Triple post!

June 28,

Start:  976.3 Dick's Dome Shelter, in tent.
End:   1002.4. Blackburn AT center.
Total:     26.1

Last night the hickory nuts were crashing to the ground around me.  Only plants, not bears, I tell myself.  Today I'm shooting for the big thousand mile mark.  I pack and am on the trail by seven thirty, enjoying a beautiful morning in the woods.  The Appalachian trail soon enters Sky Meadows state park, there is a camping ban for several miles which doesn't effect me, and some nice meadows.

It is getting hot though, as the trail dips below a thousand feet in elevation.  The weather has been cool for at least a week now, and I'm missing the cool days.  A sign on the trail placed by some straight up jerk warns hikers of a tough section coming up which the sign maker calls the Rollercoaster.  The elevation profile in Awol's book shows constant climbs and descent of about four hundred feet for around thirteen miles.  The sign also tells hikers to come to the Blackburn Appalachian Trail center if we survive the rollercoaster.  The sign brought me down by saying that I would hate the upcoming section, then advertised for me to come to a near trail business.  No worries though, I tore it down and hid it in the bushes.  No other hikers need to have their energy sapped by some pencil pusher at the PATC.  As for the litter that was a sign, the next forest fire will melt it down.

The rollercoaster turns out to be not all that bad, but it definitely drains me.  Streams at the bottom of every descent prove indispensable on this ninety degree day, as I suck down eight or nine liters of water today.  A heavy sun shower provides the cooldown the day needed to be great.

Seeing a sign on a tree with only "1000" carved into it, changes the day from a struggle to make miles, to a hour long sit down party.  More hikers come by and soon whiskey appears from a pack.  Six or seven shots later and with a feeling of accomplishment at having knocked back the first grand, I start weaving down the trail toward the Blackburn Appalachian Trail center to get water.

The Blackburn Appalachian Trail center is a steep three hundred foot drop from the trail for no other reason to get water.  Its sad to drop off the ridge with plenty of great sights to set up camp, for a lower elevation penguin roost, but I'm out of water and the next source is four miles away.

I miss dinner but I have my own food, so enjoy Ramen noodles and charge my phone.  I camp out on a huge wrap around screened porch at a building that the PATC rents out to large groups.  Tired I fall asleep fast.

-------------------------------------

June 29,

Start:  1002.4 Blackburn Appalachian Trail Center
End:    1015.   Scott's floor.
Total:     12.6

Hikers packing and talking wake me up at six, which is perfect as I'm in a hurry to make miles today and get to Harper's Ferry, Wv.  I start talking quietly to a hiker who's up and one of the guys who woke me up tells me to shut up that there's people sleeping.  I tell him to shut the fuck up and not to camp around other people if hes going to be an asshole about stupid shit.  Problem solved.

I'm trying to hustle to get to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy in Harper's Ferry where Allison, a ATC employee works that stayed at the center last night.  She said that she would give me a ride with whoever else could fit in the car to a Chinese buffet.  We just needed to get there before lunch.  Game on. 

I hike fast on flat trail, and soon am crossing the wide Shenandoah river.  I enter historic Harper's Ferry on the grounds of an old college, and soon am at the world famous Appalachian trail Conservancy.  I arrive just after eleven, but Allison is busy and won't be able to go for an hour.  There is a hiker lounge here with phone, internet, sodas and a couch, as well as a hiker box.  AT hikers get their picture taken here for some unknown reason, then they number it in the order you arrived in the hiker pack this year.  I was hiker 629.

There is a family here talking to an ATC volunteer, so I hustle a ride out of them and get a first class ride to a second rate Chinese buffet, the Jumbo Buffet.  As a note, Chinese restaurants should always have a Asian sounding name, not slang American English.  If it was named, Jumbo Dynasty Buffet, or Imperial Jumbo Buffet, the added sense of authenticity would have surely improved my respect of the place.  Still, the food was marginally ok, though most items were lukewarm, sitting in the danger zone for food related bacterial growth far too long.  They were really good at refilling my sweet tea though, never letting it drop to half full.

I resupplied at a Super Wal-Mart next door then caught a bus back to Harper's Ferry.  The vortex was strong back on the couch in the air conditioned hiker lounge, and I didn't leave until five.  15,000 Union troops were stationed here to protect the armory that supplied the north with rifles.  The tight valley was impossible to defend though against Weaverton's artillery though which took the high ground on the cliffs across the Potomac river.  After a few volleys of canon fire, the union army quickly surrendered to Weaverton, and the south took the town. 

What made the town valuable to both rebels and union interests, was it's strategic location at the confluence of both the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers.  Also, the C&O canal and the railroad went through town making it a major transportation hub.

Harper's Ferry became famous months before the civil war though when abolitionist John Brown led a daring raid along with fourteen other men on the federal armory.  The abolitionists goal was to capture the one hundred thousand army rifles stored there, and use them to arm slaves in an anticipated rebellion.  Late one night in 1859, Brown and his men, several of whom were freed slaves, successfully captured the armory.  Doom may have been set as fate for Brown as a result of the first casualty of the raid, a freed slave employed as the night watchman.  The abolitionist victory was only temporary however.  Soon the local militia had the abolitionists barricaded in a fire house.  Union Colonel Robert E. Lee arrived with a force of 250 marines, and captured Brown. 

John Brown's trial was swift and he was sentenced to be hanged in nearby Charles Town.  In one of his last statements, he foretold.of the civil war, saying that he feared a long and bloody conflict soon to come to rid our guilty nation of it's crimes of slavery.  In Harper's Ferry there are many historic sights and museums dedicated to African civil rights causes, there is also a wax museum of John Brown's raid.  Most construction in the national historic park which is the small downtown, is pre civil war.  Slaves dug out stone to form flat building sights on the steep rock hills, then used the stone to build the buildings.  In the Secret Six Tavern where I ate dinner, the axe strokes formed by slaves chopping the beams down to size and putting finishing touches on the wood, can still be seen.  The Secret Six was named in honor of the six silent member of John Brown's raid, who helped plan and finance it.

I crash this evening on the floor of a land house, who lives in a slave built house next door to the Secret Six, Scott.  Remarkably there is a ice cream cooler full of five gallon tubs of ice cream next to where I sleep.  Scott lives above another restaurant and gets to stay in this apartment as exchange for doing construction work for the restaurant owner.

---------------------------------

June 30,
Start:  1015. Scott's floor
End:   1046.1 Ensign Cowall Shelter
Total:     31.1 miles.

I sweated all night but slept like a rock next to sweet ice cream.  I'm out by eight, heading to the trail.  I decide not to eat till I'm walking following the white blazes to freedom.  White blazes are about the size of a dollar bill standing vertically and painted on trees to show the trail.   The Potomac is awesome to cross, but first I stroll by many historic buildings, including the firehouse where the brave abolitionist John Brown was capture along with his men, who were willing to be hanged or die in battle rather then see a disgraced nation continue to keep men enslaved, just to satisfy rich men's greed. 

After crossing the Potomac, the C&O canal path offered a welcome two mile flat walk along the course that oxen walked pulling ships up the canal that ran parallel to the Potomac river. 

Crossing the Potomac also means that I crossed into Maryland, where I will be till tomorrow when I cross the Mason-Dixon line and head into Pennsylvania.  Maryland's AT is remarkably flat, and wide enough to be called a jeep road.  I figure with so many eager volunteers on hand, and such a short state in miles, around thirty, there isn't enough trail work to do, so they just keep making it wider.

Smooth terrain and little water makes the miles go by.  I cross many historic sights, and am really starting to feel the Civil War history of the area.  Armies of 90,000 men marched through these hills, and engaged other similar sized armies in battle.  One battle field I pass was where 90,000 troops from Michigan, went to battle with confederate troops.  Monuments mark the place where two generals were killed in the battle.   Hundreds of thousands of Americans lost their lives for nothing in that war.  What was it even about?  It wasn't about slavery, the Emancipation Proclamation just coincidentally happened because of it.

I take a break crossing I-70 and see in my data book China 88 in a town that is a few miles off trail thirty one miles into my day, and a shelter just after.  I decide to hoof it and try for buffet.  I make the road at eight, with plenty of daylight left.  The second car picks me up and drops.me in town.  Sadly a local tells me the buffet is two miles out of town.  Another local tells me to get pizza, so I oblige him, and am not disappointed.

The pizza place is also a Mexican restaurant though with an Italian theme.  A Latin family is working, and maybe it's because of my team Mexico futbol jersey I'm wearing, or maybe not, but I get excellent service and great super cheesy pizza relatively inexpensive.  I don't even finish half of my large pie, and take the rest back with me to the trail pitching with the pizza box.

A quick ride back, and I walk to the shelter .2 away.  A group of hikers recognize me and I'm amazed that they caught me.  It was easy for them though, they skipped eighty miles via hitch hiking.  Yellow Blazers really bother some people, but I couldn't care less how other people choose to hike their own hikes.  I'm walking the while way though.

One hiker hands me a beer that he got in town, I drink it and socialize a few minutes, then head back to my tent, to spend a ling time writing these three entries.  Loud Bluegrass music is playing somewhere nearby, and I would love to join a local party