I've managed without the least difficulty to sleep in, not rolling out until after seven-thirty. It's an old cabin resting in a high cove south of Loudoun Valley. For years the job of restoring and modernizing the old place has been an ongoing PATC project. I'm amazed to see the additional work that's been done. At this visit I find an entirely new porch roof has replaced the old one with the most pleasing forest-green standing seam metal roofing covering the entire place . . .
Scaffolding surrounds one of the stone fireplaces and new rockwork is almost complete.
As I look around, taking in the whole scene, a pleasant warmth and contentment comes over me, a nostalgic feeling. Here rests that mysterious, unexplainable ingredient that we all remember and long for, the secure, safe haven of our childhood when we were kids with not a care. So, does the trail this day pass Devils Racecourse, a place where demons surely hold their Olympic events. In just awhile I'm at Bears Den Rocks and the blue-blaze to Bears Den Hostel. I look around for what surely must be the resident bear, but he is away . . .