Haven't posted on the blog in such a long time, and essentially phoning it in: but I wanted to complete the story.  Three years after our last trip, kid and I finally finished the C&O Canal towpath, in one 62-mile trek.  And it was grand.

2019: We planned to go in August, shortly before moving apartments against our will, and only a couple of weeks before kid was due to start college.  But, just a few days beforehand, my stepfather-- who'd been part of my family since I was four years old-- began to die.  He was old, but the timing was still unexpected.  We went home to be with him, then stayed through the funeral.  After the funeral, it was time to pack, to get kid through their driver's license test, to move, to pack again for college.  The hike had to be postponed till 2020.

2020: Kid came home in March, college having closed due to covid.  There ensued a very long period of time in which nobody in the household was working, and kid was also home from school much of the time.  We could easily have gone backpacking, except that the C&O Canal decided that providing water to their pumps along the trail was somehow... not covid-safe?  The entire season, no water.  So the hike was postponed until May 2021, when hopefully they would turn the pumps back on.

May 2021 came around and, at the last moment, they did turn the pumps on.  But, by the time we knew for sure, kid was going back to school soon (atypical summer session added due to covid), having wisdom teeth out, and we were hunting for apartments again (and again against our will).  No time, many tears.  How about September?  

These years have provided, if nothing else, valuable lessons in flexibility.  But I am so glad we were finally able to go.  It felt like unfinished business, between us and the trail, and also between me and kid.  The original timing, prior to college, had been an appropriate coming-of-age, a launch.  Covid delayed and complicated that launch.  Home again, home again, jiggety-jog.  How to live in a series of two-bedroom apartments with your unemployed parents when you long desperately to be with your friends, to engage in activities, to be your adult self in the world.  Even though the delays are externally-imposed, you begin to doubt yourself: do you have what it takes to grow up?  What has happened to your toughness and independence-- is it still in there?

The trail said it was.

I didn't realize that the main topic of this post would be what a proud mother I am.  

I'm proud of myself, also.  I'm 49, will be 50 in less than two months, which is a terrifying prospect.  There is no sense in which I am still young.  I've let my hair go gray.  I've had foot problems over the past few years, sometimes back pain, knee pain, aches and pains.  When I first put my pack back on, I was shocked by how heavy it felt.  I'm going to do what?  Hike 62 miles carrying this thing?  But we put one foot in front of another, and prepared carefully with some nice anti-blister hiking socks, and we did it.  Even cheerfully, the majority of the time.

We spent 3 out of 4 nights tent camping in the small hiker-biker campsites, like this:

And one night sleeping in a converted bus in Paw Paw, WV, like this.

Shout-out to the Liberty station in Paw Paw, which provided hot meals, genuine friendliness, groceries, and the opportunity to meet gregarious thru-cyclists.  Our home away from home.

We enjoyed beautiful late-summer landscapes:

An amazing array of animals, including spiders, bugs, butterflies, moths, praying mantises, dragonflies, caterpillars, slugs, worms, millipedes, daddy-long-legs; tons of toads and a few frogs; many, many turtles, an eastern fence lizard, two black rat snakes, a ribbon snake, and a probable copperhead outside the showers in Paw Paw; green and blue herons, a million assorted ducks, a small hawk or falcon, a kingfisher, pileated woodpeckers, geese, an American redstart, and a bank of jewelweed frequented by many hummingbirds; many deer with fawns, squirrels, a tree gnawed by beaver.

We enjoyed absurdities such as the existence of Lock 64 & 2/3:

And ultimately we made it to Cumberland.  The feeling when the woods opened up to that view of town, the last mile, the jubilance... it was a surprise.  A hard-won joyful success in a time of so few simple victories.  In our hearts, we'd expected something to go wrong to the end.  But it didn't.

The End.

It's been a week and a half since we returned from our latest 3-day backpacking trip on the C&O Canal.  I love the hiking but my desire to write about it has waned over time.  Nevertheless, an instinct for completeness will not let me finish the trail without also finishing this account of it.  Also, it gives me an excuse to take and share photos.

The weather from August 23-25 was perfect: highs around 80 degrees, not terribly humid, breezy, sunny.  We could not have asked for more perfect conditions, except that a few weeks ago it was really rainy, and the subsequent standing water seems to have led to a bumper crop of tiny, hungry mosquitoes.  We had to ration the bug dope.  When my kid got home, they tried to count their bug bites, but lost count or got bored after 150.  Things were okay in the sunshine and breezes, but there were miles-long tree-shaded passages with boggy, shallow, temporary pools in the depression left on one side by the former canal.  I called these "Mosquito Alleys."  We itched and got used to it.

We started out from McMahon's Mill on a Thursday morning.  It was immediately clear how high the water was everywhere.  The little creek that runs through McMahon's Mill was rushing fast and hard.  The towpath was muddy and, in some cases, water was streaming down the rock face on our right and crossing the trail on its way to the river.  Where the trail verged on the Potomac, water was cresting over the edge.

We grabbed a quick lunch early on at the Opequon Junction campsite, then continued hiking until we reached an unexpected row of vacation (or perhaps even permanent) cabins and mobile homes, as the trail briefly opened out to become a gravel road.

My kid pointed out the tree in the picture above.  This is not an actual human house, but a child's drawing somehow drafted into reality.

​There were dragonflies, and lovely greenery:

And hikers striking poses.

By the end of the day we had arrived at our destination: the town of Williamsport.  The Conococheague Aqueduct, which the trail crosses near the town, was closed for restoration, and the consequent detour through Williamsport would lengthen our hike by a couple of miles.  We'd decided to stay at the Red Roof Inn, about half a mile off the trail detour, which was owned by a very nice South Asian couple and was cheap and comfortable.  We did have to hike a little way along the shoulder of the highway, though, and a woman carrying too many bags asked us, fellow vagabonds, if we were "heading north."  It was a funny town: lots of historic buildings, a few fixed up fancy, and a lot of obvious poverty too.  Several people seemed to be scraping by holding permanent flea markets on their lawns.  

​Exhausted after 12 miles even in nice summer weather, especially the final mile by the roadside, we ate dinner at the Waffle House in front of the Red Roof Inn.  It was the saddest Waffle House we'd ever seen: almost no customers, the staff draped in various attitudes of hostility and/or despair, monosyllabic except for a lonely, ostracized fry cook.

We made some phone calls.  We slept hard.  We took grateful hot showers in the morning as though this weren't the first night of our "camping" trip.  Then we hiked back into town to the only available cafe besides the Waffle House, Desert Rose.

Desert Rose, we realized as we approached, was an oasis of rainbows (including the gigantic mug we have at home that reads "NOBODY KNOWS I'M GAY"), featuring a large effusive male employee with a braying laugh and obvious Heart of Gold, Rose herself (quiet and unassuming, but friendly), and a surprising number (considering my experience of the town so far) of gay and/or politically liberal customers.  They had interesting local candies.  They had hiker supplies.  They had really awesome coffee.  My kid felt welcomed, which is not always the case in western Maryland.  Highly recommended, not that you have a lot of options when you are in Williamsport.

After breakfast we hopped back on the trail detour, which went all over including through some brickyards before reconnecting with the towpath.

It was another lovely morning, a bit more humid.  We hiked close to the river.  Note how muddy the water is, compared to other years.

When it came time for lunch, we sought a spot in full sun in order to deter mosquitoes.  I found a small sandy beach on the river shore with space to set up my beloved tiny camp stove.  I lighted it and made some rather putrid instant coffee.  The stove heated up the sand and rocks around it to a surprising degree, so that it was painful to stand near it in bare feet, and I dropped my first pot of boiling water in the sand in surprise when I tried to pick it up using a rag as I usually do.  Hands-on science.  Another surprise: the mysterious creatures milling around in manic clusters on the surface of the shallows.

I was not 100% sure whether they were insects or crustaceans, not that there's that much difference.   We got very hot during lunch, but we put our feet in the river, and it was worth it to be away from the mosquitoes for a little while.

During the afternoon, we got some relief from mosquito-alley sameness by passing a big dam and then a series of picturesque locks and old mills in quick succession.  The trail does lack variety sometimes, but this was a good bit.

Occasionally we met new friends:

Tired and footsore, we arrived at Fort Frederick State Park around 5:30 pm.  We'd reserved a campsite, but it was necessary to hike a little way into the park to fill up our water containers and check in with the park ranger.  Fort Frederick seemed oddly teeming with people.  Most them, even more oddly, were men with complex facial hair wearing drab-colored clothing of an antique style.  They gazed curiously at me as if I were the one out-of-place in my hiking clothes and sneakers.  They were doing things like pumping water, chopping wood, examining one another's firearms, and setting up similarly undyed tents to sell homemade crafts.  This was confusing.  Was Fort Frederick a sort of living-history museum?

As it turned out, the ranger said they were "having a muster" that weekend.  Apparently there are French-and-Indian War re-enactors.  Lots of them.  One (white, I think) guy was even dressed as an Indian, with paint and feathers.  Hmm.  I pretty much just ignored everybody as I passed among their tents and returned to my child, waiting by the water pumps, and our campsite by the beaver pond, rich with mosquitoes.  

I didn't take many photographs that night, nor did we indeed do much of anything, except cook dinner as quickly as possible while running about slapping ourselves and having an ongoing meltdown, then eat and hang out inside our tent.  I did take some photos from inside the tent.

In the morning, our neighbors from across the campground driveway, a couple of middle-aged women, came over to inquire what we were up to.  They'd come for the muster, out of boredom and not any special interest, they seemed to suggest.  Not too much to do around here.  But one of the women was clearly envious of our adventure, the way we were breaking down our whole camp in a few minutes and neatly stuffing it into our packs (something that never fails to amaze me either!).  Where were we going?  How long had we been doing it?  Maybe she might try something like that too, when her health was better.  Why does backpacking so ignite the imaginations of onlookers?  I have read so many books about other people's hikes; answered so many questions about my own very modest ones.  

This third and last day was more humid still, and blisters were had by all.  We were back in the world of startling green, though, and I love that.

There was also a surprising amount of corn in these parts.  Blisters were tended to in a nearby cornfield: 

And we met even more friends.

Overall we saw our usual variety of wild animals this trip: a doe and her fawn, green and blue herons, pileated woodpeckers, many wild ducks, many turtles, a snake, a few frogs/toads, fish, zillions of butterflies, some caterpillars but not as many as last year, spiders, mystery water bugs, and a really excessive number of mosquitoes.   We heard owls but did not see them this time.

By the latter half of the day, kid was limping and having trouble envisioning the last few miles with their painful blisters.  Various minor surgeries ensued.  Lunch was a purely functional affair eaten plunked down by the edge of the path in a sunny patch.  There was still cool stuff, like this culvert, but we were ready to hike to the finish line.

Unfortunately, there was none of that.  The building was locked.  There were some porta-potties down by the road.  Nowhere really to sit except in the grass, which kid did with a blanket wrapped around their whole body to reduce access to their bare skin.  The spot itself was very, very pretty:

But we were miserable nevertheless.  Eventually I flagged down a young, bearded guy who seemed to be headed down to the river from his truck, carrying a bucket.  Did he know how far it was to town and services?  We didn't have it in us to walk very far.

Oh, there's a truck stop just down the road, he said.  Restaurant, gas and store and everything.  How far?  About 1000 feet.

It might have been closer.  I've rarely been so thrilled to enter a dark, dingy, and barely occupied dining room.  Kid ordered a basket of fried shrimp and french fries; I ordered eggs and toast and coffee.  We arranged for my husband to pick us up at the restaurant.  There were restrooms.  We are wimps, but for a few days every year, we get to feel like badasses.

Time for what we now consider our yearly backpacking trip.  Kid and I-- and my husband, driving a separate car-- set off for northwestern Maryland to drop off our car at the endpoint of the three-day hike, the McMahon's Mill access near Hagerstown.  As we approached down the narrow lane to the gravel parking lot and turned off the radio, we could suddenly hear that my car was making a new, deep, terrifying noise-- a sort of mechanical whalesong-- every time I braked.  For an assortment of other reasons, it was already quite late in the morning, and also Sunday: no time to go looking for a mechanic.  We left the car in the lot.  It remained in the back of my mind for the next 50 hours.

We piled our packs into my husband's even older car and drove to the start point, a place where the Appalachian Trail intersects the C&O just south of Harper's Ferry.  It was a nice day for a walk: 70s, dry, not too sunny.  There were seemingly hundreds of people on bicycles.  

This was, I learned, because we were so near Harper's Ferry, and Harper's Ferry was crawling with tourists.  We heard many languages as we crossed the picturesque railroad bridge into West Virginia to visit briefly and use the restroom-- so many languages that it reminded me of being a tourist in Italy just a couple of weeks before.  I hadn't realized Harper's Ferry would be such a major attraction.

Did my kid want an ice cream in Harper's Ferry?  No, they did not.  They just wanted to get the hell out of there.  

It took very little walking north along the trail past Harper's Ferry to leave all the people and bicycles behind.  Suddenly we were mostly alone.  

We saw a lot of small critters and some larger animals: a really impressive profusion of caterpillars and millipedes, plenty of deer including fawns, at least two bald eagles, green and blue herons, the usual turtles, frogs and toads.  No owls this year.  Maybe that's a June thing.  None of the deer wanted to have their pictures taken.

This section of the trail was also chock-full of neat caves carved into the hillside on our right.  We were too scared to hang out in any of them.

Our first day of hiking involved a fairly steady push, as we didn't get started until about noon, and had 11.5 miles to go before camping.  At least we had a campsite reserved at the Antietam battlefield campground, which is not technically part of the C&O Canal trail but is right alongside it.  There are 20 campsites lined up all in a row along the riverbank: only two were occupied, plus the campground manager's RV turned out to be right across the road from the site I'd reserved.  All night long a bright, extremely safe streetlight shone directly onto our tent.  I felt quite secure but it was difficult to sleep.  Also, we got cold.  

The next morning, the mist rose from the river and everywhere else.

Eventually it cleared up and became a beautiful, perfect day.  

Our second day of hiking was really laid-back.  We only had 9.5 miles to go and reached our planned camping spot around 3:30.

We'd been hoping, sometime during that second day, to stop in a town-- or in a hiker/biker store that I'd read about-- and buy some cups of non-instant coffee or snacks.  However, the towns were a good mile off the trail-- not worth the extra travel on such a short hike, though I'm sure they would seem like a treat on a longer one-- and the hiker/biker store turned out to be only open on weekends.  Alas.

After we pitched our tent at the Horseshoe Bend hiker/biker campsite (mile 79.2), literally only 3 other people passed by for the entire remainder of the day.  We were completely alone.  Kid was tired and went inside the tent for most of the afternoon, leaving me to read at the picnic table.  When it was dark that night, it was really, really dark.  This time, we knew it would get cold, so we battened down our tent cover right away, and went to sleep wearing fleeces, jackets, and socks.  Much better.

The next morning (the last morning), I had (thankfully) just enough time to boil water for coffee before it started to drizzle.  Kid and I retreated to the tent, drinking coffee, eating a cold breakfast instead of the oatmeal I'd planned, and reading books.  It was nice.  We waited for the rain to stop, but it didn't; instead it got steadier.  Around 9:30 we gave up and went out in the rain to break camp.

Wearing windbreakers, with our rain covers over our packs, we hiked away into the rain.

We learned something about rain: it makes you hike much faster.  Because there is no appeal to stopping: sit on a wet rock?  Get chilled instead of keeping warm by moving?  We hiked the whole 9 miles out to my car by 1:30, stopping just once to use the bathroom, snacking a little out of our pockets.  It was not bad as long as you kept moving.  And, by this third day, we were developing a rhythm.  We could probably have hiked twice as far by nightfall; but we didn't need to.  

The final mile was beautiful, but did not lend itself to photography.  The usual trail-between-trees emerged out onto the cliffside by the river, where a concrete path had been constructed. Wildflowers ranged down the bank towards the water, and I saw a hummingbird coming from that direction.  An eagle was soaring back and forth over the great curve in the river.  All too soon we reached McMahon's Mill:

...at which point we climbed into the dry haven of the car, pushed back the seats, and ate lunch.  There were a bunch of people meeting in the parking lot in the rain, pointing at things up the hillside.  Eventually they all drove away in their separate official vehicles.  It seemed to be a consultation about the environmental impact of some proposed construction.

When we had recovered sufficiently, kid researched the best auto repair shop in Hagerstown and we took our Subaru over to Dave's Corner, where Dave's delightful son Devin fixed my brakes within an hour and a half while we drank coffee and ate cheese puffs and donut holes from the Sheetz across the street.  For some reason, although we were chilly, we continued to sit outside while our car was repaired.  (It had stopped raining.)  Some kind of switch had flipped.  We no longer wanted to be indoors.

​Two weeks later, I've been indoors all day.

Oh, yes, my friends, you read that title correctly.  31.3 miles.  We did it!

Even as we speak, three days after our return, Elsie the indoor cat is industriously sniffing all over my foam sleeping pad, which still smells, no doubt, of soil and the subtly different air of the Potomac riverbanks and bug repellent.  I would like the same aura to cling to me as long as possible, too.  Coming home is a shock, even after such a brief time.  My daily life seems like a thing of such infinite and overwhelming complexity compared to the simple, nomadic trudge forwards that is backpacking.  So I look with trepidation on my to-do list, assortment of creative endeavors, and complicated interpersonal relationships, and dream of the neat 3-oz. box that is my camp stove, the perfectly designed object that is my mini-lantern, and putting one foot in front of the other.

Our first day, we traveled 11.2 miles from Pennyfield Lock to the lockhouse at Edwards Ferry, which we had rented for the night.  The weather was lovely-- low 80s, dry-- and walking with our packs, though a little challenging on hips and feet and shoulders, was really not as difficult as I'd feared.  I folded some rags that I'd brought along under my shoulder straps as padding-- next time, I will buy some shoulder pads meant for seat belts.  I have a mean red bruise on one of my collarbones.  My kid got some incipient blisters right away, and treated them with a 2nd Skin blister kit that I'd had the foresight to pack.  There were some mosquitoes, not so many as to be unbearable, but enough to require application of bug dope (kid laughed hysterically whenever I used this term.  "Why do you call it bug dope?"  I dunno, I just do.  Perhaps it's regional?).

​The hardships were minor, just enough to make us feel strong and brave, and for us to be happy to put down our packs periodically, and for the instant coffee I made at lunchtime to taste wonderful.  In other words, perfect.  And we saw lots of animals.  Here is a list I made, just from this first day:

• A lizard, about 8 in. long, reddish-brown, whitish longitudinal stripes (probably broad-headed skink)​
• blue heron
• many turtles
• many cardinals
• a raptor (osprey?) holding prey
• voices of many bullfrogs
• family of ducks
• guy on bike with "Jesus is my lifeguard" shirt (kid insisted I write this on the list)
• 2 barred owls, together (we surmised mother and child)
• egret
• lots of squirrels

In the "before" picture of me, you can see that I am wearing a gray fitness tracker on my wrist, a Garmin Vivofit to be exact.  I was very excited to log what I estimated would be about 30K steps per day on this trip.  In the mid-afternoon on this first day, I checked the Vivofit and saw that I had 25K steps already.  I explained with pleasure to my kid that I was bound to break my previous daily record of 29K steps, set in November of 2014.  Can you see the instant karma coming?  An hour or so later I looked at my wrist again.  The Vivofit was gone.

Not one step of my hike "counted."  My kid explained, with perfect rationality, that this made no difference to the actual amount of exercise we were getting.  Only someone who has not worn a fitness tracker would take this position.

​However, I had to try and move on.  We were, at that point, not far from our first night's rest:

Does that look creepy?  Not from the outside?  Oh, reader, you have no idea.  I wish I had taken some inside photographs (with flash; there was not enough light in that house, even in the morning, for daylight pictures).  Everything on the first story of this 1830 house was covered with a thick layer of dust, as though no one had entered for a hundred years.  No electricity or water, of course-- I expected that-- but I didn't expect the darkness, the dust, the many spiders, and the at-least-one-rat that rustled behind my cot just before bedtime, then proceeded downstairs and ripped into Saturday's breakfast bag of oatmeal and trail mix in my pack.  My kid loved it.  The repetitive, slightly irritating call of fledgling barred owls (which we recognized from our encounters earlier in the day) accompanied our lantern-lit evening card-playing-- until some guys setting off fireworks disturbed the creepy night peace, at least.  I did not get the best sleep on this trip.

We did have our own picnic table and fire pit (at left, beyond photo frame), and we had fun while it was still light, building a fire and toasting marshmallows (something kid desperately wanted to do), then going down to the boat launch to look at the sunset over the river.

Friday was another day.  As always, I felt better in the morning.  I was happy to get up in the early light and use my little camp stove to make coffee at the picnic table, leaving the kid to sleep for another half hour or so while I got things organized.  We were on the trail again by about 9:00.  By 9:30, kid had tried various blister treatments and ultimately decided to abandon their hiking boots in favor of the sneakers they had brought along as back-up (I was wearing sneakers in the first place, with flip-flops to wear "in camp").  The sneakers were better, despite the increased risk of a twisted ankle.  I was impressed with my kid; there was no whining or talk of quitting, only matter-of-fact measures taken to solve the problem and improve comfort.

By noontime, we were in White's Ferry, the only location along our hike that could be said to have "services" (beyond firepits, portapotties, and water pumps, all of which were available every few miles).  We'd planned to have lunch at the small store/restaurant there, and enjoyed a break to sit in the air conditioning and eat a hot, non-"trail" meal.  However, my kid-- who's been a pescatarian for the past several months, but decided to suspend their pescatarianism for the duration of the hike so that they could eat jerky-- ordered a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich on a bagel, as well as what turned out to be a giant basket of cheese fries, and drank a cold bottled Starbucks mocha.  Once we got back on the road, kid was immediately hit by a wave of nausea.  They looked very green, and for a couple of hours we had to stop every so often so kid could sit or lie down, or perhaps stumble off the trail in hopes of throwing up (they found an egret that way that we would not otherwise have noticed).  Poor kid.  I was well-prepared for this trip with many first-aid and pharmaceutical supplies, but it did not occur to me to bring the anti-nausea medication, or the Tums.  

But my kid, as before, kept on going.  It really blew me away.  We took a little extra time, but ultimately kid would stand back up, dust themselves off, and walk a bit more.  Again, there was no talk of quitting, or even quitting-for-the-day, even though it was hot, and humid, and kid felt queasy.

Mid-afternoon, we took a nice long break at a campsite to make peppermint tea and rest.  As luck would have it, the only rainstorm of the whole trip blew in while we were sitting there, and we were able to cover up all our gear with raincovers, sit calmly under a surprisingly-effective sheltering tree, and wait it out, while other hikers reported having gotten soaked.  Beautiful luck.  After the rain, the world was a hot fog, bright green and steaming.  Uncomfortable for humans, but it brought out the animals, especially the turtles and frogs, many of whom migrated from the safety of the canal onto the damp grassy verge of the trail, seizing the opportunity for travel.

Some additional animals we saw on this day:

• purple martin
• some kind of salamader (probably red-spotted newt)
• more barred owls
• a fox
• 2 large snapping turtles wrestling in the water (I took video, but my cheap website plan doesn't allow me to post it here)
• bluebird
• more great blue herons
• zillions more turtles
• many frogs (jumping, difficult to catch sight of)
• deer​

So, that night we camped at the Indian Flats campsite (mile 42.5).  When we arrived, there was a man there with his two sons-- a group we'd run into repeatedly on the trail, as they were hiking a similar hike to ours-- and he strongly advised me not to set up the tent in the spot I was eyeing.  It would heat up in the sun, he said, and then hold onto the heat for hours after sundown.  His voice dripped with amused condescension, as it had when I tried to share the news about our unique snapping turtle sighting and he said, "oh, yeah, we've seen lots of turtles too."  Either he didn't know the difference between types of turtles, or he assumed I didn't.  Kid and I went over to inspect an alternate, more shaded and indeed dank camping location.  The ground there was bare, and muddy from the rain a few hours before.  I did not have a groundcloth for the tent.  The sun was even then being eclipsed by hazy clouds.  Kid and I rested on our packs, trying to politely wait until the man and boys had left before we ignored their counsel and set up the tent in the spot, formerly in the sun, where for this very reason the ground had dried out.  But they took ages filling up their water bottles at the pump, and I do mean ages, as though they were challenging us to openly defy them.  My kid, in an undertone, identified the man's unsolicited advice to me as "mansplaining," indeed not the only time this happened on the trail.  Kid was right.  So I set up the tent exactly where I wanted, with the menfolk watching from the pump.  They didn't say anything.  My kid, on the other hand, was thrilled.

As it turned out, the only thing wrong with the location of the tent was that it was not very far from the picnic table (technically OUR picnic table, since it is a single campsite, but in practice these sites are often shared); and just after dark three young dudes arrived, sat down at the picnic table, and started drinking beer and hanging out.  They had no light sources except for cigarette lighters, so they sat in the dark and continued talking loudly until 2:30 am, at which point I awoke from my intermittent doze, exited the tent, and shouted something passive-aggressive and inarticulate like "Guys!  it's 2:30 am!  Do you think you might be quiet at some point?"  They grumbled into acquiescence and flicked their cigarette lighters for what seemed like half an hour straight while they attempted to arrange themselves for bed, then were finally quiet.  When I awoke again three hours later, ready to get up and make coffee, their beer cans and sweatshirts and lighters were still strewn all over the picnic table, their bodies (encased in sleeping bags) scattered nearby in seemingly random locations, curled pathetically here and there in the grass like slugs.  They'd brought a whole case of beer, I saw, but no tent or flashlights.  Morons.

Using the picnic table for breakfast was out of the question, so I gathered up everything I needed, stepped around one dude who was lying across the path down to the river, and took myself and my stove over to an immense hollow log near the riverbank.  I had already thought, the previous evening, that it would be a perfect spot to perch with my coffee and read in the early morning.  I was conscious of one wakeful but hung-over guy's eyes on me, perhaps envious as he watched me perform my neat morning routine, lighting the tiny stove, filling the pot, finding the instant coffee and oatmeal and trail mix in my food bag, sitting with my book.  I bet he would have liked some coffee.  But I did not offer him any.  My pleasant (now that it was morning) sense of superiority to these hapless young men confirmed my momentary sense of myself as a Backpacking Goddess.  Screw you, muscular and self-assured dad who thinks a woman and a teenager can't possibly choose a tent site for themselves.  He looked at me like I was stupid, I'm not stupid--

The rest of the day proceeded with surprising ease.  We had only left 8.4 miles to go on the final day, knowing we'd need to meet my husband at 5:00 for a ride home.  We were there by 3:00.  Lunch was eaten at Calico Rocks campsite, only 3.3 miles from our endpoint.  We took our time.  Also, after being not-so-hungry the first couple of days, I was by now starving, wanting and seemingly able to methodically consume everything in our pack.  This must have been the beginning of the distance-hiker hunger that is so legendary.

My kid continued to hike with a good will, even though their feet were full of blisters and they had cut their instep the previous evening on a tent stake in the dark, prompting short-term panic and distress.  In the daylight, it didn't matter: they said they had more energy, in fact, than they had on the previous days.  They are a Backpacking God/dess too.  

We saw fewer animals on the last day, perhaps because the weather was drier, or maybe because we were focused on the endgame and not paying as close attention.  We did see a long, slim, mostly-black snake on the path-- though we almost overlooked it in its perfect stillness-- I am not certain of the type, but am guessing it was a ribbon snake.  We also saw a pileated woodpecker, only the second time we have actually seen one along the C&O, though we have often heard their booming hammer.

The best part of the last day?  Kid said they'd like to do this again.

Some last day pics:​

​When we got to Lander's Lock, we felt like we could have hiked much farther; but once we'd flung our packs into the grass and settled down to snack (relentlessly) and read for the next two hours until my husband arrived, we didn't even want to get up and walk  down the boat ramp as far as the outhouse.

Fortunately for us clueless (biological) females, we were not allowed to simply enjoy the successful conclusion of our chosen hike in peace, but were in fact approached by an aggressively fit, spandex-wearing man on an expensive bicycle and enlightened by a short treatise on all the other area hikes which we should surely try and which were implicitly preferable to the one we were actually on.  He had, of course, done these hikes himself, including the 40-something-mile stretch of the Appalachian Trail that passes through Maryland and which, he said, he had "day-hiked."  I hope he meant that he hiked it in day-long sections; but, even if he meant that he hiked the whole thing in one day, I basically do not care.  UNSOLICITED.  Do you understand, mansplainers?  Were we talking to you?  Do you know anything about us?  What gives you such confidence that the women of the world, even perfect strangers, are awaiting your precious information and insights?  I'LL PUT MY TENT WHERE I FUCKING WELL WANT TO, AND I'LL HIKE WHERE I WANT TO, AND IT'S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS.  WE ARE FINE.

Also, I don't want to hike the Maryland section of the Appalachian Trail.  I want to hike the whole thing.

Here is a link to the National Park Service map of the C&O Canal trail.