My Time along the C&O Canal Thus Far

I started out this blog simply wishing to show some pictures from our last outing on the towpath.  The effort morphed into something else.  I am OK with that.  These days I find that I am more easy-going about such things.  It makes for a less agitated general state of mind, and fits in with the current tagline for the blog – Anything Goes!

I have been making visits to the C&O canal and the towpath regularly since 2005. I try to get there every free weekend, even when the weather is not very cooperative.  The nature of my experience on the canal has changed with time. The initial and middle phases of my travels were periods of discovery of new sections of the canal not too far from home, and then of gradually extending the scope of my coverage of the 184.5 miles of this park space. Reaching Harpers Ferry was a first big milestone for me.   Reaching the town of Hancock further to the northwest was the next major step.  I finally ended up running along the canal just beyond the remains of a town that was called Orleans, west of Hancock.  The further away the location from home, the more time the Sunday morning visit took.  At its extreme, I would drive over an hour to get to a parking lot for the start of a run.  The last stretch of the C&O canal, including the town of Cumberland and the Paw Paw tunnel, were finally conquered only during my bike ride in 2016 from Pittsburgh.

I used cover very short distances along the canal during my initial visits.  I was still learning about the possibilities for exploration along the towpath.  I was also just learning to run on a regular basis.  I actually ran in hiking boots the first few times because I made a spur-of-the-moment decision to run instead of walk.  I did not even have proper running shoes. The effort level and time spent outdoors increased with time.  At its peak, I did a steady 12 miles of running on the towpath every Sunday.   The park became the place where I regained my sanity from the weekday madness. It also became the place of my exploration with the camera.

These travels have become a family affair in recent times. They are joint explorations. We do not run.  Rather, we try to walk briskly. We currently cover between 7 and 8 miles on a regular basis on Sundays. While walking, I try to remember things I saw and experienced in past years, and now it is also about sharing what I have been enjoying for years. That is part of the joy of the experience.  I do miss running, but life is about trade-offs.  The first priority is the joint outing.  I try to run during the week.  During the summer weekdays, I might also take the bike to the towpath.

There is a seasonal pattern to the experience of our visits to the canal. This time of year is mainly about the Spring flowers – which was what I wanted to talk about when I first started writing this blog.  These Spring flowers will all be gone in a short while. Every year, my focus is on capturing the beauty of the flowers while they last. I take the pictures of the same flowers year after year, but the novelty of the experience still remains. The result is perhaps a repetitiveness in the pictures of the flowers that I post in albums and in blogs every year.  That is the way in goes.  Keeping that in mind, today, I will try to only post pictures of flowers that I believe I have not shared in this forum so far this year.

The picture below is of honeysuckle flowers.  These plants are quite widespread along the length of the canal, and the flowers visible everywhere this time of year.  These might more specifically be called Japanese Honeysuckle.This flower below is called Dames Rocket. I used to mistake it for wild Phlox.  It is not as widespread as phlox.This is the time of year for the Rosa Multiflora plants.  They flower late in Spring.  These thorny plants are massively invasive.These are wild phlox.This is most likely Queen Anne Lace. Some time later in the year, all the extensions on which these flowers grow today will come together around a big seed ball in the middle of each cluster. You would not associate the seed ball with this flower if you saw it.The flower below is called Miami Mist. Finding out the names of some of these flowers is sometimes an adventure. I usually try to find a direct reference somewhere on the Internet to the presence of the flower on the canal itself.  In this case, there was none. I had to search further because of this – a more difficult task!  Sometimes I look at pictures of flowers I have taken in past years to try to jog my memory.  I was fortunate to find the flower this time.  The last time I took a picture of it was in 2011.I am almost sure that the flowers in the picture below are Ragworts.  I see them regularly during this season, but I tend to forget the name every year since there are so many flowers in this general shape and color.  These include the sunflower, and the state flower of Maryland, the Black-eyed Susan.  We also have yellow goldenrods this time of year.  Fortunately, they have a very different shape.  But I do tend to mess things up initially!The Buttercups are everywhere at this time.I could not resist this final picture of a buttercup and a rosa multiflora flower next to each other.It is an interesting exercise to think about where flowers of a particular kind are to be seen in greater quantity along the canal.  Some are widespread over the length of the canal, probably because the plants are more invasive than others.  Others are found only in certain places, and in bunches.   Consider the natural processes that carry the seeds of these wild plants from place to place – the wind, water, birds, animals, humans, etc…  Consider the rate at which invasive species of plants spread.   Consider the patterns of spread. Nature is fascinating!

I will end the blog with just the pictures of these flowers.  As usual, there were other things we saw, and other encounters we had, which are also interesting.  I will leave those for another time, and perhaps even another forum – or perhaps it will all remain unsaid.  How is that for saying something about nothing, or is it nothing about something.  Never mind!