Maryland – The walk

I knew the river. I knew the way. He had walked and running more from them more than he could count. Most days before school, I would take early along the channel. The neighborhood in which he had grown was about forty miles ahead, but the path uploaded a hill in three.

People with dogs. People by bicycle. People in speaker. Runners and walkers and families with young children. We were a secondary show for some, an obstacle to others. While we walked, we called our mothers. When the crowds began to lose weight, we gladly found ourselves alone with the turtles that used to do trunks.

When I was ten years old, we moved from a brick house in DC to the extensive suburban landscape that extends from the city by miles in all directions. The C & O channel went to only half a mile of our new main door. Although far from being a desert it was, for me, one of the few places that really felt outside.

Crunch, Crunch feet in the gravel. A herza takes a slow and calculated step and returns to absolute stillness.

We made the call to take a day. The trip home was a little more than an hour, but some of my family were at home. Sunbeam and I shower, change, start a laundry load and answer questions about the path between dinner snacks.

In the morning I showed my nephews my truck, parked by time on the road. Almost two and almost four years, the questions went and left and returned again.

«What is this?»

«That is the drawer that has the stove of my kitchen.» I open the drawer to show you.

«What is this?»

«That is the fanatic.» I show how to turn the knob that can barely reach opens and closes the ventilation of the roof.

«What is this?»

«That is a jumper.» Shake it to make sure.

«What is this?»

«That is the drawer with the stove again.»

His brother sat in the driver’s seat and slapped behind the wheel.

How easy it would be to rest for a while, what convenient to take a few days here. There are eggs in the fridge and ice in the freezer. We could stay for a while …

We did not do it. We couldn’t. In the afternoon we were sweating through our newly cleaned clothes. It was a very hot walk on the crest until the next water.

«Why is the camp team so strong?» Sunbeam asks while rolling your package with a wrinkled like a bag of fried potatoes. His eyes look widely with an exhausted humor while the buckles come together with small clicks. «Is it just my environment so quiet?»

Birds Chirren here and there. The breeze is light, enough to feel but not enough to listen. From time to time, a car passes to the other side of the park. A man with a dog followed a truck with a horse trash and some good tips. We fill our water bottles with a spike and cross the pair of roads. On the other side there are ruins and signs of the Civil War era that explain their history.

Maryland is neither north nor south. It was a slave state that did not separate from the union. The people of the time were divided, many joining the fight on both sides. For the confederate states, Maryland had stayed in the Union. To the United States north of the Mason-Dixon line, Maryland was still part of the south.

We read the banners that talk about the local events of the 1860s. These are the first we have seen since the beginning of the path that seems happy or proud to talk about history. We take photos and follow the path back to the forest.

Walnut nuts fall from trees as our water sinks slowly. After eating, we prefer to sweat in the still store that confront the mosquitoes outside. I had brought a head of the head from Georgia and I only used it once. After leaving it in my truck, the bastard insects had come out in force. We listen to the distant thunder and the little and angry than the hungry insects.

I open my eyes to the golden light that stains the trees. The ground is not yet in sight of the sun. We get up and move before heat, and welcome the cold morning breeze that joins us along the way.

«Whoah …» Sunbeam stops and leans over something on earth. A piece of the body of a copper head, perhaps six inches long and without a head or tail. It is amazing with ants, we cannot even say what extreme is which. There are no signs of the rest of the snake.

A little further we reach a great raspberry bushes patch. When we meet, we are not starting the berries of the mountain, but inviting them to join us. The ripe come voluntarily, dark and heavy and ready to be eaten. The immature, smaller and pink, adhere to their mother Espinosa. We have many brushes with the brambles, such is the price of our effort, but few are drilling enough to bring a sound of our lips or blood from our body. Sunbeam eats as she goes. Full a bag of zip and drop it into a pocket when we move forward.

The land path becomes a cement bridge, completely caged while crossing the road. In April I had driven under this same bridge on my way to East from Colorado. Crossing under the path of the Apalaches on my way to leave my truck before going to walk along the path of the Apalaches had been an exciting moment on a very long trip. Now, here I was again. Traffic roared under us in both directions such as trucks, travelers, weekends and more hurried. The United States is always in motion, always going somewhere, I thought for myself.

We get two speakers of the trucks that pass and the five for it, then we return to solid land. The path runs parallel to the road for a certain distance, and we pass some walkers that come in the opposite direction. One, an older man who asks us if we are through that we use a hat that boasts of the city in Colorado in which we live. The little talk of «in which small world we live in» was shouted about traffic.

In the next refuge we stop for lunch. I cover an tortilla in peanut butter and see my generosity of berries on it. Too many, all the food was a struggle not to lose any, but curse It was delicious. When we return to the path, we see a white cat in the high grass. We had not seen houses or buildings from the farthest side of the road, and we asked ourselves where his house was, and if he had one. It looked like an adequate cat, but the cats of the house rarely last a lot in the field.

The afternoon clouds close. The heavy downpour cuts our visibility in half and makes deep puddles along the path. From time to time we stop to cut the drainage channels in the mud with our posts.

The rain rises and becomes a slight fog. Somewhere on the hill, the increase in bells marks the time. The path becomes more rocks than the earth, and we slide, stumble and open our way.

Three men with their shirts had spread their team especially the refuge of ten people. We configure the tent for a little disadvantage and place our shoes in the last available sunlight patches.

In the dark we listen to an owl. The call was unknown, and I try to identify it with the Merlin application but I never have the opportunity. A car on the nearby road begins to destroy from side to side, turning the area with an escape that comes out and escapes and does not sound as great for us as it should be for the driver. When the car finally leaves, we hear the owl in vain. Although we would not have heard it fly, even without the strong driver, we know yes. The owl was gone, away from the noise in search of the silent forest he prefers. Sigh. In the morning we will do the same.

When I walk to the shelter in the morning, the men had gone without their garbage. The bears box was left open, our food bags still inside. Thank you very much, guys. We eat and pack and observe a small copper head slide through the brush.

An hour after the walk we stop in an open field to dry our socks and shoes. The Sun Blazing works quickly and we reach the road again. Half an hour later I slide in the mud of a cross stream and make my right foot again.

Go up the hill and on the crest and down again. Another stream, another path, another hill to climb. Near the upper part we listen to a distant siren. It is not a fire truck or a policeman, this was a long and prolonged regret that brings to the mind tornadoes and nuclear crises. He continued for a few minutes and then stopped. We walk.

We start seeing spray paint in rocks and trees. «J+S» inside a heart. An illegible scribble in blue, a swastika in black, «Troop 201» in letters small enough, could be hand painted. Something that looks like a fungus with a smiling face in the midst of vomiting. Sunbeam shakes his head. «Man, aerosol painting should be something you can’t buy until you’re, like … twenty -five.» I agree, and we begin to open on the steep hill.

A pair of stained cervatillos lifts his eyes from his food to see us. We did not see a mother around, but they seem without going to be without her. The slope becomes so rocky that we can no longer see a real path. We only know what way to advance following the white flames in the trees. Finally, the rocks become land, then gravel and finally pavement. The path enters a park, and suddenly we hear our names called from a distance. Two our friends, other hikers who have seen half a dozen times in the last hundred miles greet us from the other side of the grass. We make your table.

They were being collected by an angel of trails and had a destined picnic. More food they could eat, they invite us to clean what we could. Huge salads with the perfect amount of crispy, lemonade and canned drinks that have condensation. Strawberries and peaches of Amish farms and huge turkey slabs are cut so finely that we could almost see through them. Snap peas, cheese, grape tomatoes, freshly baked cookies and apple cake. We don’t even open our food bags. We eat until we are sure that we are full, then we eat a little more. Our friends are heading to the Shenondoah National Park to finish a section that they had to skip, and then headed home. They call themselves «myths», or several -year -old hikers. With the time of this year to walk until it comes to an end, they give us much of their leftover snacks and wish us the best. They get on the car and go to the road. Inch our packages and we reach the road.

On the left, the railroad tracks run to the city. On the right they cross a steep and winding path and curve. In the forest next to the tracks, the Mason-Dixon line. We sign our names in the registration book and take a photo. This border wall is more than just the crossing from one state to another. Not only are we going to the state of Maryland, but to the south itself. Virginia had been clearly southern, just like the three states before. Both Occidental Virginia and Maryland had not felt from the south or in the north, and yet both. Now he had not refused, there was no gray area. We enter Penylvania and to the north.