[at-l] My 10th Wedding Anniversary

[chance317@yahoo.com (Denise)]

thanks for sharing the loveliest example of trail magic this
newbie's ever heard.  Happy Anniversary to you. :)
Denise
 > --- rick boudrie <rickboudrie@hotmail.com> wrote:
>  From: "rick boudrie" <rickboudrie@hotmail.com>
>  To: at-l@backcountry.net
>  Subject: [at-l] My 10th Wedding Anniversary
>  Date: Thu, 05 Sep 2002 17:16:17 -0400
>
>  In 1996 I wrote down the story of how my wife and I
>  met on the AT a dozen
>  years ago, and later sent it in to the ATN and
>  posted it once on Trailplace.
>
>  Tomorrow, Jennifer and I will celebrate our 10th
>  wedding anniversary, so
>  this gives me the opportunity and courage to post it
>  again.  Its kind of
>  neat to think back to that day we met and the weeks
>  that followed, even as I
>  type this.  The AT is absolutely a magical place...
>
>  ____________________________
>
>  Magic Places
>
>  If the Northbounders I met at the trailhead had
>  asked me why I had waited 7
>  years before returning to the AT, I'm not sure I
>  could have explained.
>  Since completing my own thru hike at Springer in
>  1983 I had hardly even
>  shouldered a backpack.
>
>  But the important thing was that I had returned.
>  And where 4-1/2 months
>  on the AT had certainly enriched my life, it was to
>  be that Labor Day
>  weekend hike in 1990 that would change  it for ever.
>
>  From the start everything seemed right.   After
>  forcing a bag of Pepperage
>  Farms cookies on the Northbounders, I pushed south
>  from Crawford Notch to
>  Mt. Guyot.  Though our conversation had been brief,
>  the chance encounter
>  with them helped put me in a wonderfully reflective
>  frame of mind. The
>  weather was great, the views excellent, and the
>  trails not so crowded as to
>  scare the Spruce Grouse away.   My out-of-shape body
>  even seemed to be
>  cooperating.  The following day, I retraced my steps
>  as far as the Ethan
>  Pond shelter where I made camp.
>
>  As I sat shivering in the shelter arranging gear, a
>  solo hiker walked into
>  camp. We shared a campfire and talked at the shelter
>  before she retired to
>  her tent platform.  She was a teacher out for a few
>  days before beginning a
>  new semester and was finishing up her syllabus along
>  the way.   Although our
>  conversation maintained the reserved, unintrusive
>  tenor one would expect at
>  an AT shelter, our talk did manage to reveal that we
>  shared a long list
>  common experiences-- from diving to teaching abroad.
>   I was captivated to
>  say the least.
>
>  The next morning I was up quite early and ready to
>  hit the trail before
>  beginning the 3 hour drive back to my home outside
>  of Boston.  But I had a
>  dilemma.  Not only had I been too "respectful"  to
>  have asked for this
>  woman's phone number, I had forgotten her name.  I
>  contemplated leaving a
>  note, but was unsure of which tent platform was
>  hers.  I could have waited,
>  but  the trail was calling, and truth be known, I
>  was rather timid around
>  beautiful women.
>
>  Before I knew it I was back on the AT cursing my
>  shyness outloud and
>  bemoaning my decision to press on.  But any
>  introspection that could have
>  turned me around soon gave way to a depression that
>  almost guaranteed the
>  status quo.  While I knew I may have just made the
>  biggest mistake of my
>  life, I saw myself doing  nothing to correct it. To
>  this day I remember that
>  nondescript stretch of trail more vividly than any
>  other.
>
>  Once home, I held out hope that I might find her
>  through her new employer. I
>  remembered that she had said she was about to begin
>  teaching at a Community
>  College in Metro West Boston.  Yet without even a
>  first name and unsure of
>  the school, my best efforts lead nowhere.  Two weeks
>  had passed since Ethan
>  Pond when I literally prayed for help.
>
>  A couple of days latter I saw a subcompact car with
>  a faculty parking permit
>  for a local college in front of  my apartment
>  building.  Since I remembered
>  how the woman had extolled the merits of a small
>  car, I placed my business
>  card with a short note on the windshield.  Ten
>  minutes later came a knock on
>  the  door.  It was her.  Jennifer lived one floor up
>  and two doors down.
>
>  Jennifer and I have been backpacking together ever
>  since.  We head for the
>  mountains often, and just celebrated our 4th wedding
>  anniversary.  We think
>  back to Ethan Pond frequently, and as you might
>  expect see the world a bit
>  differently now.    Magic Places?   No doubt.
>
>
>  Rick Boudrie 1996
>  ME  ->  GA   7/13/83 - 12/01/83


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