God of the Mountain

“Mom,” our son, Mark said when I answered our cell phone, “we’re going to be a little late. I’ll give you and Dad the address so you can go on to the cabin when you get there.” We had just learned it was going to be a mountain cabin where we’d be staying, so we found the street at the edge of Boone, N.C. and headed up a steep, winding road. The address didn’t match, though, and when we inquired, a resident told us there was a street by that name in a town 25 miles away. Mark hadn’t known if the name he had been given was a town or just an area of town.

Anyway, we soon found ourselves surrounded by very high mountains and clueless of directions, because our GPS would not display the address. The little town we were in was locked up tight with nothing open. Howard spotted a police station, but there was no admittance except for an officers' entrance. At a movie theatre next door to it, a man told Howard that his son worked for the sheriff’s department and made a call. He gave us a scribbled diagram, and the GPS did take the name of a street he said was next to the one we wanted. “They’ve developed the whole side of the mountain,” the helpful stranger told us. It’s too new to be in the GPS.”

Piecing together this information, Howard stopped at a station and asked a man standing beside his truck about the road. “You want Bar Mountain Road,” he said. “B-e-a-r--Bar!” he clarified when we looked confused. We drove until we saw a sign that indicated our destination on Pinnacle (the name itself should have told us something) was two miles up the steep and curvy mountain ascent. The further we drove, the more the engine and I protested. “Let’s go back down,” I pleaded, “this is too scary!” I am a little afraid of heights, and the deep gorges next to my window were very unnerving.

Finally, we spotted two road markers hanging awry across each other with the word, “Pinnacle” on one of them. It was difficult to tell where the arrow was pointing, though, and we took a rock-strewn, cut-off road to the right. “This can’ t be it,” I fairly wailed as it was getting darker and more mysterious. Getting back on the road, we finally couldn’t go any higher and began to look for the address marker. Just before we gave up, we spotted a rustic-looking cabin through the bare trees (it was so high the trees hadn't even leafed out yet!), and the key Mark told us about fit!

What a welcome sight of cozy living room, cloth-spread table, and barstools around the counter of an inviting kitchen. Doors led to two bedrooms, with stairs leading to a loft bedroom above. Mark and Rhonda arrived 30 minutes later, and we sat up long and late catching up and laughing about our adventure. It had been scary to them, too, and they were incredulous that we had made it. They didn’t know how much praying we had done!