The woman behind the hiking stick.

Now that I find my knees both work well enough to resume two of my favorite pastimes, hiking and bike riding, I feel compelled to use these pursuits to ease myself through some tough transitions in my life. My youngest child just went off to college in August and has left me wondering what to do with the time we once spent together. I've just finished an advanced degree at the University of Tennessee which has taken up a tremendous amount of my time over the last two and a half years. I no longer have to get up at 5 a.m. just to write research papers or read in professional journals before going to my teaching job. I find myself doing some soul-searching, and that is leading me back to my mountains--the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. Hopefully this journey will take me to new heights--different, decidedly, from other peaks in my life--but heights, nonetheless.