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.

Today is my kid's 16th birthday.  We did not go hiking today; that was weeks ago-- I think two-- when, during a particularly temperate spell of weather, kid said "Do you want to go hiking sometime soon?"  We went the next day.  I feel so lucky to have a kid who still wants to hang out sometimes, who still gets excited about bugs, but now also enjoys a really good cup of coffee and knows what's going on with Trump-Russia.  This is the ideal companion.

​It's a pretty long drive by now to the start-point of our hikes.  We started this time in the town of Brunswick, MD, sleepy but picturesque, and boasting this colorful church-turned-coffee-shop full of stained-glass.

We both bought coffees, and kid got a sandwich, because they didn't have a soggy leftover Mediterranean Veggie sandwich from Panera in their backpack the way I did.  We liked this place so much that we seriously discussed taking a weekend vacation to Brunswick sometime, just so we could hang out there.

Upon departing our vehicle, kid decided that they would eat their delicious sandwich immediately, so we sat on a rock just outside the car while kid devoured lunch.  (I saved my soggy sandwich for later, though it turned out not to improve with age.)  It was a perfect day, sunny and with temperatures in the high 70s-- beautifully cool for Maryland in the summer.  I was happy just to sit and soak up my vitamin D.  

​After a bit, we got on the trail.  It looked much as it usually does:

Super-green.  There were some nice details:

Animals we saw besides this toad: 3 beautiful fawns, a green heron, a family of ducks, lots of turtles, colorful goldfinches and cardinals, and a multitude of shimmering dragonflies and shiny green beetles.  I don't know where the fawns' mothers were.

Kid was also delighted with what seemed to us like a truffula tree​, but appears to have many names, including Persian silk tree or mimosa.  It had pretty pink tufts that smelled amazing.  All my life I'd been searching for trees such as these.

At the 58-mile mark, the C&O Canal Towpath intersects with the Appalachian Trail.  This was the point where I sat down on another rock to eat my own sandwich, pulling off large sections of soggy bread and wilted lettuce.  There was far too much feta cheese.  I regretted everything.

It was a shortish walk, without drama, but happy.  Kid and I are planning another 3-day blitz in August.

It has been over 9 months since my teenager and I have been on the C&O Canal trail.  Last summer, we completed a 30+-mile multi-day backpacking trip.  Ever since, we (and by "we," I mostly mean my teenager) have been too busy to fit in even a day hike.  Also, a lot has happened in the past nine months.

This spring day was no exception.  It was Good Friday-- the day, as it happened, between NBC News' report that the U.S. was threatening a preemptive strike on North Korea, and the Day of the Sun, the Saturday when North Korea was expected to display the kind of provocation that could lead to that preemptive strike.  So I was walking with that "this could be our last hike before World War III starts" feeling.

It was a beautiful day.  It was sunny, the temperature in the 60s (the teenager took off their sweater and hat just after the above photo was taken), and spring wildflowers were everywhere.  The trees were leafing out and still that intense yellow-green.  Animals were sort of scarce, with the exception of birds and bugs-- no turtles this time-- but the flowers made up for it.  We talked a lot, about big stuff, but only a little bit about the potential end of the world.  

This stretch of the trail first crossed the restored Catoctin Aqueduct, then took us down 2-3 miles of pleasant, unassuming, flowery woodland path, before arriving unceremoniously at a 200-unit RV-friendly campground.  This campground, where we ate our lunch because we were hungry, also seemed to be undergoing serious construction, with ongoing loud machinery noises, trucks lumbering back and forth, and even a giant crane taking down tree limbs.  There were also Bobcats scooting ponderously about.  It was not even remotely peaceful, and I felt sorry for the people who were staying there anyway.

After lunch, we walked one more mile down a wide gravel road to reach the town of Brunswick.  This was not the nicest part of the walk.  There were cars.  Brunswick looked as though it might be worth exploring, but we did not explore it.​  We just turned around and went back down the gravel road.

I would be remiss at this point if I did not include this photo which my child insisted I take.  This architectural detail is part of a water treatment plant along the road just shy of Brunswick.  My child was greatly amused by the "doors-to-nowhere" effect.  Water treatment plant workers: be careful!  There were also some random wooden barn-door things (not shown) stuck on the sides of the building, again apparently just because they looked rustic, not for any actual purpose.

​So, anyway, back to the pleasant flowery path.  It looked like this and was, in the quiet parts, entirely lovely.

​We saw a pair of wood ducks, which hid
behind a tree after they noticed us noticing them.  As always on the canal towpath, we heard a ton of woodpeckers but could not see them.  And we got some photos of this egret:

There was also this, sticking out of a crevice in a tree, so high up neither of us could have reached it.  A very tall man might have been able to (and indeed must have?).  It was a very long, thin jawbone of something, with teeth, along with some other assorted sticks and stuff.  Very Blair Witch Project.

We weren't scared, though.

​Extra credit participation: what kind of animal is this??

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.