After spending her life as a mother and Cullman County Schools elementary teacher, Celeste Weaver decided to embark on an adventure she had dreamed about since she was a child.

Weaver said she was “born with wanderlust” and the turbulence she bore witness to as a child in the 1960s, led her to seek out the comfort and solitude of nature.

In 1970, while exploring the woods of Smokes Mountain near her childhood home in Good Hope — and a book report on Heidi still fresh on her third-grade mind — Weaver made a decision.

“That’s when I first made a promise to myself that I would travel to far away places,” Weaver said.

In 1984, she was able to satiate her sense of adventure during her last semester at Auburn when she enlisted in the university’s student exchange program. Along with her classmate Linda Camp, Weaver was given the opportunity to fulfill her student teaching on England’s southern coast.

Weekdays were spent in the classroom. Weekends were spent exploring the country by train.

“We just fell in love with the place. The sheep, the tea, the countryside, the pubs and the people. It was just a wonderful place and we both fell in love with it. We traveled the whole entire country. As long as we were back in school on Monday, we did what we were supposed to be doing, but every spare minute we had, we were exploring,” Weaver said.

After 4 months abroad, the two returned home to settle into their careers — Weaver in Cullman and Camp in Georgia — but remained close friends, often reliving the “young and free” adventures they shared in England.

In 2017, with retirement approaching, Camp approached Weaver with an idea that they return to England as backpackers to take on the country’s Coast to Coast Trail.

Weaver thought the task would be too challenging to complete. But, the more she thought about the proposal, the more it began to seem like a “tailor made vacation.”

“I just thought I’m not getting any younger. I don’t have time to put off my bucket list anymore. I have to stop talking about things and start doing some things. I started to think that maybe it was something I could do. I thought ‘Well, I can think and I can walk. I can plan and I can carry a backpack, but I know one of these days I won’t be able to do all of that.

“I wanted to do more than just exist, I wanted to really feel alive,” Weaver said.

With compasses set toward Robin Hood’s Bay, they departed on foot for the more than two-hundred mile trek to St. Bee’s. Despite challenges — steep elevations, getting lost in the English Moors and falling down a 50-foot embankment — Weaver said each step only added to the desire to reach their destination, and taught her the beauty of slowing down after a lifetime of responsibility.

“When we were moving through that English countryside…everyday we felt healthier in ways we couldn’t have imagined. Our complicated lives became simple. It was like we just had time to move through life in un-rushed pleasure,” Weaver said.

She also began seeing the experiences nature gave to her as a child were present even in a different country. ”There wasn’t a day that went by on that trail that I didn’t see something that reminded me of home.”

Weaver shared those memories with her family by recounting each days adventures in a journal. With a little encouragement from a friend, Weaver’s journal is now a self-published book.

“When I first started writing I wasn’t planning on it being a book. I was just trying to keep up with all of the memories, so that I could share them with my family at home. But then I thought that it might could encourage somebody else to go and do something like this,” Weaver said.

“The Traveling Stones” published on Feb. 1. Weaver will share her journey on Saturday, March 4 when the Cullman Public Library will host a book signing at 10 a.m.

“The Traveling Stones” is available in select stores or available to download on amazon.com. You can also visit her blog at celesteweaverblog.wordpress.com.