Back home after teaching in Orleans Parish a year after Katrina, a former biologist decides to hike the southern half of the Appalachian Trail. His journey takes him up steep, stony mountain pathways accompanied by the energetic tat-tat-tat of woodpeckers, onto high cliffs with grand, panoramic vistas and through tunnels of rhododendrons blooming in the semi-shade of oaks. Bears with beady eyes rise from the undergrowth, the mountains become stifling hot and water becomes hard to find. Trail angels offer rides to town for food, a ridge runner tells stories of death in the mountains and lone men and women in need of conversation linger in shelters deep in the woods hoping for others like them to arrive. Together with the oaks and bears, Leaving the Straight Path is a story of an extraordinary place and of people who populate it. It makes you long for a break from life's routine and to return to a place of discovery and adventure.