Just a couple of months before we arrived in North Carolina, the state’s governor attempted to make the people of this state the laughingstock of the world. With all of our other problems, the state legislature decides to focus on who can use which bathroom. The enlightened people of Asheville and Durham took matters into their own hands and simply turned bathrooms into All-Gender Restrooms.

Here we are at Mt. Mitchell in North Carolina, which is the highest point east of the Mississippi. Seeing we’ve also been to the peak of Cadillac Mountain in Maine, which is the highest point on the Eastern Seaboard, this pretty much wraps up our need to visit any more mountains out this way. I know it’s just bragging now, but we’ve also been to the lowest point in the United States at Badwater Basin in Death Valley. I should add we’ve also been to Cape Flattery, Washington (farthest northwest), Lubec, Maine (and the West Quoddy Head lighthouse – easternmost point in the U.S.), Key West, Florida (southernmost incorporated place), and Lebanon, Kansas (the geographic center of the contiguous 48 states).

Had to pull off the out-of-the-way road where we had zero phone signal and head into a town where I could join a conference call. My call today was with a couple of investors who would ultimately play a larger role in my life as they were about to invest in my virtual reality company. Not only would this ultimately lead to TimefireVR LLC becoming TimefireVR Inc. with publicly traded stock, but it would also result in me firing my entire staff and finding myself with the sour taste of corporate divorce left in my mouth after the various entities parted ways. It’s surreal to me that so much in my life was shifting during this trip, but while it was happening, I couldn’t have a hint of what was about to occur. To commemorate this fateful sequence of events, I’m noting that it was the 48 hours starting at 16:30 on May 17, 2016, until about the same time on May 19th, 2016 that would be the pivot. Hello, big change with my small company that was about to morph and an encounter with synthesizers that was about to morph my mind into adopting a new language.

Up near the Virginia border, we checked in to the Mayberry Motor Inn in Mt. Airy, North Carolina. Yes, it is exactly that Mt. Airy where Opie, Floyd the Barber, Barney Fife, Gomer Pyle, and Sheriff Taylor would show America what small-town life was like. Tomorrow, we’ll explore the town and I’ll spend one more oblivious day as to the magnitude of change that was occurring in my life.