Elmwood Cemetery Birthday Hike – 4/11/20 – 4 miles
And then COVID-19 arrived.
How is it spread? Breathing air, touching hands, groceries delivered to the front door? Leaving my workplace office clutching my computer – surely we’ll be back in a few weeks, right? The world halted, stumbled, and began to feel its way forward.
Is hiking safe? It’s vital to well-being but is it ethical to travel far for a hike? If I am injured in the NC mountains, does that mean I am potentially exposing EMT’s to rescue me? Heck, can I stop to use the bathroom at a gas station along the way? So many questions and we didn’t know the answers. Even as of this writing, we don’t know it all.
Jim and I were fortunate to stay employed, working remotely. His biking life was curtailed and my hiking life pivoted (aren’t we tired of that word?) to going local. It was a beautiful spring and everyone discovered our city’s parks and greenways. Too many people, too close together, and there goes Parks & Rec closing the parking lots to reduce the crowding.
I needed to get creative for my annual birthday hike (#513,497,286 on the list of priorities in the world). Where to go? Jim and I picked a local place with lots of people and no crowds: Elmwood Cemetery.
Elmwood Cemetery in uptown Charlotte is the largest cemetery in Mecklenburg County and originally reserved for whites only. Its adjacent counterpart, Pinewood Cemetery, was designated for African-Americans as was common in the segregated South.
We had no agenda other than walking outside on a sunny day. I did all my research after the fact. You can Google to your heart’s content. (And if you visit, be sure to check out Old Settlers Cemetery, the oldest in Charlotte, only a few blocks away.)
Then we went home and ate birthday cake. Welcome, 62 and counting!“There are two great days in a person’s life –
the day we are born and the day we discover why.” ~William Barclay
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