After we left Burnsville, NC we ventured into the beautiful Smoky Mountains where we backpacked for 4 days. We met up with our friends who are traveling across country as well and had a splendid time. Besides Caitlin falling every 10 minutes and breaking her finger, backpacking went really well. After the Smoky's we got in our van and headed to Chapel Hill, North Carolina. We arrived at a farm called the Pickards Mountain Eco-Insitute which is an educational farm that leads workshops, field trips, kids camps and other events.
After three weeks here at Pickards we have found our community and new home. We plan to move here in October where we will begin creating a Pachamama Alliance East Coast Hub. Tim and Megan Toben, the co-founders of Pickards, are deeply involved with The Pachamama Alliance and want to turn Pickards into a Pachamama event and retreat center. We have committed to making this happen and will be living here for a while. This is SO exciting to us and is exactly what we have been looking for.
The farm provides most of the vegetables and is totally off the grid using a windmill and solar panels. There is also a well for water. Several other people live on the farm, some residents and some WWOOFers. We are in love with the farm and the beauty of North Carolina. It is soo green here with fireflies at night and hot sweaty days!
We will be finishing our trip with an internship in July for 6 weeks in Virginia then heading back to the West coast to say hello to you all before we leave again! We knew we were going to find something wonderful on this trip and we can't believe how all of our dreams are coming true. It's so awesome!
