It was a beautiful, sunny day, the first day of April in 2017. Kevin had driven nearly two hours, wasn't sure where he was going or what to expect, but he was anxious and excited, if, you know, his usual quiet and reserved self. Cheri was on her home turf in Downtown Knoxville and was excited, too, but she'd been through this a few times. Would it go anywhere exciting? Probably not. But he was cute and funny and why not see where it went? We went to a museum. You knew we were that kind of people, right? We geeked out over marble quarries. We had our first kiss in a dairy cabin. Of course, we couldn't have had that special day, that awesome, lipstick-smearing day, if we hadn't first met online, on the Match.com. Neither of us had much faith in it, but we're awkward people in our 30s and, you know, that's how the world works. In just over a week, we shared thousands of words and dozens of stories. It was a good time, we got to know each other and feel comfortable with each other. Enough that it was easy for a first date to feel like a fifth, or a tenth. And so our story began.

Falling in love is one thing. Building a relationship when you live 100 miles apart is another. Special shout out to the video chat feature in Facebook Messenger, Audible.com, the Libby app, the Napster app, that one Harry Potter podcast (you know who you are), all the gas stations between Kingsport and Knoxville, and all our family and friends for putting up with us when we were being insufferable. Every weekend from our first date until Kevin moved in to Cheri's apartment in Knoxville, one or the other was driving that 100-mile trip. We did tons of awesome stuff! We took a trip to Durham to see Kevin's friends. We took trips to Atlanta and Chicago to see Cheri's family. We went on trips to see friends in Cookeville, and we spent lots of time with friends in Knoxville and Kingsport. We played board games and even sometimes some video games. We went on romantic walks while holding hands, and had one or two candlelit dinners at nice restaurants. It was just punctuated, every time, by one of us having to leave. And every time, one of us had to deal with the long drive, alone, wishing that we had the answer to the question of how to get Kevin moved to Knoxville permanently. In October 2017, Kevin had a health scare and got serious about moving to Knoxville and started cutting out distractions, even his beloved Thorsday blog. It took a while, but after the New Year, Kevin got an interview with a company downtown and finally worked it all out. In February 2018 Cheri and Kevin moved in together. All the hours of travel could come to an end. And finally, every day could be spent together rather than hundreds of miles apart.

Once settled together in Knoxville, the task of transitioning from a couple going on adventures to a couple building a life together became a reality. The proposal itself came after months of planning and working toward the perfect moment. After an extended period of stress for Cheri in particular, we decided to go away for a weekend for Cheri's birthday in November, to relax and enjoy her special day. We chose the mountain communities just east of Asheville as our destination as they had one area, Grandfather Mountain, nearby, that was particularly special to us: we had first exchanged "I love you" there after traveling to Durham over a year and a half before, and we hadn't been back since. And we knew of several great places in the Black Mountain and Linville Falls areas to eat and enjoy ourselves. After a great dinner for Cheri's birthday, we decided we would get up early the next morning to watch the sunrise from Wiseman's View over the Linville Gorge. We'd never been there before, but we thought it would be a fun experience. And it was an adventure! The road to get there wasn't just long and winding, like driving along the Blue Ridge Parkway - once you get into the Pisgah National Forest, the road is actually unpaved and quite steep in places, so that it's very difficult to get through. In a couple of places, it was almost impassable. Of course, we were driving in the darkness, having never done the trip before, and trying to make it before the sunrise - we weren't sure we'd make it! But we did. We found this beautiful stone walkway cutout of the mountain, overlooking the Linville Gorge. The sun rose between two mountains, Hawk's Bill and Table Rock, a perfect setting for the perfect day. And a few minutes after the sunrise, Kevin recited a few lines of poetry that ended with: Cheri Marie Hollifield Sunshine Sowilo Soulmate Will you marry me? Then she grabbed the ring, put it on her finger, and said yes.