fast. I could barely walk by the time I reached the landing, but still I felt happy to have come. I met a middle-aged couple waiting for the boat, and the woman told me all about their adventures: fishing and exploring and gathering mussels; feeling the river breeze at Brickhill, and bedding down snug-tight despite the rain under ancient oaks at Yankee Paradise. They’d spent their last night here at Sea Camp, and earlier this morning they’d taken a blanket and pot of coffee down to the beach to watch the sunrise.“You sure know how to live!” I said with genuine pleasure.“It was just the perfect trip,” the woman smiled. I thought about that for a long time afterwards. They’d encountered all the same weather conditions as I had, covered the same terrain, only they’d done it with ease and opulence, whereas I’d come under equipped and pushed myself too hard as usual. “Michele, you’re thirty years old now,” I told myself. “You can’t just trudge forty miles with a full pack in broken slippers anymore.” I decided if I ever came back to Cumberland it would be with a whole different game plan; I’d wear proper shoes and spend more time in the hammock.
time I’d trekked through this broad expanse and reached the beach proper it hit me: all alone in this desolate wind-swept universe! There was nothing and nobody for miles, just the shorebirds and murmuring wavelets and stout-hearted little palmettos in silhouette against the blow-out sun. There was even a baby alligator, just sort of chilling and letting the surf wash gently over him. I was loving wild Cumberland. But after several days of hard travel in my Kung Fu slippers, my knee had started to hurt mysteriously. I was in pretty bad shape by the time I limped into Hickory Hill, where I boiled a supper of noodles with arugula from Carol’s garden and glasswort gathered in the marsh. Later I cowboy-camped on the hard, tick-infested ground, amidst whippoorwills, lightning bugs, barred owls and mosquitoes. After a cold night with bugs swarming around my head, I broke camp and dragged the bum leg seven miles back to the ferry dock before break-
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A few days later my limp was mostly gone and I had a presentation to do in front of a Sun City travel club. There were a few familiar faces in the crowd, including one woman who approached me beforehand to say thanks for taking the time. She gave me a card in which she explained how she was originally from Switzerland, but that she had lived here for many years and loved getting to know her adopted country; she really appreciated hearing my stories. “With all your adventurous travels,” she wrote, “I thought perhaps you could use a good pair of walking shoes. Enclosed is a $50 gift card to Dick’s Sporting Goods.” Ma’am, if you’re out there reading this, I want you to know I got a pair of hot-pink ultra-light running sneakers and my knee hasn’t hurt since. THANK YOU! Oh and p.s.—Merry Christmas. For more of Michele Roldan-Shaw’s writings visit www.ramblerslife.com