.
WHERE’S THE PARTY?
I’m right here, typing this message to you. In the street dancing world, one must have an alternate name. Some people try to be all serious with their bboy name. I decided to pick one that reflects my personality. So I’m The Party. Not “a party.” The Party. Don’t stop The Party. Right now The Party is at a house in West Knoxville. Later The Party will be at the gym. Most people have already made the switch. Please feel free to address comments to me in such a manner. The Party will be at dance clubs around Knoxville if you’re in need of entertainment.
It was by Facebook that I learned Saturday was to be DJ Slink’s last show before his departure for Japan. I can only hope the information is false. Though, if I had the chance to go to Japan, I would take it in a heartbeat, so if Knoxville’s best DJ is going there, I would rather him go for his own sake.
It was a strange occurrence that Saturday I did my arcade crawl and then later went to the Valarium. You see, my first entertainments in Knoxville were found during my freshman year at UT, and I recreated this Saturday.
I didn’t know anyone in Knoxville much when I arrived for college, and I seldom left campus, being a dorm student. I met a young couple who were into the dance scene. I think it was they who started my habit of leaving campus on Saturdays (which involved a long walk to my garage-parked car) and driving to West Town Mall to play Dance Dance Revolution. It was also they who took me out to a dance club for my first experience therein.
We went to the Boiler Room, an after-hours club that stayed open till around 6 a.m. I remember the wonder of walking to my campus dorm in the bright morning hours of Sunday, ready to collapse from exhaustion as others were just yawning from their beds. The club world took me in instantly, and I became a frequenter of Fiction and the Boiler Room, both houses to Slink. I remember back then how incredibly shy of dancing I was. I had a few tricks but no style and inhibitions that kept me from letting go. Well, that didn’t last long.
My how things have changed. Now I don’t mind walking into any club and being alone on the dance floor. I don’t mind being the only one to breakdance. In fact, I’m more bold in such a case. My dancing now is almost unrecognizable from those days, and I go fully into the stream of music. I have been cheered and pressed upon by sexy beauties in New York and Atlanta, lifted to platforms above the dance floor in Thailand and hailed by strangers with compliments practically everywhere I have danced.
Saturday was full of realizations, and it made me remember my humble beginnings in this city.
I had been to old haunt of the Dance Dance Revolution chamber in West Town Mall earlier. This caused me to reminisce. The bleachers, the counting of coins, the sweaty visits to the water fountain …
I had invited many to go to the Valarium with me, but only one showed, the incomparable Mike Farcasin, who has adventured with me before. This was also appropriate because in my freshman year, I often went to the dance club alone, even when I stayed out until sunrise (we really need an after-hours club again). I got there very early and took in the scene, another old habit of mine. I had done it to beat the crowds, but I realized later how perfectly right this was given my former nature; I used to show up hours before others because I was ready to start. I am now single, which I always was in my earliest dancing adventures. And now, as then, I cared nothing for the female traffic to the club. I truly do, though some may find it hard to fathom, go out for the experience of the dance itself, in lights and music and a swarm of young humanity.
The difference was on the dance floor. My well-known breakdancing associates appeared on cue, and as DJ Slink took over the stage, we let fly our well-trained combinations. With ease and confidence I let my body fly and my sweat pour. As the night wore on, I seemed to gain energy, and at the last (around 3:15 a.m.) I was still dancing. Slink saved his fastest-paced tracks till the end, when the greater part of the uncaring crowd had left. This I was familiar with, and with the sensation of being about to keel over from heart failure. It is agony and simultaneous bliss to push myself so far in the cardio world, dancing hot and fast to increasing intensity after hours of breakdancing, but just before I thought I’d explode, the music stopped.
When the lights came on, I was all smiles, and so was Mike, a true companion to the end. I went to the stage and shook DJ Slink’s hand, with a parting, “Thanks, man. Good luck.”
“I’ll see you around,” he replied.
That is the way of the dance world when pursued as an art and not a society. This man whom I’ve shared a club with for countless nights, whom I’ve danced in view of for nearly 6 years, who helped shape my taste in music, who was as familiar to me as every other common sight in the club, could well be leaving the scene not to return. But all the space and time we’ve shared is a relationship in its own right, without need for names, or conversation, or personality at all. It is the powerful combination of light, music and human movement together, the thing of club dancing itself that I have the relationship with, and he and I are no more to one another than sharers in and lovers of one art. And for that, there is no shallow depth of feeling or emotion. So our mutual history is a strong one, from 5 a.m. in the Boiler Room in 2003 to the Valarium in 2009 two have grown in an art under the same roof, and so it takes few words to say goodbye fittingly to a true friend, whose loyalty never needed questioning or affirmation, that was unencumbered by personality or common interaction.
That is why dance is “my world,” not just the freedom of forests and cliffs. In the world of clubs and nightlife we are free to appreciate others in a spectrum quite unlike that of daily society, with an unrefined natural quality that human conventions can shatter. Art to art, rather than face-to-face, without words, without sharing meals. No negative quality need be assessed, no philosophy, no appointments. Art to art, that is all. Relationships like that, which I share with other breakdancers, bouncers and more, are of another plane; they are priceless in quality, yet easy to let go of, because the art of our world goes on with new participants, new venues, new DJs, new dancers. And we are all part of it, and I love it, that essence at the heart of the dance which is greater than the sum of all it takes to create it.
So to DJ Slink, I give a wish that he fare well, and not because I know anything about him. But I know him in the other world, the primal world, where he is only the mixer of the music I dance to, without all the burdensome complexities and errors normal to our human condition. So I have nothing but good to think of him; I will always remember him with respect, and I won’t be sad in the least that he is elsewhere persuing the same art, while I do the same wherever I might be.
Well, friends, it seems I’ve let myself get behind on the blog. I’ve gone from an entry every few days to none in several weeks. It’s not that I haven’t been doing exciting things; it’s that I have had so many adventures I haven’t had time to post them. Now I’m too far behind to give each a full post, so I’m going to recap them here briefly in my first Adventure Reports, which will give brief descriptions of my latest adventures with whatever media I might have acquired. Some might turn out to be as detailed as full posts, but as I have limited time, I will cram them all into this entry.
Here’s what I’ve been up to lately. Enjoy!
ATLANTA – HERBAL MEDICINE AND CHINESE DRESSES
Monica and I took a trip to Atlanta recently. We wanted to do a whole lot of adventuring, but we got a late start and had to improvise. Despite difficulties getting everything crammed in, we did spend plenty of time in the Buford Highway corridor, a multi-ethnic community near downtown.
Our search was for traditional Chinese medicine, and we found plenty. We visited Fortune Herbs and Cindy’s Herbs, and we acquired quite a bit. I have a book called Chinese Natural Cures, more of an encyclopedia than an instruction manual. It has detailed descriptions of many herbs. I’ve used it to purchase medicines in Atlanta before, but I got some new things to try. Perhaps I’ll write about them in the future.
Rainbow Fashion is a store I’d seen before but never really explored. While I was still inside Fortune Herbs, Monica did some looking around at Chinese dresses. We ended up spending some time in there, narrowing the field until we found the perfect dress, an outfit that Monica was to wear to the club that evening. I wish I had pictures. It was stunning and not your typical club outfit. Being a male, I typically don’t enjoy sitting around clothing stores waiting for a female in the dressing area to try on 5 different styles, but as shopping goes, I have never enjoyed myself more. We really did make an exceptional purchase.
ATLANTA – ROYAL CHINA RESTAURANT
Usually, my trips to Buford Highway lead me invariably to Canton House, a Hong Kong style banquet restaurant. Truly, I have never once been to the restaurant on a Saturday when there wasn’t a Chinese wedding reception being held. I guess every elder-respecting Chinese couple in the region obeys the Canton-House-reception rule. Like most Westerner ones, overseas Chinese weddings are more for the sake of parents and appearances than for the sake of a couple’s identity together. But wedding jokes aside, it certainly is the gold standard for Chinese fare in the city.
But Canton House’s usual Saturday evening reception party was too big to allow the customary 10 tables or so for average Joneses, or average Lius for that matter. So Monica and I went to Royal China Restaurant, where we ate my favorite of all foods: dim sum. Lo mai gai, or lotus leaf rice; char siu baau, a steamed bread dish and har gau, a wrapped shrimp dish were on the menu. I stayed as true as I could to my vegetarian ways, letting Monica eat the meat and woofing down the lotus leaf rice, but if there is a temptation anywhere in the meat world for me, its dim sum. You don’t live in a Hong Kong as long as I did without pining for a dim sum meal with oolong tea whenever it’s available. If we’d gone to Canton House, I could have enjoyed one of the best deserts in the world: ma lai gou, Malaysia steamed cake, baked with molasses. Alas, maybe next time.
ATLANTA – DRESDEN PARK AND COSMOLAVA
Here’s a video with insights up to this point. Remember to click the HQ button!
Our stroll in Dresden Park involved meditation, stretching and in my case, tai chi. As night fell, we found a secluded parking spot and changed clothes into our club attire.
Then we made the short jaunt to midtown Atlanta and to one of my favorite clubs: Lava Lounge. I get email updates from them weekly. The upstairs has a long sweeping patio with bars. The first floor has a small dance area with some plush chairs, but it, too, is mainly a bar. Downstairs lies a cave-like den of a dance floor, where I’ve shed probably a bucket of sweat over the years. The music is always hot if you like electronica, with plenty of recognizable remixes.
I won’t go into more details than that Monica and I stole the show, unquestionably owning the dance floor with breakdancing and high-energy toprock. Her vivid Chinese dress and new hair ornament had guys and girls alike staring (so of course she indulged a few with dances), whilst my breakdance moves earned me some dances with the local girls.
Last time I came to this club, I burst in after a disappointing early evening at the hip-hop image-concious club, Opera, just up the street. Don’t bother unless your playlist has Lil’ John, P. Diddy and Usher on it … exclusively. My cramped toprock in Opera had everybody oooohing, and I couldn’t even get on the floor. Strangers kept wanting to cuff my shoulder with appreciative pats or dance close with me. Trouble is, no one at that club knows how to dance. They were impressed by me because I could pick my feet up off the floor while dancing. What novelty! Anyway, on that disastrous evening (Opera is expensive) I’d escaped to Lava and found a perfect place to breakdance to the whole floor’s applause. I proceeded to spend the evening in the arms of a Maryland girl who did know how to dance.
This time, the presence of Monica and I was strong enough that it seemed the whole club existed just for us, and so we danced until exhaustion and departed into the cool night.
We even did a bit of an encore for some clubbers in the parking garage we’d chosen. A few flips from me and some breakdancing from Monica and they whooped with delight. I like to think breakdancing is good for people’s souls, and I love being able to entertain.
OFF-TRAIL TO CAMERER
On a Friday a few weeks ago, Rob Baldus and I decided to follow some information I’d run across on the internet concerning a manway in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Supposedly, the noticeable cut at the side of a certain road at a certain mileage would lead the adventurer to Mt. Cammerer by a direct ascent. We found two cuts off the side of the road. One will have to be explored later. We took a chance on the second and dove in at around 5 p.m. or so, not knowing for certain where it would lead.
Another old wall of the Smokies, off trail
Shelf mushrooms
The narrow and secret ramp
The manway ascends
One of many obstacles
A view to our destination, Cammerer's fire tower
Purple flowers sprinkle color upon our path
The lovely wood
Dots of white
Closer to the clear sky
The steep bit begins
Resting on a serious slope
The vegetation changes again
Muddy climbing
Sure enough, we’d picked the route to Cammerer’s fire tower, but that wasn’t to be the destination. We hadn’t gone up a manway just to find one of 900-something miles of established trail. Having been hemmed in among tight foliage, we suddenly popped out on a clear bald of stone, to enjoy a jaw-dropping close encounter with nature’s glory.
Arrival in paradise
Heavenly clouds
Vista
Hills near and far
"Under these Monet-like skies"
Satisfaction's new address
The real treat of this manway was this tiny bald, a secret space and gallery of natural wonder, hidden up the steep path somewhere between road and trail. We stood there awing until we’d awed enough, then hiked down through sunset and darkness, back to the world of man’s design.
But not before we’d shot some video.
THE OBED – HIKING
I accompanied Rob Baldus to his family’s cabin near the Obed Wild and Scenic River, to look for some rock climbing spots. We ended up instead doing a lot of off-trail hiking, mostly by the Obed river itself. This involved lots of rock-hopping, treacherous footing and spying a giant musky in the river, the likes of which even Rob had not seen before, and he’s been to this river many times. Monica and Rob forded the river where it was rather deep. I continued on the opposite bank, then decided to cross to their side when I saw this little guy/gal:
Copperhead
Anyway, the Obed is fantastic, but I’ll save details for a detailed post on a later adventure.
THE OBED – CAMPING
Rob and I camped in one of his family’s fields under a sometimes clear, sometimes quite rainy sky. We cooked over a campfire too. I brought Morningstar Farms maple flavored sausage patties. Delicious with campfire smoke about them. I also cooked Morningstar Farms Grillers Prime burgers on a stick right over the flames. Loads of protein and flavor. Rob cooked peppers, some sort of roast and the most delicious onion I have ever eaten, right on the coals in tin foil. We slept soundly by the coals, which glowed all night, in Rob’s new Hubba Hubba tent from MSR. It’s quite a marvel of modern engineering if you ask me. Thanks to the rain fly and vestibules, none of our gear got wet.
The following day we ate breakfast in a light sprinkle of rain and washed our cookware in a creek. We took a long time enjoying the morning, especially when Monica and Rob’s mom brought us a thermos of coffee from the cabin.
THE OBED – SHOOTING
I also got a chance to take a few shots with Rob’s new Walther P99. His family has quite a gun collection, including a fascinating gun I got to see and assemble, an AR 7 survival rifle. While on the Baldus’ property, we caged up some blueberry bushes (which I intend to pick from later this year) and spent a little time in wilderness paradise. I also made cookies, because chocolate is not a food, it’s a way of life.
Also I met Jewel, an aging dog who has lost no sweetness with the years. I hugged and petted her for a long time. My kind of day.
THE OBED – BOULDERING
We did some bouldering at Lily Boulders on the Obed. This was mainly to practice trad (or traditional) rock climbing protection placements. The highlights of this were as follows:
1. I got whacked square in the nose by a cam as it pulled out of a horizontal crack, dropping me and drawing blood simultaneously.
2. Rob and I seriously improved our skill at placing all manner of chocks.
3. We each put our entire weight on single tiny nuts wedged into tiny cracks in the rock.
4. Monica climbed 25 feet up the bouldering wall to reach the top (neither Rob or I went that far up).
5. I got to pet a friendly dog.
6. Rob and I practiced equalizing multiple protection pieces to one anchor point.
SECRET DANCE PARTY
I also recently went to a friend’s house for a breakdancing party in said home’s garage. I met some new people, got to dance with friends on cardboard, etc. It was quite a well-organized event and had loads of guests. Sorry, can’t tell you where or everyone will want to go. It started raining so we cracked the garage door. Then, though my friends had cleared the party with all of their neighbors, a police officer appeared, having heard a noise complaint.
The homeowner went out to check into the problem. Then Monica, who was also in attendance, went out to support her. The rest of us watched through the 2 and a half foot gap under the garage door as Monica began breakdancing on the street in front of the police officer. Turns out he’d asked for a demonstration, and we all escaped without citation.
MT. LE CONTE
Monica and I went off trail hiking in the Le Conte area of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It was a wonderland of sparkling water, new shoots of growth, dense leaves and giant rocks. The flora kept changing and the forest was warm and welcoming. We followed somewhat of a tunnel until reaching a main trail, then went to the Le Conte Lodge, which is now serving day hiker lunches. We got sack lunches for $9 a piece, which included coffee, lemonade and, best of all, hot chocolate. We hiked from the lodge down the Alum Cave Trail. Morgan Simmons wrote a News Sentinel piece about it and the lodge, which can be retrieved here. The lodge’s website provides more info.
Here is some video, which includes baby squirrels, MREs and drinking from moss.
I recently bought a box of MREs (Meal, Ready-to-Eat) off a returning soldier. The theory is that these can take being in a hot car baking under a summer sky without melting. They can ride in a backpack and endure rain or whatever elements are thrown at it. So far, everything I’ve eaten from my new MRE stash has been exceptionally good. More to follow on this I’m sure. Major problem at this point is that the foil wrappers, which are inseparably blurred with a plastic shell, are not recyclable, a problem I have to find a way around if I am to buy more.
ETOWAH
Etowah, TN, borders the Cherokee National Forest, about half way from my birthplace of Chattanooga to my current home of Knoxville. I was probably in my early teens the last time I visited my great aunt who lives there on her dairy farm. So Sunday I went down for a visit.
I wondered if the great mountain that rose up before her front lawn on the other side of the valley would appear as grand to me, now that I’ve grown up. I was delighted to find that the mountain seemed even larger and more wondrous than in my memories. My great aunt’s house seemed smaller, her lawn smaller, her barns and vehicles smaller. But the mountain still shone bright under a clear blue sky, bathed in golden light, like a gateway to another world. As a child, I hadn’t known anything about the national forest being there, but the mountain had seemed like a wall separating me from even grander adventures than those I imagined myself on, as I rambled for hours around my great aunt’s highly interesting property.
It gave me no small satisfaction to realize that as a child, I had been right. There wasn’t just cities and suburbs on the mountain’s far side. There was, and is, a whole world of beauty and adventure on and beyond that green slope, and I must plunge into it, as my childhood self never could. Now that I have the independence and determination of an adult, and I feel it necessary to see my younger version’s fantasy through. I have only set foot in Cherokee once, but I must now plan an expedition.
More to follow.
Etowah is home to a restaurant called Michael’s. My second cousin brought me a very berry salad from the place. Wow. It probably had 2 cups of sliced strawberries and a further two of blueberries. Marry that with field greens, cottage cheese and heaps of candied pecans and you have the most scrumptious salad I have ever eaten, and that’s saying a lot.
I spent most of my visit chatting my great aunt, especially about the small army of dogs she keeps, having rescued them. She rescues every lost dog in the county it seems. We took milk to the field cats she keeps, and I watched my 88-year-old relative nimbly climb a cattle fence, while holding a jug of milk.
Then we took four wheelers up Huff Road to the Mountain Road. What a drive. On one side, a long clear valley full of flat fields with hay bales like golden coins rolled up. Cows chewed in the foreground as large mounds of vegetated hillside filled the background, like turtle shells rising up from the water. Black birds swooped like stunt fliers in the vast expanse above the fields, over which the mountain towers like a giant’s fence. Speeding on the four-wheeler, with the wind blowing my clothes and the sun warming my face, I felt a deep sense of peace and the sense of fun only a responsibility-free child feels at visiting the farm.
I wish I had had my camera, but I have a feeling I’ll be back there soon.
Not long ago, I wrote plans for hiking The Great Circle, but I had to cancel last minute. Now it’s going down. But there’s more to it than that. Here lately, I’ve caught myself going soft. I’m eating out too much. I’m eating too much candy and junk food. I’m doing lighter adventures. I’m getting easier massages and working out less. I’m not blogging as hard. This has got to change.
So Wednesday of this week, I told my massage therapist (Tony at New Horizons of Bearden — the best) to do whatever it took to get my legs ready for a long hike. It was one of the most painful massages I have ever had. It reminded me of why I was so into therapeutic massage in the first place though. I want to increase my pain tolerance. I want to be immune to pain and live without trigger points and muscle imbalances.
I feel like my old self again. So I’ve been invited to a secret hip hop party at 501 Arthur near downtown Knoxville. I’m going to hit it up, leave early, and head straight to my destination: another off trail hike in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. But I’m going to navigate it in the dark, with only a nap to counteract the sleep deprivation and after doing some breakdancing.
It will test my navigation skills, my wits and nerve, my body’s limits and my mind’s clarity. One thing’s for sure, when this is over, I’m going to have something to talk about.
501 ARTHUR
I trained some of my clients, went home, packed my bags and loaded the car. I double-checked that I had everything I needed for a long and dangerous adventure. Good to go. Let the games begin.
A mass text message had gone out inviting Knoxville’s dancers to a secret hip hop show. There was no charge for coming, and a DJ I’d seen before was going to be there. Rob Baldus was there to take photos, and he was nice enough to shoot some videos for me on my Flip Mino HD. Here’s what it was like:
I danced a little, but this is not my kind of music. It was far too slow for me, and though I tried desperately to get into it, it just didn’t inspire me. I’ll be on video dancing in some future post.
All in all, it was fun and different. I left a little after 1 a.m., heading straight for the Smokies.
THE DARK ROAD
2 a.m. is a great time to be driving to the Smokies. You’ll scarcely see another car, and you can travel the speed limit (or higher) without being slowed down. When you get into the park, especially 3 or 4 miles into the park, things start to get a little creepy. Your bright headlights may light the road in front of you, but their beams are swallowed by the vast shadows between rows of silent trees. Could there be boars watching, or worse? You are forced to drive slow, crunching the gravel, wondering what you might see a few feet ahead. The imagination runs wild, thinking of horror film staples that might be standing on the edge of the woods. I would be jumpy of any person I saw on that road at night, but fortunately, I saw no one.
I arrived at a deserted parking lot and got out of the car. There was only the sound of rushing water and blanket darkness in all directions. I couldn’t even see the trees on the other side of the parking lot. I changed out of my dancing clothes into my hiking clothes and put on …
MY ADVENTURE SHIRT
My Banana Republic blue cotton short-sleeved button-up shirt has gone on more adventures than I can count. When I got lost in the Malaysian jungle on Panang, I was wearing it. It was one of the three shirts I wore in Thailand and Cambodia. I wore it to Japanese volcanoes. It always means trouble, and it is now the source of legend and fear among those who know about it. When I’m wearing that shirt, watch out, things are about to go crazy.
Aside from that, I wore Giordano khakis and put on my backpack. I strapped on my headlamp and walked with my SureFire in one hand, my other hand on my knife.
It was 10 till 3 a.m. when I began my great journey.
THE HEEBY JEEBIES
The first 1 or 2 miles, I was jumpy. My mind kept thinking a boar was hunting me; I occasionally sharply turned round and shined my SureFire behind me. Every rustle in the woods to either side (which I couldn’t well see into) made me search for its source. I walked, mostly not knowing what was going on three feet to my left or right, trying to focus on the steps in front.
Then I had a comforting thought. It made sense that anything I disturbed between 3 and 4 a.m. would be nocturnal, and the thing about nocturnal creatures is that they don’t enjoy having 120 lumens (enough to temporarily blind a human) blasted in their faces. I was walking with my SureFire set on 5 lumens, but one click would be my best weapon.
So I, like Dick Cheney, was prepared to shoot even friendly creatures right in the face if the time came. (Sorry, folks, I had to go there. No reading into this from either side, please. Also this is hilarious. It even made best magazine cover of the year!)
I had a second comforting thought. I know that many large predators won’t cross water, even just a tiny stream they could easily wade. A plan formed. If in danger, shine the eyes, skiddadle to the water and cross over. If it follows, then the knife comes up or Brad goes up a tree.
I was then able to relax and enjoy the walk, though I was still switched on and alert.
THE WIZARD’S PATH, THE WIZARD’S WAND
As I walked 2, then 3 miles into the woods, I had the strangest sensations. The path was beautiful in the white light of my headlamp and flashlight. Thick mats of white flowers and their attendant green leaves covered the ground on either side, and the petals shivered in the night breeze that swept ever down the path like an invisible dragon. The pale stars overhead could be spotted through the quivvering canopy atop tall dark trunks. The sound of water gushing was my constant companion, now to the left, now to the right, now below, now behind, now ahead. Flowers of yellow and purple and still more of white made the entire woodland ground shimmer with pallid color in the white glow.
I was comfortable on the deserted path, all alone in the middle of the night, deep on a woodland walkway. Maybe it’s because I’ve just starting reading the Harry Potter series again, or maybe it’s because I have spent long enough with nature to gain better senses for it, but I felt like a wizard or druid-character, safe in his secret passages of night, clothed and shielded by miles of dense forest all round, on his way to some mission or perhaps to his secret home in the forest. And I felt too that my SureFire was like a wand (“Lumos maxima!”) revealing the sleepy secret path for me. I felt that if enemies awaited me on all ends of the national park, they could not reach me as I moved around in there, with my own little stars under the trees.
How amazing it is that when humans use technology for good, we are allowed the power of visiting nature on more special terms, unafraid of dark and dehydration and discomfort, with our ergonomic packs, water bladders, headlamps, first aid kits, hiking shoes and Clif bars? I often feel companies like MountainSmith, MSR, Marmot, Petzl and similar brands are the best companies in the world, promoting efficient technology that lets us touch the natural world with the powers of heroes in ancient myths, who skipped through natural without concern.
In fantasy games, I usually prefer the nature-wizard, or druid-type character. I let these sensations fill me up as I walked, feeling power in each footfall, a sense of belonging with everything around me and a sense of guardianship over the lands that humbly let me pass without incident. Though great dangers abound in such a place, it is not out of motivation to hurt man. The woods and every creature in them, are just being themselves and will act according to their own nature if threatened. It is up to us to know and respect their ways, to live according to the principles nature sets. I was in tune with it, wrapped up in it, and as always, captured and entranced by it, like the boy in poetry who follows the fairy into the woods, away from home, lost forever to the wilds.
How much of adventure is the feeling of secrecy and mystery? Much, I realized, as I continued to weave through the corridors of the sleeping forest.
NAVIGATION
It took me probably 30 to 45 minutes to find the entrance to the manway. In this time, I wandered around in a circle, looking for paths that led off. The first I found looked promising, until it led to a still. The second one died in a grove of what I believe was ostrich fern. There was a dry inlet to the creek, but it didn’t look traveled. Pick the wrong direction, and my entire hike could fall on its nose.
After much lost time and energy wandering, I finally found a rhodo tunnel, just thin enough for a man to get through with shoulders brushing leaves. It followed the creek, and the creek comes from the south, and south is where I was heading. 2 and 2 make 4, so off I went.
Make sure to click the HD button on the viewer.
I raced down the manway, feeling totally comfortable not knowing what was inches to either side of me. I crossed streams that were very tricky, and I got water in my shoes twice. I figured I would just walk for a while further before drying my feet. If I were to dry them immediately, only to get them wet again in a hour, I would have wasted time. At one stream crossing I noticed something quite peculiar.
THE STONES
Two neat piles of rocks on a fallen tree trunk, on the other side of the stream. I was on them before I saw them, and they scared me at first. In the movie, “The Blair Witch Project” similar rocky cairns are discovered by the protagonists. They disturb them, and soon hear scraping noises in the woods. They camp and wake to discover piles of rocks set up around their campsite. The piles of stones, or cairns, are used as a reminder of dark human activity stalking them or at least inhabiting the woods.
But these stones, I quickly realized, were left in kindness by the forerunners (wahrg wahrg waart) of the Great Circle. They pointed the way to the continuation of the manway across the stream. I soon found other piles of stones, which helped me cross the vast gaps between the obvious rhodo tunnel, where a wrong direction could cost me another 30 minutes of trail hunting.
Then I came to a place where the trail altogether vanished, a very special place.
THE WIZARD’S GARDEN
Like a watergarden grown wild and lost in the depths of the Smokies, this place reminded me of the Cascade Conservatory at the Opryland Hotel in Nashville, TN, Pinnacle Rocks from Final Fantasy IX, the Tomb of the Unknown King in Final Fantasy VIII as well as the hidden Chocobo forests in the same title. Donau and other locations in The Legend of Dragoon also came to mind.
It was a beautiful place of moss, twisted wood, tiny streams of water and rolling landscape. I can’t fully describe it. It was also unmarked by the passing of people, so much so that I knew I would lose my way, but I just went on into its beauty. This was the best part of the entire hike. Finally, while looking around with my flashlight, I saw a pile of smooth creek stones perched smartly on an arching fallen branch, a bit like a bird come to show me the way. I walked beneath the arch to see another stack of rocks farther ahead. Ah, I thought, no visible footpath, but still inviting. What a rarity: a untouched place yet with natural signs to show you the way.
Feeling the magic of the place, my mind still conjuring fantastical theories to who left the markers (don’t you dare write me and tell me!) I gave this place a name: the wizard’s garden.
It seemed like a place I could spend the day, working enchantments in a secret wizard’s workshop, like the atlier’s in Threads of Fate. It seemed like a place for studying herbs, or cooking wild foods, or writing in a journal, or maybe a little of all of them. But I had to be moving on, with just the wish to come back and see the special grove in the daylight, see the savage garden flowing with life and water, where so many flowers danced lazily in the cool night breeze, like a million butterflies drawn to its peace.
UP AND OUT
Later I saw a small campsite, clearly not something the park service would approve of. I continued on, crossing the stream, then finally heading up into the woods between sloping hills. At last the light of morning started to appear. It had been a long night, but I wasn’t back on the trail system yet, not close, as it turned out.
Clearing under the peak
Scree
Getting closer
The ridge aside
Dawn and finding the trail
The trail went up and up, first dry stream beds, then wet ones. I was in a bowl with all sides but one leading up, and the path kept getting steeper and steeper. I was often forced on all fours to continue. I climbed scree of at least 50 degrees. Then I started to wonder if I was still on the path. It became clear when I got stuck on a vertical face that I was no on the manway. I abandoned all navigation and just cut my own way up to the ridge, hoping I would see a trail up there. Along the way I climbed to some frightening perches I doubt many have ever visited, all the while getting snagged by branches and forcing my way through dense brush on the sides of the rocky crags. I didn’t get much footage of that, but here’s the story:
BACK ON TRAIL
It was an incredible relief to see the trail of stones atop the ridge leading to a beautiful overlook one way and to the Appalachian Trail the other way. Trouble is, I didn’t know which way on the AT to go. Out came the compass, and I started hopping west, not knowing where I should have come out and wondering how far from Charlies Bunion I was. Soon I met the first hiker I’d seen all day, telling me I’d arrived at Charlie’s Bunyon. By about 8:30 a.m., I was on the mighty feature, looking down at the lands I had traveled in the dead of night. The feeling of accomplishment drove me on.
Where I came out
The trail begins
The climb up the bunion
Charlies Bunion
The peak
The on trail portion of the Great Circle is 19.9 miles by my most conservative estimation. It could be as much as 21 with the little detours I took. As the crow flies, the off trail portion could be 1.4 miles, but I know better, having walked it myself. It was much, much much longer than Huggins Hell, having twisted and turned all the way up the mountain. I’d say it was easily 4 to 5 miles. I’m a fast hiker, and it had taken me at least 5 hours to make it to where I had, even though that includes some on trail hiking. When you account for the 30 to 45 minutes I spent looking for the manway, walking in circles and other circuits into the wild looking for the trail, I easily could have walked 27 or 28 miles.
Having arrived back on trail, all that remained was to survive the rest of the grueling distance between me and my car, a journey I will tell with a few photos.
Sometimes miles of relatively uninteresting views lead to a unique spot.
Icewater Spring Shelter
Inside the shelter
Sometimes tree-covered ridges turn bare.
Rocky slope
And have hand rails
Sometimes the bright evergreens altogether die.
Dead trees at high altitude
Reminds me of "Beyond the Valley of Thorns"
Sometimes it gives you views that take your breath away.
The real highway
View near the highway
Sometimes you find a little metropolis in the Smokies.
Le Conte Lodge
Entering the hikers haven
I wonder what's in here
I refilled my water bladder at Mt. Le Conte, which was all part of the plan. I drank the last drop as I entered the cabin-filled area. Perfect timing. I used the bathroom, ate an energy bar and got moving without a rest. I headed down the trail again, 9.1 miles left to my destination.
Heading down, I passed 6 hikers or groups in a row that asked me “How much further?” with varying tones of despair. Many were clearly far out of their league. I passed one couple who asked if I had a bandage. I took out my first aid kit and told them to help themselves. The next group also asked how much further the top was. I had to smile. I pleasantly told them all it was only a few more minutes and to keep going. It was the truth. Soon, I switched trails and for the rest of my long journey down, I did not see a soul.
TEARS IN THE FOREST
When I would later reach my car, it would be 3:30 p.m., indicating to me that I had walked nonstop for 12.5 hours, having sat down twice to look at the map, each time for less than a few minutes. I drank, ate and navigated mostly while walking. I would soon realize, at the car, I had climbed slick rock faces, scurried up scree, balanced my way across streams, found unmarked paths in the dark, veered off even the faintest paths to explore, ascended at least 4600 feet and endured about 25 miles on little sleep and after breakdancing.
On such a lonely, difficult journey, what goes through the mind?
I passed slopes covered in wildflowers and waterfall after waterfall. I trudged in a trance-like state through sleep deprivation for what seemed like more hours than it really took (and it took quite a few) but a large part of me really never wanted my walk to end. I thought about life, my past and future, the lives of others and the state of the world. I thought about things I might write and things I might do. I thought about movies and books and games. I had imaginary conversations with people. My mind entertained me as it had for the last 10 hours. But I slipped farther and farther into it, closer and closer to what was really in there. And I found myself singing a familiar song.
I used to sing many hymns and church songs as I hiked alone, but the only song I sang on this day was the theme of “Princess Mononoke.”
The Japanese lyrics are beautiful, and I can sing the theme in Japanese by heart, having studied the language and listened to it so many times. The film is probably Miyazki’s best and most personal revelation of truth. The cover calls it the Star Wars of anime, I’d say it was the Lord of the Rings of the East.
Sasha Lazard sings the song in English, here are the lyrics. I earnestly recommend everyone who enjoys this blog see this movie in Japanese with subtitles or download the original score by looking up Joe Hisaishi on iTunes or a similar download service. Every time I watch it or think on it, I remember some of the most powerful teachings in all the world.
I have tried to sing this song many times while hiking, and I can never quite finish it. The last lines translated, “Of the things that sigh in the dark / All the things that cry in the dark” cause too much emotion in me. But when I sang this song in my endorphin-induced, sleep deprived walking trance, as I looked at nature’s sacred beauty of dwelt on my love of it, I outright sobbed.
So what am I getting at here? What does lie in the deepest wells of my heart?
That nature and its laws embody all that is right with the world. There are so precious few things in life that satisfy us. Human beings, however noble, however loved, will always fail us, just as each of us know we fail others. Everyone will disappoint. We will disappoint ourselves. And everything in our human world of buildings and budgets, social structure, propriety and progress is full of the same drama that cripples all human life and enterprise. From corporate waste and greed to government waste and corruption to family drama to addiction to suicide to pollution to classism to the annual hassles of taxes, weeding and fixing the broken air conditioner, everything about our human world is full of flaws. And we so rarely pause to calculate whether our works take or give more.
But nature gives us everything we have. When companies extract raw materials and make products, nature charges no fee; the humans are merely demanding a fee for their time and energy. And at the end of the day, though I agree modern medicine is good, journalism is good, voting is good, public transit is good, what we need most is healthy food, clean air, clean water, dignity and a chance to explore God’s world to learn about him. We need time to enjoy loving relationships and put them first. We need the self-esteem that comes from growing into our capabilities — all things adventure brings out in us, which is perhaps why we all crave it in one form or another, though it doesn’t earn us money or get us stuff.
Even nature’s “cruelty” is compassionate compared to the human variety. It places limits on pain, it leaves the cures by the poisons. It holds secrets to the worst of human ailments, but they aren’t very profitable because they’re so simple. And time in nature is the antidote to perhaps the worst human plague of all: stress. It soothes the mind with its sights, sounds and smells, it is designed to aid our structure. As a personal trainer, I cannot tell you how many back and knee problems I’ve seen. If God wanted us to live in a world of flat solid ground and 6 inch flat steps, he could have made nature that way, but instead, hills and vales, cliffs and streambeds. Most structural problems can be traced, in my view, to the fact our bodies aren’t designed for human environments, they are designed for nature.
Nature is our healer, our love, our protector, our permanently satisfying entertainer and inspiration. It is where we come from and where we return. Its spirit of indomitable life, of harmony, of incalculable complexity of uncontrollable power is linked to the, if you believe in him, the spirit of God himself.
This is the world outside your doors, outside of this screen. This is the world that weeps, that suffers for what we are doing to it. As time passes, it is paved, it is polluted with motor oil, landfills, airborne particulates and carbon dioxide. Its forest are sliced down for subdivisions, its mountains are literally blown up for coal, its ground is filled with barrels of waste that may never go away, its sky is streaked with weather-modifying chemicals, its fish are trapped and farmed and depleted in the oceans, its mammals and birds are placed under ever increasing stress, its cattle are grown in industrial feedlots, never to roam free.
It is a world of infinite compassion and intrinsic nobility, and generation by generation, we humans decrease it and develop our own mishaped substitue. We humans attack it and leave it to suffer a slow and heartbreaking demise.
All at once my mind processes the enormity of this horror, and I in the great hug of the deep forests alone become, for a moment, overcome by the plight and pain of the natural world.
And in the end, humans and our children will lose more than all the species that have faded forever from their home, our home: planet earth.
If you are a Christian in a modern church, you have probably been taught that God does not destroy, only redeems, and that heaven will be the New Earth, recreated as it was intended to be and our home will be on it. You have probably been taught that instead of streets of gold and eternal choir singing on clouds, heaven will be like earth, with snowcapped mountains that do not chill us, forests without thorns, vipers we can pet, lions we may sleep beside, oceans we can swim the depth of, deserts we can run over and not thirst. You have probably been taught that there all are in love, all are free, all are immortal, all are in harmony, all are tied by one great spirit.
And if you don’t believe in the soul or gods, perhaps you see that all you are, brain neurons, DNA, flesh and bone, will return to the earth and be part of nature in another form, whether clouds or frogs or other people, but most likely all. And you too, whatever form you take, will still share the fate of the earth. You, still, cannot escape it and will live on it forever.
The illusion that all things are not connected, that one’s misfortune is not the problem of all, that we are not all accountable to everyone and everything for all we do, is the probably the most damaging to happiness.
On earth, what is more gracious and more deserving of our allegiance and protection than the natural world?
THE RETURN
I passed Ownby Cemetery with less than a mile to my car. I realized I had changed since I began 12 hours before. My connection to nature had strengthened. As I looked at the graves, it occured to me too that I am still unafraid of death, for it is the natural order. As a famous storyteller has said, people die when they get too sick to get well, too hurt to get well, or too old to get well. And that is merciful itself. No, what I fear is not death, but life if mother nature is dying away, life if adventure has been taken away from the common man, life if I can’t share it with nature’s spirit.
Get ready to be hit with a rave of philosophy here.
Once upon a time, I used to dance religiously at Fiction in Knoxville’s Old City. It was a weekly ritual I associate with a carefree summer. Knoxville’s best, DJ Slink (link may not be appropriate for some audiences) was the master of the house in those days, and the breakdancers of Knoxville, as well as the glow stringers, performed here Saturdays at midnight. It had a courtyard, nice bartenders and an upper deck.
Fiction closed and DJ Slink headed to the Valarium, which I’ve written about before and where I’m sure Slink gets better pay. Now the shell of Fiction has been taken over by Catalyst, a new club.
Its been renovated in every way for the better and is now sleek and beautiful inside. I hadn’t intended to go there Friday night, but I happened by it and decided to check out their “Return to the Underground” show, which sought to replicate the atmosphere at the old club Underground.
There’s the setup.
My eyes were reopened. My body was set loose. My heart was laid bare. My soul flew like a roaring dragon. My muscles ached for days to follow.
Progressive. House. Techno. Deep, dark pounding beats like waves crashing over you at the speed of light. This is the kind of stuff I was born to dance to. And I didn’t realize until Friday how I’d lost touch with it. I’d been stuck, trapped, bogged down in a culture of hip hop-y and top 40 club tracks that can’t move me no matter how open I am to it. See, I realized I’d forgotten who I am as a dancer. I’d forgotten dancing under the starry glass dome at Narcissus in Bangkok. I’d forgotten Club Nation in Washington D.C. I’d forgotten Dreams Cafe and mega clubs in Hong Kong. I’d forgotten the full moon parties on Koh Panyang. I’d forgotten DJ Tiesto, Armin Van Buuren, Luminary, 4 Strings, Gabriel and Dresden, OceanLab, Juno Reactor, even Darude and DJ Sammy.
I had forgotten the future. Let’s face it, the South is kind of behind on everything. The food, the music, the gadgets, the culture that now lives in America’s big cities will, in years to come, arrive here. And they will get their movements from Europe and other places. And the music that comes out on the cutting edge of the dance world is what speaks most to me, not because I’m elitist, but because that’s where I got my love of dance.
I learned all my power moves because spinning like a top is all you can do to keep up with the fastest, most hard-hitting, eardrum pounding music that’s out there. Its the only way the body can sync with it.
Catalyst took me back to the true feeling of dance I’d lost: utter disorientation, being lost in the blinding spotlights and the pressing crowds, sweating like a marathon runner, desperately reaching into the pulsing air to grab hold of the pure energy and take it in, riding it until the doors close. It’s like sugar and opiates coming in the ears to fill the bloodstream. It’s like jumping down a waterfall. It’s sensory overload and the death of self-reflection.
There’s no image here. No fancy clothes and flashing cash; no posing, posturing and strutting. There’s no proving who’s the best, miming insults or exhibition. Its not about acceptance. Its about standing alone. It’s about limitless energy. It’s about tasting pure life in every straining breath. It’s a storm of limbs, where up and down, balanced or falling count for little and only the very athletic go all night. It’s where competition ceases, where everyone is in their own universe, where love and joy swirl between strangers. Its where the hero in you is unleashed to celebrate all the best feelings of conquering life’s struggles. Its tribal. Its satisfying in the deepest way.
In the smashing together of bright swirling beams of colors and thumping sounds of techno clubs, I feel like I become the god of dance. I walk the dance floor as if it is my own, as if the club is my house (and sometimes people tell me it is). I rock around on my feet and clear a huge space of floor to myself. I hit the floor on hands and fists, shoulders and head, back and elbows. I breakdance on clean ground; I let my energy flow like a fountain from the floor.
I’ve remembered what it means to dance. It had been a long day, but that’s the thing about dance: it takes you to a space and a time isolated from the rest of your life, where none of that matters, where there is only joy in the moment. And breath by breath, all we have is the moment. That’s the kind of place I could spend my life in.
Dear Catalyst, I will return. Thanks for reminding me why I dance.
That reminds me of a philosophical matter.
WHY DANCE IS BETTER THAN SPORTS
I live in the South. Football is a big deal, college and professional, so I’ll pick on it. I like to question, even shake up, the general public’s opinion on things. Plus, I graduated from the University of Tennessee, home of the Vols. So I happen to know a bit more about football culture than most. For example, it’s worth knowing which Saturdays you won’t be able to drive in Knoxville as you might as well head to the Smokies early.
The places I’ve lived in the South also get a reputation for being centers of the Christian faith. It also just happens that I’ve taken a fair number of Bible studies and taught more than one. So I’ll use more of a Christian viewpoint here.
The football culture is deeply ingrained. From SUVs flying orange window flags to church-sponsored Superbowl gatherings and informal football nights, it’s totally accepted. And there’s the stereotypical “life is like football” sermon, admonishing us to “work as a team” or “let Christ call the plays” or “train diligently like football players” or “get back in the game when you get knocked down” or “take a time out before that important play” and so on. We look to the sport to teach kids fair play and respect, endurance and strength. We look to the game to help us get to know others. How many unassociated church members have used small talk about football trades and statistics to start a friendship?
I’m not going to get into college football budgets, head coach salaries and special accommodations for players, but you get the picture. Football is a welcome guest at our table.
So here’s my problem.
1. The following of football encourages sitting on your (insert euphemism here), eating pizza with chips and drinking soda instead of doing something healthy or productive. “No! It’s not always like that,” they’ll scream, but come on, how many people eat fresh vegan pasta and drink water while watching the game with their friends? I’m being nice by saying soda, as we all know paper cups in stadiums and fraternity lawns nationwide are filled with much worse (that’s right, I said worse; alcohol is fat potion people when we’re talking about health). And my hat goes off to you if you run on the treadmill while you watch the big rivalries.
Dancing is exercise. I remember taking a friend to the old club Fiction. We talked for maybe the first 5 minutes. He took to the dance floor after me, and I lost him. For about 4 hours he danced with his eyes closed or half-closed. He was in his own world of ecstasy on the dance floor, surrounded by equally enraptured clubbers. He did his own thing and I mine. As the bouncers pushed us and everyone else out at the 3 a.m. limit, we finally reconnected, and he said, “I feel like I just ran 10 miles!”
I’ve seen women and men alike leave the club like they’d left a swimming pool. I’m a personal trainer, so it’s a professional opinion when I say dancing is intense cardio (and strength training, if you do it right).
Football often keeps people at home, though not always. There are the tailgaters and whatnot, but football is mostly an at-home activity. Dancers get out and drive the business of entertainment venues.
2. Football has advanced from the old leather cap days to be a brutal sport for guys that could probably smash cars with their tackle. How many knees have been irreparably shattered, how many spines injured, bones snapped in the name of this game? How many bright young men have been maimed for life, while we cheered and watched the second half, interspersed with gory replays?
Dancing makes you strong. It can be enjoyed with others, but the odds you will get hurt are slim to none. (Watch those high heels, ladies.)
3. Even if fun and self-improvement are the frame of this sport, competition is the engine driving it. Players and fans alike summon a competitive spirit. I’ve witnessed that attitude of “we’re better than you because our football team beat yours” and it’s bold-faced pride, in the bad sense of the word. There’s a need to defeat, to share in the team’s victory, to vicariously humiliate or overcome someone else. The goal of all the brackets is to prove “we’re better than you so we can feel great now.” There’s no point in denying that domination of someone else’s efforts are part of the feeling of triumph in team sports.
I have often seen a room of people watching football, occasionally on church property, stand up and yell things like “Get him!”, “Take him down!” “Kill em’, kill em’!”, etc. Because of all the hitting and general ruffianism of football, it often inspires a spirit of violence in viewers. Observe football fans, and it will come out, the desire, like a kid playing a violent video game, to see one dominate and another get hammered.
Some will say, “But dancing inspires a spirit of sensuality and lust.” I suppose cheerleaders are picked for their optimistic personalities, that in their tryouts, the only thing that gets measured is their team spirit. Please. Which is more noble anyway of the two options: gawking at girls hired to be objectified on TV (and thereby continuing that practice) or going to the club and dancing with women just being themselves?
But back to violence.
When it comes to most dancers — well, anything expect dance battles — dancing is non-competitive. I can feel great without having to push someone else down or establish dominance. As cheesy as it may sound, everyone on the floor can “win” together. Its more about conquering self, like rock-climbing or skiing. Even in dance battles, as one of Knoxville’s best just told me, it’s really me and against me against you against you. There’s no direct interactions; who can overcome his own nerves and exhaustion and hit that set perfectly? And if life has taught me one thing well, its that defeating external enemies is important, but the worst fiends dwell inside each of our individual hearts. One who has acquired the skill to battle, defeat and change oneself can conquer or endure any outside threat.
To an extent, the raver’s motto is right: Peace, Love, Unity, Respect.
4. Fame and money are dangerous. I’m not saying every big-time athlete is O.J. Simpson or Dennis Rodman, but if you read the news, you know the culture successful athletes often get into.
In all fairness, here dance may not be much better. There are drugs. There is alcohol. There is promiscuity. But its no worse at the club than it is in suburban America or on the road with famous players. Michael Phelps, anyone? Been in any dorm lately? Going to clubs doesn’t make you a grass smoker or user. And if I were going to be one of those (and I’m not), would I sit at home drinking beer to drunkenness or go to the club and take MDMA? Hmmm … uppers or downers? Sit around depressed or dance like mad giving hugs to everyone? Maybe we’ll take on poll on which one I would choose. Oh, wait, I have a life, a Life of Adventure, as a matter of fact. Dance is to thanked for that in part. I guess I’ll stick to doing neither depressants or stimulants (Mars bars being the exception).
Anyway, I know a former NFL player, and he was telling me as I mentioned this post to him how much he had lost a taste for it because there are “too many egoes.” It’s easy to imagine. I don’t think I have to do more than mention the word ego to get people thinking about this. Their egoes are couched on our approval, on our making the game so important to our society.
5. There is a mob mentality in the culture of avid sports spectatorship. I mean, we’ve all seen riot footage after soccer games in Latin America and Europe, right? When have dancers poured out of clubs and started burning cars? At UT, every now and then a couch ends up in flames after a home game. I often lost sleep in my dorm room as the crowds returned from the stadium and bars shouting loud outside the window and smashing glass bottles on the streets. Often the words used in the enthusiastic yelping were not child-friendly. After the game, many come out fired up, but they aren’t in their right mind. The mob mentality is there. Not so when I leave the club.
CONCLUSION
I think four topics is enough. Leave comments with more, or argue with me. I love a good debate. This is an encouragement to leave sport stands and get your body moving, learning fine control of it, strengthening it, enjoying it.
There are other aspects of dance to praise, like nonverbal communication. You know someone better when you’ve hit the dance floor together. Just like a sparring match or hiking together, as much or more is exchanged when bodies share an experience. You can tell much from a person by the way they move. Talking over coffee is fine, but you will only hear so much. My tai chi instructor (and to some extent I) can tell by the way people move if they have much psychological trauma. Movement is a window into how connected a person’s mind and body is. Tai chi helps the soul by balancing and connecting mind and body. Like smiling it’s a two way street. If you are happy you’ll smile, and if you smile, you will come to be happy presently. Is that wall flower disconnected from the body? Why? But that’s the extreme example. Your style, your personality is also shown in how you move. We are all like FBI agents reading body language to detect intent; we are all subconscious body language experts; the body cannot lie (well, it has a much harder time not lying).
There’s also the dancer’s connection to human nature that I’ve written about before. Like every tribe of early man in all his scattered civilizations, today’s dancers connect with something basic to the human spirit. It is spiritual. Even if dancing doesn’t get you food, make you shelter or protect you, there’s something unquestionably good about it, even necessary. Perhaps it is healing inside wounds or washing the boredom of life’s necessary work away. Perhaps it is just the enjoyment of the most basic tool God has given us — our flesh and blood. Perhaps as the mind converts sadness to tears, we cannot help but dance to express joy. Perhaps it just makes us feel alive. Does watching electrons scanning on a screen do that?
Perhaps the day will come when churches teach the young to avoid sports telecasts and stadiums, calling them “of the world.” Instead they’ll say, “Let’s all go to the nightclub and dance with joy before the Lord as David did.” Don’t you love it when people talk in Christian lingo, half-paraphrasing Scripture all the time like it’s the mark of how good people talk? I’m fluent in Biblese. Maybe preachers will lead singing and a prayer, then conclude a homily, saying, “If you are here today and you’ve decided to accept Christ into your life, we’d love to help you, and if you have any special needs you’d like us to pray for, please come to our elders at the front, as we stand together and have the dance of invitation.”
(Photos in this article must be clicked on to display, so those intending to try this route can enjoy the surprises I did.)
I’ve waited weeks for a good shot at the off trail destination I located in my search of Knoxville’s libraries. Saturday’s temperature was expected to be 64 degrees Fahrenheit, so I made plans to head back to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, in pursuit of treasures off the trails on barren bluffs. A few days before the adventure, I stood in a hillside cul-de-sac in my condo complex, staring with anticipation at the mountains far in the distance. But I had no idea the turns this adventure would take …
View from home
MEETING OF ADVENTURERS
I met Rob Baldus at the IHOP on Chapman Highway outside of Knoxville. He’s jumped off lakeside cliffs with me and crawled through a cave with me, and I have a feeling this adventurer is going to be a recurring character on this blog. So here he is for round 2. He parked his Smart Car and hopped into my black Honda Accord, and off we went.
ANTICIPATION
I’ve been known to get excited about adventures, but this time it cost me $80. Highway 441 from Knoxville to Sevierville has a pretty high speed limit, until a few miles from Historic Sevierville. I got stopped by a patrolman for doing 55 in a 35. The exceptionally professional and kind officer wrote me a citation. Add that to the potential risks of pursuing adventure: uncontrollable excitement may lead to traffic violations.
FOLLOW THE FENCE ROWS
Following the directions in the guidebook to hidden trails I got at the library, Rob and I were able to locate with high certainty the place by a park road where the route to the Catstairs begins. We pulled off and parked, grabbed our gear, and headed up what seemed an ancient road, used by settlers ages ago.
The path was broad and easy to walk, gently sloping up and railed by stacked stone walls reminiscent of forgotten civilizations. A wood of fallen leaves and broken stone walls reminded me eerily of “The Blair Witch Project” even in broad daylight. But it also evoked the mood of being somewhere much older, reminding me of Bayon, a place I visited in Cambodia.
Cambodian ruins
Fences
Along the way, I learned that Rob is far superior to me in identifying edible plants, so we nibbled on his finds. We are not botanists and cannot advise you on what is safe to eat in the wilds. Here’s what we did:
Across a stream, past clearings that likely were homesteads before this land was a national park, we came to a huge open space with a few piles of stones.
When hiking through thick woods off marked trails, as I did in Huggins Hell, the path is easy to discern: it’s the way of least resistance. If anyone had gone through this area, one thinks, they would gone this way. if you’re hemmed in all around and fighting through briers and impenetrable rhododendron, you’re probably off the path, even if it is an unadvertised one. With a clearing such as the one we found, we could have set off in a number of directions following paths easy to trod. That’s what made this an unnerving test of our navigational instincts.
We plunged into briers and underbrush, because we thought it was the most direct route to the top. This was a mistake. Despite getting off track, after a battle with some brush and a rest on a leafy hillside, Rob spotted an old field consistent with the description in the guidebook.
The path
The alternative
Pieces of the past
A HUGE SUCCESS
Finding the field, which was really more of a swamp, changed our situation entirely. It was surreal; like an icy breeze in the desert it revived me and alerted my senses again. It meant we were back on the route and had effectively navigated the first 1.6 miles. It also meant we were about to see remnants of human civilization I’d been thinking about for weeks.
Rob was taking a rest on a log at one end of the hidden field, so I carefully hopped on mounds of bent tall grass so as to avoid the standing water the flat place held, journeying to the far side. I saw a large boulder there, and of course, began to monkey around on it. And then I saw it. The bottom half of a stone chimney, indisputable proof we were at the Barnes’ cabin site. I shouted to Rob, but made him wait until he arrived to see it.
Being high in the untrodden wilds, one doesn’t expect to find an idyllic clearing, complete with field, spring and cabin remains. It is a special place, a spot marked by civilization framed by winding woods and hills. Arriving here through vast wilds was like landing in a dream through a haze of sleep — a place with no address, where every direction is the entrance, and the exit. I wonder what night must be like in that field, what cabin life in the heights of nature must have been for who lived here. But there was something else close. We knew it had to be around the cabin site somewhere, but its a place I wouldn’t fancy spending the night.
THE GHOSTLY COMPANIONS
I went in one direction, Rob the other. He found the clearing containing the cemetery of the Barnes girls. My mysterious guide had sent me an email weeks before. It’s subject:
“Info”
It’s message:
“Rosey, Julies, and Delia are your ghostly companions for this trip”
In the cemetery were three headstones, one for each name. The three Barnes girls are believed to be the daughters of Pinnacle John Barnes, who dwelt here at the base of the pinnacle.
As I said I thought to myself how scary it would be to spend the night in this place, but in the bright sunlight, it felt like a temple, inspiring quiet contemplation and respect for the interred. As Rob and I took pictures, I noticed myself feeling as if I were at a formal occasion instead of snapping nature shots. I used to do newspaper photos, and this was the difference between shooting a photo of a parade and shooting a grieving family in a courtroom.
Filled with satisfaction at having found some of the greatest highlights of our planned trip, Rob and I turned back to the wilds in search of the biggest prize: the Catstairs.
Possibly the only standing water in the Smokies
The cabin site
Shrine of moss
The ghostly companions
THE MISTAKE
It was depressing to leave the navigational security of the homestead site for the unmarked woods, but that’s what we did. We would come to realize later that veering through the dense brush in attempt to move directly to the bluffs was a great mistake. We should have followed the paths we saw that led west. Little did we know at the time we were heading into Devil’s Den, a place that lived up to its name.
We fought through rhododendron until the forest became manageable to move through. We moved left and uphill for a tiring distance before coming to a slope strewn with large boulders, deep clumps of dead leaves, briers and brush. It reminded me of Huggins Hell, an imposing sight of a distance we couldn’t judge. So up we went.
Climbing the rockfall was hard work, and we had to rest often. Every fifty yards felt like 10, as looking up only signaled a longer journey than we’d bargained for, but ever so slowly, the towering exposed rock of high bluffs came closer. This is where I think we both started having doubts. We took a steep climb to the right, but as the rock was not exposed, it couldn’t be the Catstairs. We followed the spine of the rockfall past a moist recess in the face and up through the steepest hillside we’d yet faced, which was covered in rhododendron, thick sliding leaves and loose dirt. But after a strenuous amount of all-fours climbing, we reached the base of the bluffs with near-max heart rates and deep oxygen debts.
Into Devil's Den
Not the Catstairs
THE UNEXPECTED PLUNGE
We took a rest at the base of the bluffs, gorgeously smooth rock faces where a few trickles of water made blinding glare of sunlight and patches of leftover snow made us feel as if the wonders of nature have any limits. Then a terrible thing happened. I picked up my backpack, upon which my camera sat, and the camera went careening down the precipitous slope we’d just climbed. It feel like a skier, limply turning increasing flips after each bounce, threatening to get lost forever in a pile of leaves or be smashed upon a stone.
“There goes your camera,” Rob said, with a hint of despair. “Not without me!” I called, and I threw myself down after it, sliding on dirt, roots and leaves a whole lot faster than I’d bargained for. I kept pace with the camera for a while, at an uncontrollable speed, then stopped at the end of thrilling and dangerous plunge. I scanned around, dove a few yards further down the incline, and finally saw where it rested, just to the right of the pulse-pounding path I’d taken down. I had been at the mercy of nature, but had come to rest just above my faithful camera. I checked to make sure it was functioning, and with a sigh of relief, began the trudge back up the path I’d just lamented having to climb the first time.
RIGHT OR LEFT
I expected to see the Catstairs just off to the left, but as we moved it became near impossible to move between the cliffs and the brush. I went off on my own, leaving Rob to chill. I didn’t find any sign it was the right way, but I did find treasure.
A single black diamond hiking pole lay collapsed at the base of the cliffs. I reckoned it had been dropped from above, but as it seemed fully functional, decided to take it with me as a prize. Could it be a sign we were going the right way, or an omen we were out of our league?
Giving up on the left path, I went back to Rob and went around right. Though a turn around a corner brought spectacular views of continuing cliffs before me, I saw no route up. I could scan probably a mile ahead in the clear air, but the bluffs looked impenetrable.
I returned to Rob and after a quick run through the facts, we decided to head back left; Rob led the way. Fighting through increasingly difficulty tangles of forest, sweaty and hot, we arrived at the western most point of the pinnacle before us.
Could this be the Catstairs? I had my doubts, but I was willing to climb anyway. The slope was made of wet mud, a few piles of snow, sopping moss and dripping rocks. We climbed up to a clear path, a tunnel of rhododendron and brush that forced us onto our knees. The winding path on the ridge wasn’t much more than a deer trail in width, and we kept snagging our packs on the confining limbs at chest-height. But then it intersected a well-worn path. But then we had the same problem: right or left?
We might have walked a quarter mile or more left before we stopped again to face the facts.
SUFFERING
The truth was, we had maybe half a liter of water between us. We were exhausted, hot and scratched up. We were not sure exactly where we were — aside from deep within the park far from the car — and we didn’t know which way to go. We had only two hours of daylight left. We had bitten off more than we could chew.
We decided it was time to abort the rest of the mission. We were, in fact, in Devil’s Den, having missed the Catstairs completely. We knew the path we were on might lead us out of the woods, but in how many miles? And if we were wrong again, what next? We followed the path back the way we had come and went right this time. It came to an overlook.
This is where Rob and I decided to seek advice. It seemed like a remarkable place, a place a park ranger might not mistake. So we pulled out the trail map and called the Smokies emergency line. I explained we had only a little water and were exhausted but otherwise healthy. I described our route and where we were. I asked for advice as to how to get out. The person on the line said they would have a ranger call me back. We were just amazed to have cell service where we were on Rob’s iPhone.
About 5 long minutes passed, as we just tried to stay calm and wait. Finally the phone rang, much to our relief. But our stomachs plummeted again when the operator told me the only ranger was deep in the backcountry and could only advise us to go back the way we came. But that had taken about 6-7 hours. I had expected directions and the promise that a ranger would meet us on our way with some water. Ah well, self-rescue is cooler anyway.
WHY YOU SHOULD WATCH “MAN VS. WILD”
Discovery Channel, basically the best channel on TV, helped to make our rescue easier. Having religiously watched host Bear Grylls on “Man vs. Wild”, I could easily recall the points upon which we agree. One is that the intrepid host of this adventure show and I both know the value of mind over matter. Rob’s greatest challenge and mine was to not panic. Fear, anxiety and outright panic just speeds up your heart rate and makes you go fast and sloppy, increasing your risk of injury. As with all fear, our fear of getting out wasn’t doing us any good. If we entertained it, it would only make what we feared (getting hurt and stuck) more likely.
We established priorities:
1. Get off the bluffs before darkness fell around us and headlamps rose to our foreheads.
2. On the moist stairs up the bluff, get a drink.
3. Get to the stream we’d followed to Pinnacle John Barnes’ cabin site and drink our fill.
4. Get out and call our loved ones so they didn’t worry about us.
I spotted the faint path off the established one we had come from, and we crawled back to the steep climb down the bluff. Here’s where we got to put Bear Grylls’ moves into practice — for real. I grabbed clumps of soaked moss with both hands and squeezed the way I’d seen Bear do it. I was able to get mouthful after mouthful of clean water, with a taste of dirt in maybe one out of three. I guess it takes practice. Most of my gulps were pure as spring water. Rob filled one of his water bottles with snow, then asked me to squeeze in some water to help it melt. The observed high ended up being 80 in the Smokies on Saturday, so the snowmelt trick seemed a good bet. Rob also ate some snow, which Bear will tell you is a bad idea in a snowscape, as it can drop your body temperature to dangerous levels. But on a day that felt like June, there was no danger of hypothermia. Dehydration is another matter.
We struggled most on the steep hill of boulders below the brush, but we made it down and got to the stream.
As the light faded to beautiful yellowy-orange in the wood, we sat by the stream and drank without filters, iodine tablets or purification of any kind. We filled up our bags with water and drank our hearts’ content. Rob, a vegan, ate his third Clif Bar and I ate my Powerbar caramel peanut fusion.
Our mini survival situation had tested us, but keeping a positive attitude, prioritizing and sticking to our plan had paid off — exactly what you’ll see in an episode of “Man vs. Wild.”
Free climbing for a view
To the bluff top
The overlook
View at the top
Expanse of sky
IN THE DARK
Our spirits soared after we were hydrated and fed. We were on relatively flat terrain and had a stream to follow down to the old stone fence rows and the end of this journey. We talked about our vegetarian and vegan lifestyles, cuisine and cooking, the girls in our lives, and many other things as we walked the last 2 miles out. We chatted without hint of exhaustion, as if we’d just started, even as the sun disappeared and we switched to headlamps. Walking in the dark, off trail and under the moon did wonders for my heart, giving me a whole new good feeling about the day.
Like a good massage, pain precedes progress; as in the gym, pain brings new strength. As in life, we’re equipped only with the experience of the challenges we’ve faced before. Our greatest asset is the ability to say, “I’ve had worse.” Being pushed to the limits left Rob and I saturated with more than just grime and sweat. It left us saturated in the feeling of triumph, of strength and hardiness. We’d made more of this day than those who’d stayed in the comfy world of man; we’d made it a day that will not slip away from memory, whereas for so many others, this particular Saturday past is already washing away.
We reached the car, filthy and battered but feeling great, and drove out of the park to cell service. It wasn’t until we’d been driving that Rob noticed a slip of paper stuck under my windshield wiper. It’s message:
“OH, THE PLACES YOU WILL GO!”
The mysterious guide had struck again. Odd to think he’d been near, but being near off trail in the Smokies has little correlation to the likelihood of two adventurers running into each other.
Where is the best place for a vegan and vegetarian to eat in Pigeon Forge, a strip of mostly pancake, steak, seafood and chicken places? The Apple Barn to the rescue. They took us in with our filthy clothes and ripped pants, or maybe they just didn’t notice as I tried to hide in my coat. The Apple Barn is a country cooking restaurant where most of the patrons are overweight. Generally not a good sign, but we weren’t about to eat the general picks. The vegetable platter gives you the choice of four vegetables, a piece of bread, soup and desert. We ate on green beans, applesauce, fries, beans and other delights. I drank applewood julep and took the chocolate cake deserts to go (Rob can’t eat them).
THE VALARIUM
So if you’re wondering what possessed me after spending about 9 hours in the woods to go dancing until 3 a.m., don’t ask. I just did. I wanted to see my friends, and I wanted to see how much I could dance with aching legs.
Quite a lot, actually. I went just as hard on this night as any other. We breakdancers danced on the carpet again, but we had better success keeping a circle. The dancing was spirited; the music was energizing; the company was friendly. All in all, it was a night that redeemed my interest in the venue, though I hope for a night here that doesn’t necessitate carpet burn.
Hiking beyond exhaustion all day and dancing all night meant that Sunday included a 5 hour nap, plus a good night’s sleep. But though it cost me a hazey day, I woke from my long rest with knowledge that I can push myself to such extremes and make it to another dawn, the real treasure of great adventures.
Ah, Saturday, the best day of the week. I’ve been adventuring every Saturday for weeks now. I wanted to continue Adventure #4 today, but its rainy and cold. Not that it would stop me, but my camera is afraid of water. So where can I go in the rain and stay dry? Caves. So I’m going to try to track down some caves to explore, and the plan tonight is to go to Mirage, a restaurant in downtown Knoxville.
Now finding caves isn’t as easy as finding trails, so I may have to stop along the way to do some research. So let’s see what happens…
RESEARCH
After a spinach and artichoke baked egg souffle at Panera Bread and a chocolate chip muffin top, I headed to Barnes & Noble booksellers to try their local interest section. No luck. So I went to the West Knoxville branch of the public library. For the second time in a row, the library didn’t fail me. I found one guide: “Caves of Tennessee,” which lists 6 caves in Knox County.
Under white-gray clouds I drove through drizzle to downtown Knoxville, and onwards to Cherokee Trail, which runs by the UT Medical Center, into the woods. Past some new apartments for students studying across the river, there was a gravel road. The gravel road led to a muddy mess of brown pools and slop. I nearly got my Honda Accord stuck in the mud twice, but thankfully, I was able to wiggle it out.
When I saw a large pond, I knew I was in the right spot. I was put onto this adventure originally by Adam Fuller, whom some of you have met in previous adventures. He sent me a Google Earth link showing this pond from above. It was just a matter of finding out about the cave there. I parked, and set out to find the entrance before meeting up with my companion for this challenge.
Scenery by the gravel road
FALSE DOORS
I didn’t know that the cave entrance would be obvious, though I should have guessed it, so I searched the steep slope beside the river for small entrances. In the rain, my hands became brown bits of dead leaves and mud, whilst also getting wet from clambering up the sopping clumps of moss and slick rocks. I kept cleaning the thick layer of mud off my numb hands by wiping them on my pants every time I held the camera. And still the camera got filthy. Knots of vines aided me only a little in getting to some little pockets of rock that looked like cave mouths from below.
Finally, I found the main entrance to the cave, clearly visited before, as evidenced by the copious amounts of graffiti. Grrrrrrr! Why do people feel it necessary to trash the most beautiful places to visit? I worked up the nerve to go in a turn or two by myself to make sure I was in the right spot.
I thought I would be able to walk into the cave as through a door, so when I saw the slithering hole standing maybe three feet high, I had to take a deep breath. I clicked on my headlamp and crawled through the dust into the cave, not knowing if a living creature would be staring me in the face as I turned the corners. It was a true test of nerve to go in alone, but when I found a bigger chamber a few turns inside, I decided to exit and wait for backup.
A false entrance
ROB BALDUS
Let me introduce you to Rob. Here’s his site. Rob is a hardcore cyclist, swimmer and general adventurer. He’s a vegan with knack for cooking and writing, as well as photography, and I can also say when it comes to the gym, he has survived intense fitness circuits and performance agility training. He’s just the sort of person to take on this adventure.
Rob Baldus
INSIDE THE CAVE
Rob and I couldn’t stop laughing at the nerve-testing challenge before us, as we ventured into the dark unknown. Neither of us had experience caving. I think the videos say it all, but a few observations…
1. Caves are much scarier in real life than they sound like they’d be from fantasy novels.
2. Caves are extremely warm and cozy on a damp, rainy day with chilling winds.
3. The more time you spend in caves, the less afraid of them you are.
4. Caves are about 100 times less frightening when you are not alone.
5. The excitement of winding through deep dark tunnels underground, not knowing what’s ahead and without an easy escape route far outweighs the anxiety of the same.
6. Caves are places of mystery and adventure, but a dust mask might be required.
THE QUARRY
In the same area as the Cherokee Bluff Cave there also lives a quarry that Rob had told me about before. So we went for a visit. Here’s the scoop.
The quarry’s sheer size and the ruins around it (and in its depths) give a surreal sensation, a desirable thing when out adventuring.
The quarry
The water's edge
TOWELS
Here’s a valuable tip. If you’re going to go crawling through caves, you should probably put beach towels in your car seats and floor boards. I, however, did not. This meant that extra clothes had to suffice. It also meant that my car was in serious need of cleaning all over, from the mud splashed on its sides to the dirt that flaked off our bags of gear all over the trunk.
My trusty camera (Photo by Rob Baldus)
MIRAGE
Mirage is a restaurant in downtown Knoxville. Here’s another link about Mirage, this time from my old pal the News Sentinel. Mirage is loud with ethnic music, especially when the bellydancers are entertaining, and Arabian TV clips run on mounted screens. There are two seating areas where patrons may rest on pillows by knee-high tables. Our party, however, consisting of about 10 of Rob’s friends, chose a regular table opposite the bar. We smoked hookah (jasmine, melon and grape, unless I’m mistaken) and chowed down on hummus with delicious bread, sharing loud laughter and jokes, with talk of adventures passed and adventures to come.
Tea at Mirage (Photo by Rob Baldus)
A note about hookah smoke: it is very unhealthy. Check this out from the Mayo Clinic. All I can say is that I rarely do smoke and this is the only thing I smoke. It’s been months since I’ve had a puff. So far I’ve experienced no ill effects. A good effect is that the melon flavored tobacco really is delicious, and if you inhale enough and exhale through the nose, you look like a dragon.
Hookah (Photo by Rob Baldus)
THE VALARIUM
Okay, I’ve about had it with this place. After Mirage, I went and spent the better part of an hour waiting in line in the cold to get in. Once I got inside, I found the crowd to be wilder and worse than the last time I went to the Valarium. There was so much beer spilled on the dance floor, and so many oblivious people walking through the dance circle, or closing it up, we were forced to the side of the room to dance on carpet. Even then it was hard to get enough space.
As usual, a bunch of people who can’t dance at all kept nudging me and pushing me to get in the circle and dance because they’d seen my moves and wanted more. As usual I lamented the disrespect of being ordered about by people who probably can’t even stand on their hands, who think I need no rest or can’t decide for myself what I should and shouldn’t do. What a low society that does not respect free will. I suppose if the real dancers leave this place, the light in the darkness will go out, but I’m just not getting anything to bring me back.
I got pretty aggressive, telling them (politely) off or pushing them away. I felt a hand on my shoulder and pushed the person to the side, only to realize it was a staff bouncer trying to get through. I apologized, but this deepened my frustration. It’s hard to enjoy dancing when you can’t clear your head of such. After Purada and 4620, the Valarium just isn’t catching my eye anymore, but who knows, things might look up someday.
If you follow the dates on the blog entries, you know that I did a lot of breakdancing Thursday morning. After all, why not practice on a typically boring weekday? I wasn’t planning to get much exercise elsewhere. But then again, this is Life of Adventure.
Then at 3:37 p.m. (after learning how to give progesterone injections) I received a text from probably the most serious dancer in Knoxville, informing the troops there would be a free dance party at 4620 at 11 p.m. Now I knew 4620 to be a Jazz club, but the message also said DJ Slink, resident DJ of the Valarium, would be on the scene. I’ve never been to this venue before, but this dancer also said he’d be bringing cardboard or linoleum, meaning 4620′s floor could only be carpet. That told me that dancing there could be a rare opportunity.
4620
The entrance to 4620 isn’t much wider than a single door, jammed between two other shops in a retail strip West of Knoxville’s beautiful Sequoyah Hills. I found the door open and practically jumped down the flight of stairs to this basement nightspot. Along with big cushy chairs and loveseats, booths and tables line most of the room near the modern looking bar. DJ Slink had his gear set up on an old piano, and a modest array of light equipment was beaming color in trails on the dance area, which was indeed carpet. But my friend had already arrived, and taped a 16 x 16 piece of linoleum down. For those of you who don’t know, linoleum over carpet is one of the most comfortable surfaces to break on.
I saw a few familiar faces, and two guys I’m not acquainted with breakin’. I walked up to the edge of the dance floor, and took the first opportunity to get in a set. I put out a lot of intense moves in the first half hour or so, but though I took longer breaks as the night went on, I kept doing power moves consistently, the ones that sap you quick. This was one of those nights out where I was determined to pour every ounce of energy I had on the dance floor like an offering. The music put me in a moving trance; DJ Slink was in great form. Three glasses of water kept me hydrated as I went back and forth between top-rocking in my own world beside the breaking floor and throwing sets on the linoleum. The energy was high, but the place wasn’t crowded at all. The floor was clean, and the chic young crowd did more dancing than sitting around–always a good omen.
I’ve finally pulled off kneespins into windmills as a transition and back again, and I’m getting better at transitioning kneespins to handspins as well.
I danced through and past level after level of exhaustion, until 3 a.m., when the house lights flipped on and the staff begam encouraged people towards the door. I helped fold up our makeshift dance surface, and skipped up the steps into a perfect night. The streetlamps reflected on the wet roads after the rain, and Kingston Pike was deserted. The only sound to be heard was a gentle breeze; if it was chilly, I was too hot and sweaty to notice. It felt just right to me.
So ended another night dedicated to experiencing the euphoria of vigor and pure life, with hopes of many more such nights to come. And when they do, you’ll know about it.
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