like traveling on my birthday. It keeps the blues away; it makes me feel as though I'm accomplishing something. Last year I was in Cusco, Peru; the year before that, I flew with my family to Ireland. This year my plan was to hike the Appalachian Trail for a few days. Had I planned this? I had not. I had grown fond of the sound of it. I had constructed a few nice fantasies around it. I had told enough people about the plan that I suspected I would follow through with it. But planning? Ha. The trail wasn't going anywhere; when August 26 got close enough, I would hit it. But things fall apart, most notably my spit-polished fantasies, and by the time I got to the Appalachian Mountains yesterday, I didn't have a clue where to start. Not to mention, the rain wouldn't let up, and visions of myself alone and triumphant on the trail quickly turned soggy.
"That rain must make for bad driving, but we need it," said the woman at the general store where I stopped to ask directions. She was 40 maybe, her eyes all done up, her dyed blond hair short and feathered.
"I had planned on doing some hiking, that's all."
She looks at me through her clumped lashes. "Honey, you ain't hiking today."
I sigh. "I know." I'm afraid she will ask me what my plans were, and I will have to admit that I had no plans at all, that I don't even own a raincoat, so I change the subject. "That sign says you have milkshakes?"
She smiles. "I could maybe do ya' a milkshake." She gets to business with the scoop. As she assembles what I have come to refer to as the Absolute Best Motherfucking Milkshake Ever Made, she tells me about the trip to Europe she just took. Italy, Switzerland, Germany.
"I'll be paying it off forever," she says, "but it was worth every penny."
I ask her if she'd ever been to Europe before.
"Honey, I'd never been in a airplane before." She wipes her hands on her tight, faded jeans. "What's funny is how different things are over there," she says, turning the frosty silver cup under the milkshake machine, emitting a low gurgling noise. "Like tipping. You don't tip, or not much. It's like I was telling Al," she gestures to an old man in suspenders and a red baseball cap, rocking in a chair outside. "In America, if you make dinner reservations at 7 o'clock and you're not there by 7:15, you're table's gone. In Europe? You show up at 9 o'clock and you still got a table."
"America prides itself on efficient service. Get 'em in, get 'em out --"
"Take their money. It´s crazy."
She dumps the milkshake into a styrofoam cup and wipes off the sides with a napkin. "Sure there's nothing else I can getcha?"
"Just a few postcards," I say.
"How about a map of the Blue Ridge Parkway?" she asks. "Gotta have one of those."
The Blue Ridge Parkway. The highway that winds and dips through the Appalachian mountains. It's not hiking alone, woman vs. wilderness, but it's something.
I take a sip of the milkshake and my eyes practically mist up with gratitude. "I could probably use a map."

Shout-outs to my Virgos: Happy Bidday Kate Messer and Karen Rheudasil!

written in Asheville, North Carolina