Days 2 and 1

Ahhh, internets. How I thirsted for thee.

I'm hanging out in the hostel at the end of the world, aka the The Free State hikers hostel, near Smithsburg, Md. A 2006 thru-hiker who walked to raise money for a free clinic in Hagerstown started it when he got back from Maine, and it is worth every inch of the 18 miles I racewalked here for, and the $32 fee. I've already housed a Coke, two Gatorades and a shower, and tomorrow I will turn my pillow made of dirty laundry into clean clothes.

If you think walking the Appalachian Trail is ruffin' it, it isn't. I've taken three showers so far - the first one was by mountain spring by night, but the next two were the real deal. Public faucets and restrooms abound, at least in the 3/4s of Maryland I've hiked. 

- Day 2 summary:

• Miles hiked: 18, from Rocky Run Shelter to The Free State hostel.
• conditions: jungle-like. No sun, but the fog rolling up over the rocks was beautiful. Anything that gets wet stays wet because of the humidity.
• Points of interest [POIs]: Reno Monument, which is a Civil War battlefield where like 30 guys died; the Washington Monument, which is like a European castle tower but in Maryland, and Annapolis Rocks, which are rocks from which you can see far.
• how's the hike?: the Maryland section is paradise except for a few places. One is the Weverton Cliffs climb, one is the Crampton Gap climb and one is the climb to the Annapolis Rocks. There's also a section between the rocks and here where the trail is nigh impassable because of a proliferation of little boulders. Whenever I see thru hikers from Georgia, they vanish almost instantaneously because they go twice as fast. I'll get there.
• Met: Like five people here who went to sleep half an hour ago; L Train and Andy, who were hanging out at the Dahlgren campsite [the free hot showers place where everybody goes] and a white-haired thru hiker who was similarly perplexed at the soda machines at the Washington Monument and then sped like a phantom down the trail.

- Day 1 summary:

• Miles hiked: 16, from the Appalachian Trail Conservancy in Harper's Ferry to Rocky Run Shelter.
• In Harper's Ferry, 11 a.m. means they turn off whatever machines they use to make breakfast with and turn on the lunch ones. No brunches. Nein! So my "power breakfast" ended up being an expensive fish n' chips. It wasn't bad, though.
  
• I thought about crashing at the Ed Garvey shelter, but it was 3 p.m. and didn't think I could take seven more hours of being a shelter rat.
• I encountered my first southbounder, my first non-working soda machines and my first head cloud of gnats at Gathland State Park.
• I thought about crashing at the Crampton Gap shelter, but it was quiet. Too quiet.
• I shared a shelter at Rocky Run with Early Bear, a northbounder so named because he encountered his first bear three days out from Springer Mountain, Ga. [the starting point]. He had a bag hanging from a branch 30+ feet in the air. I asked him what it was for. "It's my bear bag," he said. There's not much irony on the trail.
• Also met: Samwise and Squeegee, a pseudo Boy Scouts club made up of teens from Cleveland.
• POIs: Harper's Ferry National Historical Park, the Civil War Correspondents Arch.

My bunk awaits...