T he trip began with a last minute rerouting; the Blue Ridge Parkway was closed.
I thought it was just for maintenance until a guy I met at the trail’s end told me otherwise. He was old, white-haired and craggy-faced, but his smile was almost wider than his head and he was garrulous beyond compare. I met him at the Big East Fork parking lot, right at the end of a backpacking trip with friends.
I was only listening to be polite and provide context for my attempts to befriend his dog without coming off as a canine-obsessed creep — which I am.
He spoke of the mutt, Ella, as if she were his child. She was one of five. She wore a red raincoat and was hiding behind his legs. He gave me a dog biscuit to offer her, but she wasn’t falling for it.
A woman crunched over the gravel parking lot behind us, and the old man stopped her. They used to be coworkers.
“How the hell are you?” she asked, beaming. He asked her if she was still working at Michelin. She’d quit.
“Best decision I ever made,” she said. She was standing next to her boyfriend, whose hair would have cascaded past his shoulders if he hadn’t tied it back in a ponytail.
“Have you met Ella?” he asked. Ella trotted right over to greet this other woman, even after all my attempts to win her over. I was supremely miffed. Traitor.
The couple set off on their hike while the old guy continued to tell me about his dog, who had again shifted her attention back to me. This would make it her fifth or sixth hike this year on that same trail I had just traversed for the first time. I tried sweet-talking her some more. She eyed me skeptically.
