Break in the Line

Up until this weekend I had actually managed to post everyday. I was pretty proud of myself, but that streak is now over, oh well. At least I had a good reason. This past weekend from Sat. to Sun. I was hiking down the Appellation Trail with some fellow Knights of Columbus. The four of us did a total of about 9 miles in the two days, 6 Sat. and 3 Sun., and although it took two days our total time actually spent hiking was about 5 hours. It was very fun and not too bad I think for my first hiking adventure.

It was quite the adventure. We drove up to Gathland Park, which is in western Maryland near the West Virginia border, and hiked all the way down to Harpers Ferry. The first day we hiked from about 5 pm till dark and mostly through the mountains. Now I had never been hiking before (in the sense that hiking was the point of the trip) and I can't really say I had the best of equipment. I did however manage to attach my sleeping bag to the strips of my backpack using some D clips in a very ingenious way, although the use of the clips was suggested by my mother. Alan, our Grand Knight, and Paul actually had real hiking packs. My put together pack was not all that bad, at least it worked better than Chris's, he brought one of those single shoulder backpacks and it looked a bit painful by that end. I also wore my big ol' timberland steel toe waterproof workboots, again not ideal for hiking, but once we hit some mud I had no fear walking through it, so no regrets there.

About half way through our first day we passed a hikers rest station, it was pretty full. Still we almost camped there until I asked what poison ivy looked like. After Alan pointed out several examples, all in the area we were to camp, I opted to keep going and thankfully everyone else agreed. Poison ivy is not a good friend of mine. We got some rather vague directions to the next camping site and headed off. Another mile or 2 and we reached the end of the mountain, but before we began the very curvy decent, we took a moment to admire a spectacular view of the Potomac. I was beautiful, at least until we spotted the place we parked the car, I got tried just looking at how far away it was. Oh well, come down the mountain was fun and once we hit the bottom, moving got a lot easier and flatter. It was weird though that part of the trail lead right through someone's yard.

Eventually we made it to the point we thought the campground should be. After taking a .5 mile wrong turn we came upon a beach type shore next to the Potomac. We found some fire pits, so we new people had at least started a fire here, but do to the threat of rain and the very real possibility of the ground flooding, we decided to keep looking. Good thing too, we did find the real campground and it did rain a lot that night. We got to this slightly hidden camp ground as it was getting really too dark to see. But we grabbed our flash lights and made camp! With the tent up we used most the water we had left too boil for some cup o noodles, Alan then grilled a few hot dogs and tossed the them into the spicy noodle mixture. The food was great, almost as great as being able to sit down. After dinner I climbed into the tent to prepare for bed and then had to get out again, cause everyone else felt like standing outside and eating gummy bears, I wasn't to be left alone. Well we finished that, hung the food, and went inside, about that time it started to rain, not bead timing, we didn't even get wet.

I think the best part of the trip was the fours of us attempting to sing a hymn for evening and night prayer, at least we kinda got the Salve Regina at the end. With that we went to sleep, which was a bit difficult, but I actually woke up refreshed surprisingly.

I should mention the bears that attacked us that night as well. By my estimate I killed at least 20 and counted about 40, but I was pretty sure there were more. It was pretty cool the way it went down. I woke up to some rustle and went outside to find a huge bear army attempted to steal our food and then eat us. I was like no way and charged to bears. I ripped out my 12 gauge and shot many of them, but I soon had to reload, the bears saw an opportunity. They rushed me, but they were no match I was going wild taking out bears left and right, and then I saw him, the great bear leader and I knew this was the end, it was him or me. I shove a cartridge into my gun and charged. I got him in the gut then broke the gun over his head, he laughed and came at me. I knew he was tough, but I was better. I grabbed his arms and broke them both then tore my teeth into his neck, he went down, the bears were stunned. I let them take there dead and I went back to sleep.

Anyways the next morning we ate some poptarts, packed up, and left (not wanted to stick around in case the raccoon army showed up. We finished up our hiking by going about 3 miles in and hour and a half. The trail was flat so it was pretty easy. We ended up in Harpers Ferry and drove home.

All in all the trip was fun, but way too many spiders, seriously, I saw like 100 daddy long legs, they were everywhere, not to mention all the other spiders. That was the worst part, I could do without all the spiders. I was happy to finally take a shower when I got home, but I made it to 12 noon Mass, which was a nice surprise, thought I would have to go at 6 pm. Right now my shoulders are still sore.