There are some things in my adult life that I just can't seem to shake. Some wants that seem to stand the test of time and changing responsibilities. Some cravings that, like Albert and his Laudanum addiction on Little House on the Prairie, I just can't get enough of. Some places that, despite my wonderful wife and daughter, I still want to visit, like in my bachelor days, with my old friends from way-back. If my family can join me, then that's gravy, but with or without, I feel like I must go. Of course, going is made all the more easier with the knowledge that I get to come home to a warm comfy house and my own young family. And unlike poor Albert, I don't spew buttermilk all over Michael Landon and my grey Navy surplus wool blankets and shriek "Paw, Paw! Help Me Paw!" If I can't go...I just get antsy.
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Tsali and the NOC are two of those places.
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Of course, the NOC - the Nantahala Outdoor Center, in the Nantahala Gorge, where the Nantahala River passes through the Nantahala Forrest on it's way down from the lake named...Fontana (!)...is central to my desire to return to this part of North Carolina. My memories of camping here and piddling about on the trails of Tsali with my old chums, drunk on Rolling Rock, are warm and plentiful. Much like the post-Rolling Rock piddle is warm and plentiful...piddle which mostly winds up on the trails... Although admittedly not this trail:
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The views are typical Appalachia. Rolling lush green mountains that Coloradoans wouldn't even notice, but to a Floridian and ex-Coloradoan seem to roll for miles and offer endless challenges to old tired aging cyclist legs...
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and old tired aging British trucks.
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I'll get in trouble if I don't put that picture up...apparently after all these years some of my friends expect it.
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