Fall always brings back vibrant memories from my college days of hitchhiking with friends out to the Appalacian trail. We'd thumb rides in the back of pickup trucks and in hippie vans with love and peace signs and make our way to the Shenendoahs (well we did until one couple got busted for doing it). But once we got there, we'd go down a steep trail to a boyscout shelter and spend the night, cooking spam over a campfire and smearing peanut butter on rolls stolen from the cafeteria. (Don't ever cook spam over a candle by the way. It tastes very bad.) The night sky was like a glittering blanket of stars up there (even if someone did step on those mountains long ago and flatten them. Truthfully they are more like foothills).

Come morning it was like dawn set the forest on fire: golden and red and brown and crisp and smelling of molting leaves everywhere. We'd linger over stale rolls and frost bitten peanut butter and boil some coffee from a thermos, then make our way back, exhausted and smelly. I love the sound of crunching leaves to this day, huge carpets of them made for rolling in.

I need to go back some day. But this time I'll rent a car haha. And I'll take a coffee pot and jerky. No spam. Well maybe a little for old times sake. But over a fire, no candles.

Hugs, Crusty Crunchy Christie haha