Meeting Julie in North Conway
I met Julie in September of 2001, the first weekend of September, up at North Conway in the White Mountains. She and another young woman, Becky, showed up at the hostel the night before, probably a Friday night, and I chatted with them at the table. By Saturday morning we had decided to take a drive around the White Mountains, the three of us, and just see some of the cool places. They had both arrived by bus and had no vehicle, so it was a perfect fit. That was something I always liked to do, showing other people some of the beautiful areas around us.
We did some simple hikes and wandered around, and then ended up back at the hostel that night. One of the things I did that weekend was stop at Pinkham Notch because I wanted to climb Mount Washington and spend the night up high. I asked if there was any space available at Lakes of the Clouds Hut, and there was. I asked Julie if she wanted to do the same thing, climb up to the top of the mountain and spend the night at the hut, and she agreed to do it.
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Huntington Ravine and Lakes of the Clouds
The tickets were not cheap, over a hundred dollars, but we would get meals up there and warm blankets and everything. The next morning Julie rummaged through a pile of old clothing at the hostel to find enough warm gear, fleece and such, because we knew we would be up high and exposed to potentially cold weather. We hiked up one of my favorite trails, and one of the steepest trails in the White Mountains, the Huntington Ravine Trail. It was an absolutely wonderful hike. She loved it, I loved it. It is cliffs most of the way up, and it is somewhere around four thousand feet of climbing.
We got up top just around sunset and wandered across the plateau toward the hut, taking our time and soaking it all in. We were in no hurry, even though we knew dinner was around six and we would probably miss the first seating. That is exactly what happened, and we ended up eating later with the Appalachian Trail thru-hikers, which was really cool. Sitting with six or eight people who were walking the whole Appalachian Trail was part of what made that night memorable.
In the bunks that night I remember it being really cold, even with the blankets. Sometime in the middle of the night I climbed down from my top bunk and got into Julie’s bunk beside her just to stay warm, and we gathered more blankets. That weekend began a bond that lasted for the next few years. We were never romantically involved, but there was a wonderful feeling of being loved without physical intimacy, and at that point in my life that meant a lot.
The Week of September 11
After we came down from Mount Washington, we were so exhausted that we stayed in a motel Sunday night instead of driving all the way home. On Monday I dropped Julie off at Lowe’s Path so she could climb some mountains on the back side for a couple of days. We figured she could take a bus back toward my house and stay at my place when she finished her hike.
The next day, while Julie was out hiking, was September 11, 2001, the day the World Trade Center towers fell. I was at work that day and remember it vividly. I worked for the federal government, and it felt like we were under attack. They closed the office and told everyone to leave, and I remember them even suggesting that maybe we should not simply go home because no one really knew what was happening or how we were being attacked. I think I drove to Mount Monadnock and spent the day hiking there.
Julie called later that evening around dinner time and told me she had finished hiking and was staying at the Lowe’s hostel, and that she would come visit me the next day. Looking back, it is strange how that personal story and friendship are tied in my memory to such a terrible national day. She had just arrived in the country, I had just met her, and suddenly the whole world felt different.
New England Wandering
Julie and I did all kinds of fun things around New England for the next few months. We went to Acadia National Park for a long weekend. We went up to Vermont, including the Ledges, a place where skinny dipping is allowed, and had an awesome day swimming, sunning, and enjoying that free kind of outdoor life that both of us seemed to understand.
She had recently broken up with her boyfriend and had been made redundant at work, so she had no job to hurry back to in London. She was going to travel around the United States for as long as her money held out. I had been divorced in November of 2000 after nineteen years of marriage with Marty, so it was a very open and changing time in my life too. I was single, recently divorced, and it felt good to have female friends again, something I had always found natural and easy even while I was married.
The Adirondack Mountains and the Lean-tos
One of the best trips Julie and I took was out to the Adirondack Mountains, where we spent a long weekend hiking and staying in the lean-tos. Those Adirondack lean-tos always felt like real mountain shelters to me, simple and open to the woods, with the smell of damp leaves, wood smoke, and cold mountain air. We carried what we needed, hiked into the mountains, and settled into that rhythm where the whole day becomes walking, talking, cooking, resting, and watching the light change through the trees.
Julie fit into that kind of travel so easily. She was adventurous, flexible, and happy with simple things: a place to sleep, a trail to follow, mountains around us, and enough food and gear to get through the night. The Adirondacks were never about luxury. They were about being out there, tucked into the woods in those lean-tos, sharing stories, laughing, and enjoying the kind of friendship that did not need to be explained.
Campfires at the A-frame
Julie stayed at my A-frame cabin in the woods for many nights. We would have campfires outside, play music late into the night, have plenty of beers, and just enjoy being there. Those nights are part of what I remember most fondly about that period, not because anything dramatic happened, but because it was such a good, easy, genuine time.
Our friendship stayed platonic through all of it, and that was part of what made it special. After a long marriage and a divorce, I was in a strange open chapter of my life, and Julie became part of that chapter in a way that felt healthy, fun, and affirming.
Out West, London, and Florida
Eventually, at my urging, Julie went out west. She visited family in Oberlin, Ohio, which had been part of her plan, but I suggested that while she was in the United States she should really see the national parks out west. She did, and then she got on the Green Tortoise, something I had always wanted to do myself. It was like a hippie bus or a hostel on wheels, and it traveled for two weeks down through the Baja Peninsula, camping and living communally with other travelers. She loved it and told me the people were wonderful.
She came back around December or so, but eventually had to return to London as her money was running low. Two years later, in 2003, she contacted me to say she might come visit. She flew into Florida, I flew down, and we spent a week in the Florida Keys, enjoying the Keys and going diving at Looe Key. We both got recertified since we had been certified before, and we had an awesome time diving there. We also stayed at the Everglades Hostel and talked about canoeing in the Everglades, but she needed to get back to London and start a new job.
A Good Chapter
Julie went on to do accounting work for record companies, and later decided to go to school for environmental science. That degree opened up a whole new world of field work for her, which she loved. Cheers to Julie. It was a wonderful period of my life, from after my divorce in 2000 until about 2003, when I began another chapter. Julie was a good one, and we definitely had a lot of fun together.