We hung around the Housatonic Valley Association’s office long enough to greet the staff when they came into work. They gave us each a new HVA cap, prompted to do so by the condition of my current HVA cap from wearing it for thousands of miles across the country. A group photo was taken and we headed out for quite literally the home stretch, hiking a scenic alternative to what was once my daily commute. After just a mile we stopped in at Beard’s General Store for tradition’s sake.
Throughout our marriage, Cindy and I chose not to maximize our earning potential from the three undergraduate degrees, three graduate degrees and two professional certifications earned between us. We instead prioritized the raising of our family. We chose to remain in the home and rural town where I was raised, having settled there at the start of our marriage to take care of my Mom. I would not know then that my married life would both begin and end with caring for a loved one afflicted with dementia.
We also decided that one of us should always be home and available to our kids, though there were a handful of times when our only option was to bring them to work with one of us. As a visiting nurse Cindy could not take them; they instead came with me to HVA, a watershed organization for the Housatonic River, where I worked rather unhindered as their GIS Manager. My cure for three bored kids was a trip to Beard’s for deli sandwiches.
Ever the traditionalist in our family, Charissa insisted on getting sandwiches at Beard’s, claiming that was the reason she joined us for the last four days, also pointing out the 22 miles we made her hike the day before warranted some type of compensation. We arrived to find the general store under new ownership, but the current proprietor had been alerted to our coming. Only the staff at HVA or Ky would have known our intention and schedule for dropping in, whomever the culprit also “anonymously” paid for our sandwiches.
We followed the course of the Housatonic River for the entire day. Most of our journey involved following rivers, with the notable exception of the Great Basin desert. How fitting that the last river should be the one for which I used a spatial database to make maps and address environmental concerns, the same river I followed on my daily commute.
We ended the day by getting back onto the Appalachian Trail to spend the last night of our journey at Belter’s campsite, just a stone’s throw away from Belter’s View, overlooking the Housatonic River valley we just followed. The three of us shared the shelter of Charissa’s tarp, enabling us to continue chatting after the sunset. At one point a porcupine came towards us but I growled and he acquired second thoughts.
We listened to rain fall on our protective covering for one last time, one of the most pleasing sounds of long distance hiking. I thought about the connection of this final night with other nights of our journey, all the other times when our portable home kept us comfortable no matter what the weather was doing. I also thought about the two times our tent failed to provide such comfort, during the dust storm in Kansas and the untimely deluge while setting up camp in Ohio.
Mostly though, while laying awake listening to the rain, I thought about transitions. Many long distance hikers confess that they have trouble transitioning back to “normal” life. Honestly, that was never me. I easily transitioned into long distance hiking; I easily transitioned back. Yet the future was never as uncertain as what awaited us at the end of this journey. Even if Cindy was healing, she likely would not be a nurse again, nor would I reboot a career as either an academic or a GIS specialist. We also faced the possibility that the gains Cindy made with her brain health on this journey were only temporary.
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We became like Pied Pipers on the final day of our journey. Our youngest daughter Serena met us at the Mountain Side Cafe to hike the thirteen miles up over Canaan Mountain and into Norfolk with us. On top of Canaan Mountain we took a long lunch break by Wangum Reservoir, where our son Noah joined us for the last four plus miles. One of our hosts from the second week of the journey, Roger Monty, also joined us at the reservoir, having flown out from California just for the occasion. With him was Bill Perry, the mutual friend who connected us with Roger to be our host, having flown in from Vancouver, Canada.
Together the six of us came down off Canaan Mountain, then took another long break at Ky’s house, which was very near our route. A few more people joined us there for the final mile into town, including Ky. She walked with us while her daughter drove the van and camper she used as our support vehicle.
At the ballfield road, just around the corner from the official end, Little Leaguers stopped their game to come over and cheer us on. Next to them was the Yale Summer School of Music Campus, where music students cheered and waved us on. This final post about our journey coincides with the premiere of my American Discovery Symphony that will be held on that same campus tonight. Seating is still available.
American Discovery Symphony Registration
My brothers Bob and Ernie met us at the ballfield road and joined us as we finished the journey at our UCC chapel, with a huge banner and about forty people there waiting for us. Two of those people were Bill and Marcia Hastings, whom we first met briefly as tourists visiting the canyonlands of Utah. They continued to follow my blog afterwards and drove down from upper New York to celebrate our finish. Also at our finish were high school classmates and long distance hiking buddies.
I marveled at the contrast between our Cape Henlopen and hometown finishes. Only a handful of people joined us at Cape Henlopen, though half of them were reporters as media outlets made us front page news the next day. There were no reporters at our hometown finish, yet the outpouring of hometown support was by far the more special of the two finishes.
We moved the celebration into the chapel, where we experienced our last potluck supper of the journey. Our church choir sang a couple of songs for the occasion, including “Seasons of Love,” which I designated as our theme song after hearing it sung at a variety show in New Albany, Indiana. Unlike the choirs I dropped in on across the country they did not need to offer any incentives for me to stay, they were one of the things I missed most during our leave.
After stuffing ourselves one last time with all the delicious homemade dishes I gave my final talk, which consisted of three stories that particularly moved me during the journey: the story behind the “confuse who is giving and who is receiving” quote from Leadville, Colorado; the story of a ten year old boy from Lamar, Indiana who cried about and then helped the homeless; and the story of the Methodist Church in Sinking Springs, Ohio that expanded their membership tenfold after dedicating their mission to kindness. So many other stories were just as worthy of being told: stories of kindness to us, such as our Trail Angel Day; stories of individuals helping others, such as Debbie Syano raising the money for a library in Kenya; stories of communities helping their own, such as all the localized community programs networking together to help the less fortunate in Marion, Illinois.
I learned from a neighbor a few days later that our blog changed his outlook of people from cynical to hopeful, that even people with different political views were humane when national issues and animosities were put aside to focus on local needs and kindness. More people have since echoed this opinion. I considered our public mission a success, whether by changing some attitudes towards humanity or by giving local groups new ideas on how to structure a community meals program. Unfortunately, that message is needed now, ten years later, more than ever.
Also successful is the mission of those who maintain and publicize the American Discovery Trail. We truly discovered the broad mosaic of America as we walked 5,000 miles across the country. We discovered a wide variety of natural and cultural landscapes, as well as many sources for beauty, joy and kindness across the country. So much so that I composed the symphony to tell the story of this rich American Discovery, which I subtitle “an orchestrated travelog and love story.”
If I were to ignore hindsight I would also say we were successful in regards to our most important mission, to reboot our lives and heal Cindy. She went from a withdrawn person who could not keep a journal on her own, nor assist me with setting up camp, to being able to do both. She grew more confident and hopeful for herself with each passing week of the journey.
I bottled up the moment Cindy put the tent up by herself as a permanent memory of what hope feels like; I still flash back to those moments when Cindy proclaimed: “I feel myself getting better!” Unfortunately, such hope was short-lived. The day after our finish I brought Cindy in to see a physician, where she was diagnosed as having Lyme disease, acquired from that New Jersey tick. There happens to be a high correlation between the spirochetes responsible for Lyme and gum disease with dementia, an even higher correlation than with the amyloid plaques that mark Alzheimer’s.
We had just finished what would be the most amazing of all our journeys together, but my caregiver journey was really just beginning.
