Two New States & One Province Later...

Having grown up in a fairly rural part of a very rural state that is home to the start of the Appalachian Trail, I have never been able to survive very long in a big city without feeling the need for an escape.  So it was that after spending a grand total of 1 week in Boston, I decided it was time for this now seasoned urban dweller (yeah right!) to visit a couple of the surrounding New England states in which I had never been before.  Since my buddy who had helped me move was already back in class at UGA and since I had as yet to make any acquaintances worthy of inviting on a primitive camping trip, I set off on my own on an overcast Saturday afternoon in the general direction of the Green Mountains of Vermont.

This spontaneous escape from the city did not only come from my ever-present desire of seeing new places and crossing off several of the states still on my list to visit in the U.S., but also from the need to be alone and to sort through the many doubts I was having in regard to my future plans.  As I have already mentioned previously, I had come to Boston to continue taking the science courses that would allow me to apply for medical school next year.  Most of the doubts I had been feeling over the past year since deciding to pursue this course of study, I had been able to suppress with the notion that once I began studying at Harvard, I would all of the sudden become extremely motivated and driven, as I imagined everyone here would be.  I also knew that at this point in my life, getting to the age where I am one of the oldest that try to get into med school, I would need the support of a program like Harvard to boost my attractiveness as a candidate. 

As true as all of those ideas may have been, they do not address the personal issues at stake in considering this career choice…including questions such as:  Do I really want to dedicate the next 10-15 years of my life of constant study, exams, boards & the fight to establish myself in a profitable medical practice?  Am I prepared to forego the ability to live independently for the next 10 years of my life and then be saddled with possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt?  Am I not getting to the age where I’m ready to think about starting a family & wouldn’t it be nice to be able to actually spend time with said hypothetical family instead of working 60+ hours a week & being on call constantly? 

All of these questions and more are just a few of the things that had been swirling around in my mind ever since I began this course of study last year at UGA, but probably the main basis for the decision I was about to make came from a friend looking me straight in the eye and asking me this question: “Dave, if what you love studying more than anything else is language, why on earth are you trying to become a doctor?”  Indeed, why on earth was I determined to be a doctor?  I had always told myself that as a doctor, I would be able to work with medical mission groups in the developing world while at home “revolutionizing” the practice of geriatric medicine as it exists (read: non-exists) today.  This is where my idealism meets the cold reality of medical practice right now in our country.  With the uncertainty of how politics will affect medicine in the near future and the definite certainty of repaying a large amount of debt once medical school would be completed, I had begun to question the practicality of my desire to spend a large amount of time in travel medicine as well as implement innovation in a geriatric group practice wherever I might live in the U.S.  These doubts had been reinforced by the time I had spent over the last year volunteering and shadowing in hospitals, as well as through the advice of close friends that are either now working in the medical field or will soon be. 

So, here I was, having just moved over a thousand miles from home and considering abandoning the plan that was the very reason for my move!  Needless to say, a few days of camping and solitude with only God and the occasional forest critter to talk to sounded like just what I needed.  There were still 2 weeks left until class would begin, so I felt extremely peaceful about getting away and taking my time to sort through all the new ideas that were presenting themselves to me now that I had opened myself up to the possibility that maybe medicine wasn’t the be-all-end-all of my life.  

Within one hour outside of Boston, I was already starting to get into the mountains of New Hampshire, which I learned is known as the “Live Free or Die” state…seems like the latest Die Hard movie couldn’t even come up with its own original cliché title.  This motto struck me though as a huge contrast to what I had experienced so far in Massachusetts where freedom is not something to take for granted, as there are more laws in place here than you could imagine.  My first stop to grab some coffee turned into a little more than that, since I discovered an actual L.L. Bean store and decided to check out their camping gear (I needed a sleeping bag & mat, since my last bag had been given up in a sacrifice to the Poison Ivy gods…I know some of you understand this very well!)  Good to go on gear, I headed on and made it the rest of the way to Stowe, Vermont.  En route, I had made a phone call to the State Park office in this area and had been told a great place to hike in and camp…an added plus being that it wouldn’t cost any money!  The turn-off was just a few miles past Stowe & on the dirt road I was immediately surrounded by only trees, creek, light-rain & 60ish degree weather!  I only hiked in a couple of miles in order to get set up before dark.  I had spotted an island between a fork in the creek and after hiking down into a small ravine to get there, I waded across and began setting up camp.  Here are some pictures of the camp-site & some of the surrounding areas:

    

                          Creek & Wind...(It was dark)

Even though there was rain in the forecast for pretty much the whole time I was there, this didn’t bother me as I and my brother and sister had been trained in the ways of camping by our father with a few things pounded into our heads.  Among them: 

1-      Always be (over)prepared…(from his boy scout days of course)

2-      Learn to dig (and love) trenches…

3-      Tarps, tarps, tarps…bungee cords, bungee cords, bungee cords…

This last lesson on tarps and bungee cords has saved my family from much needless pain and was implemented religiously after our very first camping trip in one of those ancient canvas tents where we spent a miserably wet & cold evening during a severe thunderstorm at Harrison Bay.  Actually, what it meant for my mother was that she never slept in a tent again, but for the rest of us, the tarps (above & below the tent) have been a great solution (Thanks Dad!).

Anyway, the rest of my trip in Vermont went off without a hitch.  It was very quiet and I was able to spend a lot of time thinking and reading. Also, despite the wettish weather, I managed to keep a good fire going, which saved me on the first night when I decided to take a bath in the creek…I honestly felt like I would never be warm again…this water in these mountains up here is COLD!!! 

After Vermont, since I realized I was only about an hour from the Canadian border, I decided to drive on up into Quebec and camp for 1 more night.  The Parc National du Mont-Orford was the closest campground to the border and had a beautiful lake with amazing views.  This was still a part of the Green Mountain chain that goes through Vermont, but the mountains on the Canadian side are not as high and taper out gradually.  I enjoyed speaking French to the Québécois and spending time in a new place, but definitely preferred the primitive (and free!) camping conditions I had found in Vermont to the rigidly controlled environment of the Canadian National Park System.  There, you cannot gather your own firewood, you must buy their bundles & you must have your campfire in the grill, not on the ground!  Among many other rules, this was too many “musts” for me, so I headed on back to Boston from there & was again amazed by the view of a different chain of mountains through New Hampshire, the White Mountains. 

Here are some more pictures:   

All in all, this camping trip had been everything I needed it to be and gave me great clarity and perspective and the courage to return to my life here and make the difficult decision to not continue studying pre-med at Harvard.  What I was going to do now was a work in progress that I would and am in the process of figuring out.  I do know that I will return to the mountains of Vermont and New Hampshire very soon, either to camp or to snow-ski and hopefully by then, I will also have some new friends (or old ones will come visit!) to enjoy it with me.