A big gift in a little package, I received my Compass bracelet on Christmas morning, 2020. No one knew what changes were just around the corner that year.
I had left everything behind in St. Louis a few months prior to build a new life and career in North Carolina. Originally, friends had invited me to stay with them, but they’d since found a new house and moved. The roof over my head was on borrowed time. Now on the market, I was merely its temporary caretaker until it sold.
Finding that Goldilocks abode– not too big, not too small, not too expensive, not so cheap it’s scary– was its own time-consuming adventure, but I finally found a place that was just right. Almost. The move-in date was a month later than the closing date of the now sold home I was in. Where could I go with in a pandemic world, in a town I didn’t yet have a network of friends, for an entire month?
Answer: A thru hike of the Ozark Trail (OT) in Missouri.
The idea itself wasn’t entirely out of the blue. In 2016 I’d completed a 7-day section hike on the Appalachian Trail.
