Harper's Ferry, West Virginia

(if your interested in what i've been doing the last few weeks, see previous post)

Here I am, in Harper's Ferry, the "psychological" halfway point of the AT. The real halfway point is 100 miles or so north, in the woods somewhere (where it should be!). This is a pretty cool town, they keep it that way with building codes. Very touristy, and all the buildings have an old look; there is some very cool stonework to see on some of the homes and shops, and some killer landscaping to go along with it. But the whole town literally closes down at 5, the shops, cafes, everything. Plus Enoch hurt his knee the other day on some rocks and wants more time to let it heal; so, we're zeroing here today. We've gotten a great deal at a new hostel (we were there on their very first day of being open!), so lodging is taken care of. And now we get to check out some of the parks and tours. H.F. is a very historical town, especially noted for John Brown's raid on the armory here just before the Civil War; and since Enoch is from Kansas, where Brown was also active in raids and fighting in the 1850's, he's pretty excited about that.

I'm pretty excited because yesterday we met up with KBomb again. He skipped some of the AT in order to "aqua blaze" which is to say he and a group of other hikers took canoes down the Shenandoah River rather than "white blazing," or following the AT (the trail being marked with white blazes). We didn't plan to meet him or anything, but it turned out he arrived here just hours before we did. I don't think we could have planned it better.

Pretty pumped to be heading into Maryland tomorrow, and Pennsylvania within a few days. Some people do the 4 state challenge, going from VA, through WV and MD to PA in a 24 hour period, but I'm enjoying taking it easy. I don't need to be doing 50-some miles in one day (I actually heard about 3 guys who did 61 miles in 24 hours through Shenandoah!) Seems like a waste to me; really like self-abuse. I can walk 20 or more easy enough, and wouldn't mind doing one 30 mile day at some point, just to say I did, but milage is low priority with me, beyond meal planning/resupply and such. This trip is about so much more than mere movement along a trail that I'd hate to get that caught up in that kind of thing.

I hope I'll be able to update again soon, but regardless, I hope everyone back home is doing good and enjoying the oncoming summer.