Harpers Ferry – Splattered Brains

Charging Through The July 4th Weekend

Out on the trail very early in the morn,
Tearing through the cobwebs that the biking paths adorn,
We are the first riders of the day in these parts it would seem,
Pedaling through the quiet of the cool woods as if in a dream.

We have been biking regularly the last few weeks, including a ride yesterday that will in all likelihood be the last one in a long while. I even took my bike back to the store for some adjustments during this regular spell of exercise, and we also did a complete tuneup of the old bike. A few parts ended up needing replacement on the old bike. It turns out that I had worn out the inside of the back tire of the old bike and did not even know it!

It has been a eventful few weeks recently, about to culminate in a trip to India next week. There have perhaps been plenty of things to write about, but the opportunities for introspection and access to a creative space have been few and fleeting. There are the distractions that do not allow me to stay in a quiet space for too long. The attentive motivation for writing has been lacking, and that is still the case today. So, I am going to keep this sweet and short.

Here is a picture taken during a hike with visiting family to Maryland Heights during the July 4th weekend. The view is of Harpers Ferry, a favorite place for us to visit.The Shenandoah river (on the left side of the picture) meets up with the Potomac at this river junction. It was a good day for recreation on the rivers. Perhaps you can even sight some rafts and tubes in the expanded picture.

Walk, Bike, and Run

I felt good this morning. I was able to go for a run after a somewhat long break. The last couple of days have been a little cooler than usual, and the temperature was in the 60s when I started out. I thought that I would feel a little sluggish because of the break. That happened to not be the case. I got my mojo going pretty quickly, probably because of the cool temperatures. The running came easy. I was was able to maintain a decent pace throughout the run, and I actually felt wonderfully refreshed the rest of the morning.

We walked from Weverton to Harpers Ferry last Sunday. We were walking a section of this trail for the first time this year. Because of the location closer to Harper Ferry, there was more activity on the trail than one wishes and hopes for. But it was OK. We still had our extended periods of quiet. Here are some pictures from the walk.

The railroad line runs beside the canal all the way to Harpers Ferry.

This is the Route 340 bridge across the Potomac.

The river is very rough downstream of Harpers Ferry. The water is also very low in summer.

Harpers Ferry is across the river in West Virginia at the meeting point of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers. The railroad line crosses over the river on the bridges to the right of the picture.

The newer flowers that we saw for the year during this walk include White Campion,

Buttonbush,

Queen Anne Lace (here in its early stage),

flowers that I was unsuccessful in identifying last year too,

Crown Vetch (distinguished from Red Clover because of the nature of the leaves),

Hedge Bindweed,

Wild Sweet William,

Rose of Sharon,

and Asiatic Dayflower.

My bike ride last Wednesday started once again at Pennyfield lock, but this time I headed towards Washington, DC. I rode up to Chain Bridge. It was a typical hot and humid Washington, DC, summer day. I covered more distance this time than I did during my first ride of the year last week. I put in a little more effort than during that first ride – keeping up a decent speed on the trail. There were quite a few people on the trail in spite of the heat. Thankfully, interactions with folks I encountered were generally pleasant, including a conversation with a couple who were in the early stages of an ambitious ride of over 60 miles! I hope they made it.

Here are a couple of pictures from my ride. The first one was taken at Widewater.

You can make out the typical haze of a Washington, DC, summer day in the second picture.

Brood X

This is the year of Brood X, a brood of cicadas that emerges from the ground once every 17 years in our part of the world – to mate, lay eggs from which nymphs emerge, and then die, perhaps even before they are able to complete the process. The nymphs that are born drop from the trees where the eggs are laid, burrow into the ground, and they are gone for the next 17 years – to reappear once again and transform into fully grown cicadas. The cicadas are everywhere these days, and they will be gone within the next month or so. They do create a racket! We saw a lot of them last weekend on the trail near Dargan Bend.
This visit to Dargan Bend was a follow-up to a visit earlier this year. At the time of the first visit, all of our surroundings were primarily brown. This time the experience was completely different. It was green all around, although the leaves for the Sycamore seem to emerge a little later than for other trees and plants. It is also already getting warm enough for the gnats to emerge in certain sections of the trail.

We walked south from Dargan Bend, towards Harpers Ferry, the opposite direction to the one we had taken earlier this year. This was a stretch of the trail that we had not explored before.

The flowers of early Spring are gone and we are left with primarily the Rosa Multiflora, Honeysuckle and Fleabane. The American Bladdernut, a plant whose flowers we saw in April, have now fruited.I have not yet been able to identify this one new flower in the picture below. We saw it in at least a couple of places along the trail.The river is quite wide in the section of the trail close to Dargan Bend. This section is just upstream of the remains of Dam 3.We walked past an inlet lock just before remains of Dam 3.In times past, the inlet lock provided a good means providing water to the canal from the water collecting in the river behind the dam. We stepped off the trail in this section to go down to the river itself.This area of the river downstream of Dam 3 is quite rough.You can hear the roar of the river here.

We did not quite reach the bridges at Harpers Ferry, but we could see them in the distance, probably less than a mile away, from the shore of the river just beside the remains of Lock 34.To the left side of the picture above is Maryland Heights. There is a trail to the top of the cliff. We have hiked this trail a few times in the past. It is a good workout! Harpers Ferry is on the right side of the picture.

I have been thinking about the lifetimes of the cicada and what their lives mean in the grand scheme of things. They live underground (on the liquids in the roots of trees) for most of their lives, and they emerge from the ground once in 17 years to produce progeny. And then they die. That’s it! You should read about their strategy for survival as a species once they emerge from the ground. It is quite unique considering that they are consumed in large numbers by other creatures once they emerge above ground. (They are even considered a specialty for consumption by humans in some quarters. If you do an Internet search you can find a few recipes.) Do these creatures have a purpose, or is there simply an evolutionary process (or instinct!) for self propagation and preservation of the species that is in play? Is there some kind of grand plan that includes these creatures? How do human beings fit into all of this?

Dargan Bend

The day of the March Equinox (the Spring Equinox here in the northern hemisphere) finally arrived last Saturday in our part of the world. Daytime and nighttime are roughly of the same duration anywhere on the earth on that day. From now onward, until our autumnal equinox, the length of the days will be longer than the nights in the northern hemisphere. It feels like we have crossed some threshold in our seasonal expectations. It is all mental.

The temperature was at just about freezing point (32° F) when we started our walk at Dargan Bend, just north of Harpers Ferry, on Sunday. It felt quite cold as we waited for the sun to rise over the ridge behind the parking lot. Meanwhile the sun had already risen over the West Virginia shore of the Potomac. This picture was taken from the boat-ramp to the river at the parking lot.There was a cool breeze that was blowing in our faces as we walked in the long shadows of the tall trees that lined the trail. It actually created a wind-chill. I needed to put on an extra pair of gloves.We headed off north towards Antietam aqueduct.

Thankfully, it warmed up quickly. It was about 60° F by the time we finished our walk. We had worked up a sweat by that time. More than 8 miles of walking was undertaken, and we were actually not feeling too tired. We ended up not making it to the aqueduct, falling short by probably much less than a mile.

I have run past the parking lot for the boat-ramp at Dargan Bend in the past, but have never actually stopped to park a car here. I used to park in one of the parking areas right across from Harpers Ferry, just below Maryland Heights, when I used to visit the area. But these parking areas have now been blocked off for safety reasons. Dargan Bend happened to be one of the two parking spaces closest to Harpers Ferry. Hence the decision to check it out.

The last time I went through this area was in 2016, during my bike ride. It had been an even longer time since I covered this section of the trail on foot. That could have been as far back as 2011. It was nice to experience the resurfacing work that has been done recently to improve the trail.It is smooth all the way to Shepherdstown.

We saw Spring flowers for the first time this year along the canal during this walk. That experience in itself is uplifting to the spirit. There is the expectation of more to come. This particular growth is called Bloodroot.

We walked past an area where the trees were covered by what looked like English Ivy.It felt strange to see all the green here when the rest of the spaces we were walking through were completely brown. It even looked this way in the woods beside the trail!

There was one lock in this section of the towpath. You can actually drive to this location and park there before getting on the trail.

We were lucky to see a hawk’s nest. We located it by tracking a bird that was flying toward a tree with something in its beak. There was probably a young one in the nest.

Also of note in this section are the remains of the old Shinhan Limestone kilns. Apparently, this place used to operate until the 1960s.

This was a magnificent morning walking along the river – as usual!

At Antietam Aqueduct

It was early Sunday morning. When I asked Teresa which section of the canal she wanted to go to, she left it to me to decide – because it was my birthday. There was no particular time constraint either on how long we could spend on our adventures that morning. I picked a place to go to that took a little longer than usual to get to, a place that she had not ever been to for hiking. We spent the whole morning on the towpath hiking near Shepherdstown, WV, (my biking companions from 2016 will surely remember the place!) and Sharpsburg, MD.

This walk was a little different from usual. We spent more time than usual exploring off-trail, beside the Potomac river itself.

As we drew into the parking lot after the long drive from home, my attention was drawn to the sound of a freight train beginning to make its way across the river from West Virginia, on its way to Hagerstown. Although I had the urgent need to visit the facilities, I changed my mind and quickly grabbed my camera from the back seat after parking the car. This is what we saw. It made me wonder.

Once on the towpath, we decided to head in the direction of Harpers Ferry, towards Washington, DC. It was a nice and cool morning.

The first time we decided to walk down from the towpath to the river was when we heard the sounds of the water rushing over rocks, indicating the presence of some rapids. We do not come across rapids that often during our walks. Usually, the river is very quiet. Additionally, we had noticed many places where people had walked off the marked trail towards the river and created ad-hoc paths through the woods in the process. We took one of the paths that appeared to be more easily navigable. Since the towpath happens to be at an elevated level when compared to the level of the river in this section, we had to be careful coming down the sandy trail to the level of the river.

It was still early in the morning when I took these pictures from beside the river. The rapids, if I could even call them that, were very gentle, with a very small drop in the level of the river at this point.

Back on the towpath, we passed a neighborhood with older houses on the berm side of the canal. This one could have been unoccupied, and perhaps even abandoned.

We arrived at Antietam Aqueduct after passing a huge campground next to the trail.The Antietam Creek Campground is the only one of its kind along the 184.5 mile towpath. It is a very different setup from the regular Hiker and Biker campsites that line the rest of the trail. This campground is much bigger, with many individually marked sites that can be reserved. Unlike the Hiker and Biker campsites, this one is accessible by car. There were many vehicles parked in the vicinity of the campground on the berm side of the canal. The facilities in this campground could be considered slightly less primitive than at the Hiker and Biker sites – but not by much.

When we arrived at the Antietam Aqueduct, my first instinct was to go down creek-side to get a picture of the aqueduct itself. This proved to be a little bit of a project since the closest approach required stepping down a steep slope immediately next to the wall of the aqueduct. The slope was covered with small, loose, gravel. It would have been easy to lose footing while trying to go down, and to end up sliding down to the bottom.

After some exploration, we managed to find a spot further along the towpath that was less intimidating, a spot where other people had attempted to go down to the river in the past. We managed to get down to the river, and then walk back along the riverside, on a rough and uneven path, to the the mouth of the creek, where the creek met the Potomac. The aqueduct was revealed to us in its fullness.

This was a view of the river from the mouth of the creek.

We got back to the towpath taking the shorter route up to the trail, the one next to the aqueduct itself. It helped to hold on to the wall of the aqueduct while climbing. I think going up is easier than coming down, especially if you are dealing with damaged elbows.

The next time we decided to go down to the river was on our way back, when we found a nicely cleared path down to the river in the section of the towpath next to the homes we had seen on out way out to the aqueduct. This foray into the woods resulted in the decision to attempt to keep walking along the riverside, using whatever rough trail we could find, for as long as we could.The risk was of having to walk back along the same rough trail if we found ourselves stuck, with no easy way to get back to the towpath from where we had reached along the river.

We had to pick our way over a narrow and very lightly used, perhaps even disused, pathway, walk over sand and pebbles in some places, and even navigate past fallen trees. If I were a child, I would have enjoyed the experience even more. Eventually, we got to a place where we had to cross a stream that passed under the canal via a culvert. Fortunately the stream was shallow enough for us to walk across.The path along the river seemed to end here. There was a path back up to the towpath on the other side of the culvert. That was the end of this particular escapade. I would be remiss if I did not post a picture of this object that we found in this section of the trail.Some of you might recognize it for what it is. It makes you wonder!

The final time we explored off-trail was when we got to the general area of the parking lot we had left our car at. We walked beyond the parking lot and up to the bridge for vehicles that went over the Potomac river, the bridge over which my friends and I had biked in order to get to our hotel in Shepherdstown one evening in 2016.Walking back to the parking lot along the riverside allowed us to see the remains of all the old bridges that used to connect the two sides of the river at this point.The railroad bridge that we had seen the freight train activity on earlier on could also be seen from the level of the river.

The off-trail activities that took place throughout the morning ended up making this a longer outing than usual. But that was not the end of the story. We also took the longer route home, taking the country roads, and driving past Harpers Ferry on the Maryland side of the river.

We were sad to see that the National Park Service had shut down the parking spots that used to exist next to the road in the section of the road next to Harpers Ferry. It will make any future attempt to climb Maryland Heights a somewhat longer effort, with much more walking involved. It is also the end of free parking if you were planning to visit Harpers Ferry itself. It is probably a good thing that they closed the parking lots. Their locations were dangerous.

That was about it for the long morning on the towpath. I had my customary PB&J sandwich for lunch, after which I attempted to take my usual Sunday nap that was needed to recover from all the activity. But this was not the usual Sunday.

Early Monday morning, we got some very sad news. It was about a death in the family. Joy Aloysius Thomas was a truly remarkable person. You do not find people like him in this world often. He was incredibly brilliant and knowledgeable. He was also an terrific human being by all measures. He was humble. He had already done so much in his life in the service of humanity, and for his fellow human beings. He would have done much more if he had not lost his life. He died young, unexpectedly. I decided to hold off on this blog until funeral services were complete.

Harpers Ferry Forever

Some of you who may have read my previous blogs could be wondering about the motivation behind this trilogy of blogs on Harpers Ferry. My first inclination had been to write only this particular blog that I am about to pen, and this was based on a trip that we had made to the town very recently. But then I realized that I have been experiencing Harpers Ferry and writing about it for some time. Some history in this regard was needed before proceeding. The earlier blogs on the topic of Harpers Ferry, and the background material needed for them, flowed quite naturally from this realization.

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you know by now that Harpers Ferry has been a part of my weekend runs for several years on the C&O Canal, although more frequently in the past than in current times. But one does also occasionally wander into the town itself from across the river, either when one decides to cross over the river to the tip of Harpers Ferry, to the confluence of the Potomac and the Shenandoah, or when one goes into town for tourism purposes when we have visitors from other parts of the world.

Thus is was that we found ourselves recently visiting the place twice this year, in quick succession, accompanying visitors. You would think that such visits into town would tend to become monotonous, but the amazing thing is that I am finding new things about this place called Harpers Ferry. I am actually beginning to get a better sense for what life must have been for people living here in times past, starting from when Robert Harper moved to the area in the 1760s. I am now also more fascinated by the history of the town in the simplest sense of the word, i.e., in terms of how people lived there rather than in the sense of its place in history, about how the town grew and even prospered before the inevitable impact of the passage of time, and even about simple things like how the layout of the town changed over the years (there were actually even a few canals that flowed through town at one time or the other). Perhaps a day can come when I can even get a sense for how people generally felt about their lives in Harpers Ferry.

So what is it that has roused my enthusiasm about the place you ask! As background for getting a better insight into my frame of mind and my thinking about this subject, I will note that one of the first things worth knowing about current Harpers Ferry is that the National Park Service (NPS) has done a bang-up job bringing the town back to life, both physically and virtually, after its having been destroyed over and over again by floods, something that almost led to abandonment. Today, people only live in the upper parts of town above the flood lines. The lower part of the town is dedicated to the tourists. Besides the mom-and-pop shops and restaurants, there are still many previously abandoned buildings of the old town that remain in this lower part of town. In spite of having been to Harpers Ferry many times, this was the first time I discovered that many of these abandoned buildings have been converted to museums. Each building addresses a different aspect of the town’s history and background. This is a work in progress, but the NPS have already done an excellent job. There is an attempt to cover all aspects of life in a little town over the entire period of its existence in a systematic way. Of course, significant turning points in history, like John Brown’s insurrection, and the important battle that took place in and around the town during the civil war, are prominent subjects for presentation, but one also learns about the life of ordinary people, including the experience of blacks at that time in history, or the commercial story of the town (as noted, it was once a prosperous town), the functioning of the armory that the town came to be identified with, and the impact of the railroad and the floods on the town over the years. You can feel like you are living the experience.

With more and more trips to the town, I might actually begin to remember what I see and read in the museums and be able to relive those times in my mind rather than just remember the experience of being in the town! This year was the first time we walked through the ruins of Virginius, a little island on the west side of town that at one time was Harpers Ferry’s center of commerce. They made good use of the power of the waters of the Shenandoah to fuel the commerce and help the place flourish, by diverting some of the water into tunnels under town in order to use its power. But ultimately the river was not controllable!

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — Site of water inlet from the Shenandoah into Virginius

For the first time, we found the original site of John Brown’s fort, originally a guard and fire house. The site is on top of an embankment that once used to carry a railroad line into town. (The remains of the railroad track can still be seen under the sand in places.) The embankment runs parallel to Potomac street.

John Brown’s fort has itself been moved around quite a bit over time, even to places outside of Harpers Ferry. It has come to rest in its current location near the confluence of the rivers most recently.

And then we discovered the site of the original buildings of The Armory behind the embankment I mentioned earlier. None of the armory buildings still remain, having been razed to the ground to support a railroad yard more recently in time. But you can walk in the area and get a sense for the place. There are markers that tell you a little more about the place itself. OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

It turns out that after all these years I am still learning new things about Harpers Ferry. I even have a better appreciation for how the place must have looked in different times. I will be back, and hopefully I will continue to have my curiosity piqued, and I will actually remember some of things I read, and I will also continue to learn. Maybe Harpers Ferry will remain with me forever!

Harpers Ferry Over The Years

My regular exposure to Harpers Ferry over the years has primarily been because of my weekend runs along the C&O Canal towpath. It has been mainly about the connection between the town, the Potomac river, and the railroad line that crosses the river and passes through the town. I run past the town on the other side of the river, under the railroad tracks that cross over the Potomac into Harpers Ferry in West Virginia after emerging from the Harpers Ferry tunnel on the Maryland side of the river. Often I even experience the rush of the trains while running in this area – trains that are crossing the river with their horns blaring, or those on the tracks on my side of the river south of Harpers Ferry, and those on the tracks on the far shore of the Potomac north of Harpers Ferry.

Winter view of Harpers Ferry from the C&O canal (January 2008)

Sunrise behind the hills at the bridges of Harpers Ferry (October 2007)

January 2008 2 — Early morning freight traffic moves through Harpers Ferry (January 2008)

Blasting out of the tunnel on to the bridge across the Potomac (January 2009)

There are the pictures taken from the tip of Harpers Ferry where the Potomac and the Shenandoah meet.

Then there are the pictures taken from across the Potomac river, from Maryland Heights.

Panorama - September 2018 — The town of Harpers Ferry nestled between the two rivers (September 2008)

Harpers Ferry from Maryland Heights (April 2010)

April 2010 2 — The Amtrak Capitol Limited stopped at Harpers Ferry (April 2010)

When we have guests visiting, a view of the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac is a must.Here is picture of the river flowing in the direction of Washington, DC, taken from high up on a hill in the Harpers Ferry cemetery .This picture was taken in 2005.

It has been a while since I ran on the C&O canal across from Harpers Ferry, and this is primarily because the weekend exercise routine has changed in recent times. But I do miss the experience, and the connection still remains. I still hold a hope that I will be able to return to the activities of my past years.

Harpers Ferry (2/13/2005)

This note was written in 2005. As you can see, I considered what I had accomplished that day very significant at that time, when it fact it could be considered just another minor milestone in the story of my life. But perhaps it did also affect my psyche in a way that led me to the place I am today. Who is to say!

As a point of reference in time, I got my first digital camera only a month after this outing on the C&O canal towpath.

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I reached my Destination today, February 13, 2005. Alleluia and Glory be!!!

Some of you may know about the historical town of Harpers Ferry, located at the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers in West Virginia, at the meeting point of the three states of Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia. It is a beautiful town located on a hill. It saw a lot of action during the civil war. It was the site of an armory in those days, and John Brown also staged his unsuccessful insurrection there to try to free the slaves. Lewis and Clark went through Harpers Ferry on their way west, picking up weapons and other supplies. They even had a boat made out of iron in Harpers Ferry for their trip. That particular project was not successful…

The B&O railroad crosses the Potomac at Harpers Ferry. The railroad lines emerge from a tunnel on the Maryland side and split in two directions, over two bridges, as they cross the river, with the bridges passing on opposite sides of the town of Harpers Ferry. These bridges over the waters are an impressive sight. There are also remains of older bridges across the rivers to be seen around the town. The rivers are wide and the waters very rough. This is white water territory! Over the centuries, the waters have cut a notch through the mountains, and there are cliffs and hills all around. It is both pretty and powerful at the same time.

We have visited Harpers Ferry a few times in the past. I have noticed the C&O canal towpath during those trips and made note of the fact that the trail runs all the way up from Washington, DC. I remember thinking to myself at that time that it would be extremely cool to come up the towpath from Montgomery County by bike. Well, I have done it, not by bike, but on foot, and not all in one day, but over a period of months. It is my destination!

When we were growing up in Madras, there were a couple of books that I loved to thumb through. Both were travel books and had lots of pictures in them. One of the books was of travels in the USA and the other was of travels in other parts of the world. There is a picture from one of the books that has been stuck in my head – it shows a train crossing a bridge over a river and the railroad track splitting off in two directions on the opposite side of the river. In my imagination, this is the town of Harpers Ferry. I remember that when we first visited this town, this was the image that came to mind. The thought, most likely a figment of my imagination, was that this was something that I had seen in books as a child, but now was fortunate enough to experience first-hand. Yes, this is my destination!

Harpers Ferry is at mile 61 on the towpath, and quite far away from home. This is probably the limit of where I can get to comfortably without stretching myself too much. In fact, I had to get on the highway at 6:40 am to make sure that I got there at a reasonable time to start the run. This is yet another reason for me to consider this as a destination. I will pause at Harpers Ferry for a while, take a measure of what I have done on the towpath thus far, and consider setting other goals for the future. Meanwhile, there are miles to be covered over and over again, and trips that will surely give me new experiences with the River.

The run between Brunswick (mile 55) and Harpers Ferry took me from a familiar set of surroundings into new and different territory. So far the canal has mainly run through heavily wooded areas, and the river has tended to be a quiet beast for the most part, showing itself occasionally through the branches of the trees. As one gets closer to Harpers Ferry, the towpath is right up against the river. The area is completely open and there are very few trees around. You are running on an embankment completely exposed, about 20 to 30 feet above the river on one side, with the dry canal bed just a few feet below you on the other side. You realize the magic of the system of locks, that allows them to maintain the waters of the river and the canal at different levels. (This area has quite a few locks because of the significant drop in the level of the river.) As an added bonus, you have the B&O railroad on the other side of the canal, and I saw quite a few freight trains rumbling by. This place tends to be noisy – there is also road traffic from route 340. You also pass by the little town of Sandy Beach which is essentially a row of houses parallel to the canal, railroad tracks, and road, with its back up against a hillside.

On the way back from Harpers Ferry, as I pulled out of the parking spot under the shadows of the cliffs of Maryland Heights, I decided to take the road less traveled. I turned off the highway onto a local road, led by a sign that simply said “Brunswick” and “Route 478” on it. I did not have a map in the car, and did not have a clue about route 478, but I decided to be adventurous anyway. I ended up on a fairly empty road running past the railroad tracks. I went though the little town of Knoxville, with its traditional main street and its multicolored row-houses, and eventually ended up in Brunswick, MD, at its sprawling railroad yard. I drove over the tracks and into the parking lot for the towpath by the river. Although I had run past it in the past, this was the first time I had actually driven to the lot. It looked safe. Next time I will know where to park in Brunswick.

So, faithful readers who have stuck with me through my travels and through this long essay, this is the end of a stage in my travels. Who knows where the next voyage (if there is one) is going to take me. I have seen many faces of the River, and hopefully the next time you visit us, I can take to the spot on the river or canal that best fits what you wish to experience – whether it is quiet and solitude, whether it is unimaginable beauty, whether it is awesome power and fury, or whether it is just a simple picture of the timeless flows of a wild and untamed river that has always been, and will continue to be.

Until whenever – Adios Amigos!
kuria
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As you can see from the pictures I took with my analog 35mm camera during my run, I did not actually enter the town of Harpers Ferry that day. I only saw it across the river as I ran on the trail. Scan-29 Scan-30

Regular readers of my blog will also know that I have traveled further along the towpath in the years that have passed since that day, including a trip that covered the entire distance from Pittsburgh to the Washington, DC, area – the Great Allegheny Passage from Pittsburgh to Cumberland, and the C&O canal towpath from Cumberland to DC. I do not consider Harpers Ferry that far away from home these days. Times and perspectives have changed.

For Memorial Day, 2018

By sheer coincidence, we happened to visit a few historical locations last week that are associated in one way or the other with the American Civil War. The practice of observing a Memorial Day in the United States came into being as a formal way to remember the people who had lost their lives in this war.

The first place we visited during our travels last week was Gettysburg, the location of the civil war battle where about 51,000 lives were lost in a single encounter over three days of fighting. The battle marked the turning of the Civil War, when The Union finally began to push back The Confederacy. It was also the place where Lincoln gave his famous Gettysburg Address. The first picture below is from a section of the famous Battle of Gettysburg Cyclorama. The cyclorama can be seen at the visitor center in Gettysburg. OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA The next place we visited was Harper’s Ferry, the location where John Brown, the abolitionist, raided the local armory and helped to ignite a process that eventually led to the civil war. Being at the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers, the town played an important role during the civil war itself. OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA The last place we visited were the fields of Antietam where the bloodiest single day battle of the civil war was fought. About 23,000 people lost their lives in about 12 hours.These days Memorial Day serves as the day to remember all the men and women who have given up their lives to serve the country in various wars and battles, but mostly it seems to be a day for people to consider the beginning of the summer season. Barbecues are fired up for the first time, swimming pools are open, and yes, there are good sales in the stores.

Sadly, we have still not learnt our lessons about wars in general.

The Spider’s Web (8/19/2007)

Jeff French and I were lifting this ugly piece of furniture over the stairs at the entrance to the apartment building. It was an oddly shaped green table, with a backsplash and long legs, and it was also quite heavy and ungainly to carry. We were going to Apt 13 on the ground floor, but the brilliant designers of the particular apartment building had put in steps to first take you up about half-way to the next floor and then back down again to the level of the apartment. (The thinking process behind such a design is mind-boggling!) So, here we were lugging this monstrosity up the stairs – when the backsplash that I was holding on to (which I should not have been doing in the first place) separated from the table. I lost my grip and the table landed on the steps. Luckily it did not have too far to go. It hit my thigh as I fell back against the steps and sat down. Never mind – not much harm done other than a bruise and some soreness in the thigh.

We then somehow got this thing into the apartment and were greeted by the fellow who lived there. He seemed to be somewhat incoherent. He had bandages on this foot, had some trouble walking, and was apologizing profusely about not being able to help. Jeff thinks that the person was doing this because his pride had been hurt because he could not help, but I think that this dude was still drunk from the previous night (or maybe he also had something that morning). His wife kept telling him to get out of the way, but he kept on getting in the way, until he had to stop because of the pain.

The couple tells us that they want this huge table in their small kitchen. We manage to get it in there, but there is not enough room. When we finally get the table against the wall, we see that there is not enough space to open the door of the fridge completely. (The dude is going to have a hard time getting that beer from the back of the fridge!) There is nothing more to be done about it, and Jeff tells the guy not to call us later to take the table back. We then also deliver a computer table to the folks. We barely manage to get this other rather forgettable piece of furniture into the apartment, this time without it falling apart in our hands. The thing is very heavy because it is made of particle board, but unfortunately it is not very strong. I wonder how long the table will last. Fun times at the furniture program!

I was out in the back yard yesterday afternoon, standing on a ladder trying to take pictures of the beautiful white flowers on the Crape Myrtle tree,when I noticed the robin standing on the lawn.I got down from the ladder and tried to walk across to the other side of the bird to take its picture with the right lighting. But the bird did not cooperate. It kept moving in the same direction that I was moving in, parallel to me. Eventually I had to give up. It was when I looked back towards the deck that I noticed a nest under the deck, on top of one of the beams that held the deck up. I could see the tiny beaks of the babies facing upwards in the nest, as if expecting some food to be delivered.I was convinced that the bird I had encountered had in fact been trying to lead me away from the nest. Anyway, when I came back later the bird was in the nest trying to feed the young.Another robin was sitting on the neighbor’s fence with stuff in its mouth, but it flew away when it saw the humans. The first robin stayed put in the nest looking at me. It was not about the abandon its young that easily. Another cycle of life begins under the deck.

I have been trying to get some inspiration to write during the past few weeks, but all I see in front of me when I sit down in front of the computer has been a blank page. There are too many cobwebs in the mind, and it is difficult to escape the spider’s clutches. My mind is out of whack. Anyway, I did a run on the C&O Canal towpath from Brunswick to Harpers Ferry this morning in an effort to loosen some of the cobwebs. It was a cool cloudy morning, and it was positively cold on the bridge at Harpers Ferry with the wind blowing between the cliffs.The waters are low on the Potomacand there were a few intrepid folks who were making their way towards the middle of the river by trying to climb over the exposed rocks.

Much of the murky green water that is a fixture in this section of the canal is gone but not all of it. It is a good breeding ground for skeeters, but none bothered me during this run. (What in tarnation are skeeters, you ask? You will have to find out yourself.) I had company from the freight trains on the other side of the canal, including a monster train led by 5 or 6 diesel locomotives pulling more than 130 cars (yes, I stood there and tried to count them all!). I still feel a rush when one of these trains roars by blowing its horn, shaking the ground, and causing dry branches and other things to drop out of the trees. This is what you call POWER, baby! I managed to even get myself in position to take a picture of a locomotive rushing out of the tunnel at Harpers Ferry.OK, so I get my kicks out of some very simple and perhaps silly things! What is the harm? I need to get my laughs before the spider gets back….