Date: 2016-05-05
From: ATC Headquarters, Harper's Ferry

To: Pine Knob Shelter 
Miles today: 23.6
Weather: light rain

Spidey woke up at 6:30 this morning to go "eat everything" at the continental breakfast as soon as it opened. He then came back and went to sleep. I went down nearer to 8:30 and had breakfast with toast, Pendexter and dill. Pendexter is hanging around for another day or more, and Toast and Dill have some errands to run. So it may be a while before I see them again. I ate some biscuits and gravy and some oatmeal and headed back upstairs to pack up. I had a new shirt, new pole tips (my third set, this is getting ridiculous) and was ready to go! The econo lodge finds itself on the west side of town, so the first part of the day was back over the section I did yesterday, but soon I passed the ATC cutoff and headed down into the lower town. Harper's Ferry is a pretty neat place, and I loved the view over the descending rooftops down to the Potomac River. I ran into Large and White Rabbit, who invited me to breakfast, but I declined, as I knew I had something even better coming my way: Vicki, a legendary trail angel in Maryland, has been reading my journal the past couple of days, and incredibly kindly offered to put together some magic for me at lunch today. I got out of town slightly later than I wanted, so I moved quickly over the first set of miles to get to Gathland State Park, where she was meeting me. I crossed the Potomac and found myself down along the river for the next three miles on the C&O Canal Towpath, which Rambunny had assured me are "the only flat miles on the AT." And flat they were. I listened to music and passed by runners and bikers enjoying the cool morning. Maryland! There was very little pomp about entering the state, but it's a good 'un. The trail was consistently pretty beautiful today, wide and well taken care of (with the exception of a few very muddy bits). I ran into Bolt during my race to Gathland state park and we must've averaged over 3.5 miles an hour trying to get to trail magic. Gathland state park comes out of nowhere, but is beautiful, and with a parking lot and a big pavilion, it's a great place for trail magic. We were immediately met by Vicki, who gave me a big hug (despite my sweat) and Blues and Sooner or Later, and the party began. Vicki rolled out hot subs from a local Greek restaurant, fresh chips and guacamole, fruit galore, sodas, cookies - it was an astounding spread, and the four of us were just astounded at our luck. The subs were delicious (my favorite being the chicken souvlaki), and she insisted that we all take everything with us, so we filled up Goodie bags for later (I had also been handed a chicken Caesar wrap by a group on a tour bus, so dinner was all set for tonight). We also left some food for Spidey and Large and White Rabbit! We all agreed that this was the best trail magic we could ever have imagined, let alone seen! Vicki, thank you so much! You made this an absolutely incredible day. On a different note, Vicki had been in contact today with Slim, a thru hiker from 2014, whose journal (which I read compulsively over the summer of 2014) inspired me to hike the trail. Slim has also been reading my journal, and Vicki made him some amazing trail magic when he passed through two years ago. Vicki read me some advice that he meant to give me, which included pushing hard through Pennsylvania and not getting the "midpoint blues." I felt like I was in the presence of trail gods: it's so incredibly cool to me that these people I've only read about and imagined through journals not only EXIST in real life, but they're taking an interest in ME! I felt like I was being judged and given the blessing of some all-powerful syndicate in charge of the thru hikers. It was a special special feeling. Vicki, I can't thank you enough. I wish you all the best. We pushed on from Gathland in food comas (I yawned a LOT later today), trying to do 13 miles to Pine Knob Shelter. It took a lot out of me, but I made it. The highlight of the afternoon was passing by the original Washington monument, a milk-bottle shaped stone tower with a spectacular view away to Antietam and West Virginia. The sky was very overcast, but did not detract from the wide ranging view down into the valley next to us. It began to drizzle as I passed I-70, but I didn't get very wet as I pulled into Pine Knob Shelter (from which you can still hear the highway). I found Double Dip and Dirtface here, whom I had met briefly in Atkins. Hooray, catching up to people! (On that note, Seal Tree, Dr. Trails, Frost and Rain Man are only a day ahead of me!) they were very excited to see Sooner or Later when he pulled in, as they spent quite a bit of time with him, but hadn't seen him in over a month! This was a late arrival for me, just before 7, but I'm happily in the shelter for the night, where I'll be protected from the rain. So yeah. Maryland. It's hard to think about in the moment, but it's just about halfway done. I'm having a great time. I've really enjoyed the last few weeks on the trail in this little bubble. Blues brought up an interesting point. At the beginning of the trail, we were incredibly hesitant to call ourselves "thru-hikers." But down the road, we wont be able to say "I'm a thru hiker," we'll always say "oh, I thru hiked in 2016." I Won't be able to say it in the future so why not take advantage now? Yeah. I hiked from Georgia to Maryland. Right now, I'm a thru hiker.