Continentally Divided

. . . as I was leaving Pigeon Forge i stopped and looked back at my mountains now all smoked over in dusk and casually observed that I had crossed the continental divide, offering a "oh well, bye bye" token of mild regret. . .
. . . So, here I am. One the verge of a new land. Crossed the continental divide, only 4 miles of open views for the some 20 miles I bicycled, but oh how spectacular! Each hill stood vigilantly, veneered in bronze and gold! They seemed to melt into the enveloping sunset sky as they neared an imaginary horizon. The air danced in a way. An excitement abounded as I passed a group of people parked at Newfound Gap. Dark comes early in these hills, so I hiked up a trail and camped for the night. I woke up just a few miles shy of the Newfound Gap. I had no idea that I'd be where I am as I write this.
I walk into the hotel room. My first instinct is to grab a towel and put bluegrass on the iTouch. My first shower in days! Boy did I feel chipper as I got out. The ever-present pinging of the banjo sounded from the Blue Highway record as I showered. Then something striking came to my thoughts, or rather returned, now with full force: your music drove you into the west, to the mountains of the Appalachia. Which logically leads to: what now? What next? I felt somewhat of an emotional back-suck into those hills. It was a certain odd thing. I've always longed to go to a place (blue ridge, etc), but I've never pined for a land behind me when a brand new land lays before me!
I felt somewhat like Kerouac as he laid on his hotel bed somewhere just across the Mississippi, realizing he had just done something incredible.
I bicycled over thousands of feet of incline. I did not go north. I did not go south. I plunged right Into the heart of Cherokee country. And I made it.
So what now? what next? Well the mountains of Colorado and Utah. I feel to declare along with another brave man, "give me these mountains. give me these challenges. give me one more mountain to climb."
I turned off the shower just as "Lord, won't you help me" sang "headed down to Nashville town, sunny south Anton' leavin' ol' Chicago with its rain and snow, chilled to the bone. Lord won't you help me ride this Greyhound home". I sat down and just soaked everything in for the first time since forsaking newfound gap (that's it! i feel I am forsaking the land, passing it too quickly). I took stock of everything I was: laying naked, in the dark, in a hotel, in a town I've never been to, 40 dollars poorer, listening to a song that calls me back to the mountains and onward to Utah all the same. My soul howled.
Now, at 8am the next morning, no sunshine yet -- still within the shadow of those mountains -- I again head west.