Dancing with the Mountains
Alzheimer's, Angels, and the Appalachian Trail: A Journey of Spirit
When the cosmic tumblers click into place and the universe opens its vault, miracles can happen. Inspired by his dying father’s dream of hiking the Appalachian Trail, Paul Travers hits the trail and finds that miracle in the healing power of America’s sacred mountains.
Dancing with the Mountains: Alzheimer’s, Angels, and the Appalachian Trail: A Journey of Spirit chronicles Paul’s hike to raise money for the Alzheimer’s Association and prove that sixty is the new forty. More than a travelogue, it is a love story about fathers and sons, families battling Alzheimer’s, and the people and places along the Appalachian Trail. Sprinkled with humor and humanity, it is the spiritual response to Bill Bryson’s bestseller A Walk in the Woods.
On his pilgrimage, Paul eludes the FBI, meets his guardian angel, survives a lightning strike and a near drowning, encounters the ghost of a relative, acquires a trail name (Sondance), finds a field of dreams, walks off the war, solves the death of a Hollywood starlet, discovers Saint Francis and the Buddha in New York, embraces a religious cult, visits ground zero for the sixties hippie movement (Arlo’s not Alice’s Restaurant), receives a sacred stone from a Lakota medicine man, meets a female apostle, discovers his father’s parallel spiritual journey, and copes with the death of his parents.
His adventure ultimately reveals nature is not only the handiwork of God but the hand of God that leads each of us on a unique spiritual journey.
Paul J. Travers received a BA in English from the University of Maryland and an MA in human resources management from Pepperdine University. Following graduation, he served in the US Marine Corps. A former park ranger and historian with the Maryland Park Service, he is also the author of Eyewitness to Infamy (An Oral History of Pearl Harbor), The Patapsco: Baltimore’s River of History, The Flight of the Shadow Drummer, and The Cowgirl and the Colts.
Over the past decade, he has been involved with various historical and environmental groups. He continues to hike the Appalachian Trail.
