Speaking of emotional, this part was rough. After we all spent the weekend resting and eating at Granny & Pappy's place in Franklin, my folks brought me back to the exact location from which dad and I had bailed from the Trail and hitched into town. (In other words, no, Mr. Purist, I did not skip a single linear foot of the Trail. Well, except for that one time about 1,500 miles in where I intentionally sabotaged my "purity" by taking the north Trail access from a shelter, thereby skipping about 20 Trail yards, and all just to make myself laugh at the absurdity of doing such a thing.)

So this was the final goodbye, and there couldn't have been a more beautiful day for such a heart-wrenching. No doubt, my emotions of leaving family and civilization for good were mixed heavily with a fear of the unknown that lie ahead. To tell you the truth, for all of the reading and planning I really had no idea of what I was about to get myself into, how it would all turn out, what would become of me, or how I would look now that I was about to come out of the closet of nascent baldness for the first time ever.

Legend has it that as I disappeared from my parents' sight over the mountains and into the woods, my dad, in his classic call-and-response form, called out for me one last time with his "Yo, dude!" It wasn't for weeks that he learned that not only did I hear him, but I was encouraged thoroughly to begin my journey with just such a send-off. "Yo, dude!" indeed.