For the people of Appalachia, such a trip is generally born of necessity, but for travelers seeking an authentic experience, a trip across the mountain can be eye-opening to a world of history, natural beauty and culture that is often untouched.

Appalachian music is perhaps one of the greatest gifts that the region has provided to modern culture and there are festivals and events that often pay homage to the likes of Fiddlin’ John Carson, Roy Acuff and others who helped bring the Appalachian-rooted sound into the mainstream. But still, there are more authentic experiences to be had in little-known places like Horton’s Ford, where musicians come down the mountain once a month to gather and pick, just as they have for as long as they can remember. They come bearing traditional instruments – the fiddle, guitar, and banjo – that made their way from the Old-World to the Appalachian area with packs of immigrants hundreds of years ago.

Today, these locals still play and create their distinctive sound with historic instruments that have origins spanning the globe from Ireland to West Africa. And a visit to one of these communities not only offers a lesson in global music history, but also offers true natural beauty amidst the trees, natural springs, wildlife, farms and rivers that still provide a livelihood to the quaint communities they sustain.

This time of year always makes me think of home and when I think of home I think of Kyles Ford. So, if you’re looking for a beautiful day trip this spring, consider visiting Clinch Mountain, Kyles Ford and River Place on the Clinch. It’s well worth the drive. And while you’re there, check out the East Tennessee Crossing along 25E. In the area you’ll also find access to the Appalachian Quilt Trail, the Clinch Mountain Winery, Joppa Mountain Pottery, Ritter Farms and lots of other interesting places to visit along the way.

For additional information on the Appalachian Quilt Trail and other interesting things to do in the East Tennessee area, visit www.vacationaqt.com .

The Most Perfect Note: An Ode to Bygones

I have a friend who has insights. And by insights I mean that they often dream or see things that in some shape, form or fashion appear to present themselves in reality. Sometimes partially, sometime wholly and sometimes not at all – but regardless, there was an urgent message: I was driving over a bridge and there was an accident. My car went over the railing and plummeted into the shallow river below. Someone jumped in, unbuckled me from the car and carried me to the bank and through a group of on-lookers. It doesn’t matter if I lived, or if I died, but if there is a point, I don’t think that’s it. Funny thing is, I’ve been driving over bridges with my windows down – or at least cracked – for years. That’s ironic, but a moot point really.

It’s funny how things come up at either the right or the wrong time and sometimes the more wrong they seem, the more right they can be. There’s rarely an in between.

Prior to this conversation I’d been sitting and contemplating the good and rash of gnarly things that have occurred in the past 363 days preceding the first day of February last year. A day that happens to be my birthday and a day that often brings about a great deal of emotion for me, both good and bad. I do this a lot; I think too much and analyze things. It’s just my nature –a raw instinct to learn and understand and study humans and their behaviors toward and interactions, or lack there of, with others. It’s always been, at once, a blessing and a curse.

Needless to say this intuition, if you will, only fed my contemplative mood and gave good cause for reflection. At what I rationalize to be a relatively young age, I’ve been through a lot. Seen a lot of things I never wanted to and experience many things that no one should have to, at least in a perfect world. But alas, this place isn’t perfect and I reason that it is not suppose to be.

I find it worth thought that the people and things in my life that have been the most trying are the very things that keep me going, moving forward and moving on. The things that have taken years from my life are the ones that make me appreciate the simple things that make life worth living in a new way each day. A stranger’s generosity, holding hands, finding an extra buck in the dryer, being greeted by the dog at the door, the notes of a perfect harmony – all things that mean so much more when you realize that you’re blessed enough to have experienced them and you’re aware enough, cognitive enough and alive enough to appreciate them.

As I do each year, I pay my respects to the events and people in my life who have, in good ways and in bad, influenced the person that I have become. As I get older I realize that there are no perfect notes and that the instrumentation of life is powerful and complex and ongoing. The overture is simply the predecessor; the beginning of an end we cannot choose. The dynamics change, the tempo varies, and sometimes the dissonance reverberates. But still, the notes of the past are just that.

Some people don’t hear it. Some people hear it and take it for granted. Some people ignore the sounds of their hearts out of fear of failure, or success, or one thing or another.

I don’t know what it all means either but there are a few things this old song has taught me: Don’t let life steal away your notes and hold out the ones that bless you. Strive each day for peace, live each day with grace, and act each day on compassion. Mind your own heart and be the steward of those whose hearts you hold dear. Don’t apologize for who you are; don’t compromise for those that don’t deserve it… and always look forward to the next note in your arrangement, no matter the score.

Overrated: SUVs, men in tight girl-pants, having steady employment; conjugal visits (No, I’ve never had one, but I can only assume that they’re not all they’re cracked up to be.); cats, cell phones, silk flowers; Quentin Tarantino (Sorry, man.); colored push pins – they have a function, they don’t need to be pretty, too; birthday cake, gift cards – if you can’t be bothered to get me something you actually want me to have, forget it (unless it’s worth eleventy-million dollars), Barry Manilow; iPods (I just put this in there to make me feel better that I don’t have one.), doing anything at all before 8 a.m., ever; the price of oil and the price of rice in China, fake Christmas trees that have no pine smell; socialized healthcare, wine because it gives me a terrible headache; religion, political correctiness – Why does it have to be political correctness? What about human correctness? And, who the hell determines what’s “correct” anyway?; dodgeball and other pointless sports; transvestites because they confuse me; turtlenecks – they’re just not confortable; a satisfied mind and a lonely heart; kid’s athletics with no winners – Even kids have to learn that sometimes you win, sometimes you lose and that mediocrity is not the standard; yellow, and banannas because they’re just kinda gross, despite the fact that bananna flavored things are great.

Underrated: receiving hand-written mail (It just makes me happy.), walking in the rain, or walking anywhere for that matter; snow days, good meals, warm coats, old friends; long, soft kisses to the tempo of Damien Rice; 80′s hair bands, Phil Collins, sunrise at the beach, getting older and wiser; cowboy boots; being too legit, too legit to quit (hey, hey); crying when it really hurts, a good musical, old movies, telling people you love them just because you do; wearing a helmet for your protection, and for the safety of others; the dark, that movie the Fantastic 4 (Shut up, I really liked it.), riding back roads just because you’ve got nothing better to do; actually having nothing better to do; staying in bed all day, feeling safe, going to the Circus and/or pretending you’re in the Circus, open flames; QWERTY (It would take me hours to type this without it, maybe.); diversity, freedom of speech even for really stupid people; love notes; Athiests 4 Jesus (Just think about it.); that fresh, clean feeling; reading the Classics, the importance of stem cell research, living well and not just living long; facing your mortality in order to feel alive; banjo music; being yourself; having the technology and freedom to blog about stuff that nobody will read or really cares about anyway; and, last, but not least, punctuation and spacing becausewherewouldwebewithoutit

Regarding this group that is campaigning to help this tribe, how do you “help” and uncontacted tribe? In order to help them, don’t you have to contact them? And, by virtue of that act, are you not destroying the one thing you’re campaigning to protect? It’s like buying a brand new car that’s only new for the first second you step on the gas. And, yes, for all you analytical people, I realize this rational is a bit flawed. But, it’s intriguing still.

Also, how do you become an “Uncontacted Tribes Expert”? Spend your whole life not contacting tribes? What a tedious position. Imagine this scenario:You’re studying uncontacted tribes in the bush. You’re hiding, lurking, researching….and, bam, you’re caught. Now you’re screwed. Why? Because you’ve just been caught by a tribe of wild, unknown people – and you’ve lost your job because you just contacted your uncontacted tribe. Nobody wins.

And, donate to the “survival campaign”? So, where exactly does this money go? I realize that there are things to be done – contact the legislature, slow logging, stop habitat decimation – and those things are all great…but, really! I’m all for protecting “uncontacted tribes”, but consider this. These tribes have existed possibly for hundred or thousands of years (I’m no uncontacted tribe expert, so give me a break here). They have successfully inhabited their land and survived for longer than the white man has been on this continent. They’ve obviously done a pretty good job with this whole survival thing because they’re still around. And we, the civilized, find them and suddenly deem it necessary to “protect” them.

My guess is that they don’t even know they need protecting. They’re protecting themselves from that big gray bird in the sky with loud wings just fine with their own bow and arrows, thank you very much.

That’s an all-together different but interesting point. This is a tribe of people that is surviving without the concept of hand-up, hand-out…there is no Salvation Army, there is no disability, there are no food stamps or excuses to be hand. I would image that if you don’t work or if you’re too lazy to live or don’t have the support of a family, you starve. I’m sure that in order to survive they help each other, but in the end, your own survival is in your own hands.

I mean, hey, we’re all endangered right? That’s kind of the nature of life. I’m in danger of falling down and twisting an ankle. You’re in danger of having a car wreck or getting struck by lightening. I’m in danger right now of losing my job because I’m blogging on myspace at work. And, who’s protecting me? Or you? It’s survival of the fittest, people. Who’s quick and adaptable enough to not get caught? Or struck? Or hit? Who works hard to pay their bills and who takes hand-outs?

As a matter of fact, I’m taking donations right now for my own campaign…www.iwontdoitbecauseyou’lldoitforme.com.

But I digress, as that is a whole different line of thought…

Before you think unkindly of me, much of what I’ve said is in jest or playing “devil’s advocate”, or simply thinking outside of the box, just to make all three people that bother to read this think.

And, it just goes to show you no matter how educated we get as a society or how much research we do, we can’t know everything. And, if we did, it would get really boring because there would be no wonder left – and that, my friends, reminds us, whether you agree, disagree or don’t really care a’tall about undiscovered tribes of Brazil, that discovery and wonder are really beautiful things.