Date: 2007-05-19
From: Rocky Run shelter site MD

To: Annapolis Rock campsite MD
Miles today: 9.1
Weather: clear sky

At about 1:15 AM, I was startled out of a sound sleep by a dog's howl REALLY close by. At that point I regretted my decision to keep my food bag with me. The the dog howled at the opposite side of me, near the shelter. I picked up my food bag, opened the tent, and threw the food bag as far as I could. Since I throw like a girl, it was only about 3 feet. I sat in the tent petrified, and listened to the dog's howling that eventually got farther and farther away. I had trouble sleeping after that (hardly surprising). About 4 AM I turned on the radio and found a public radio station playing a jazz show and eventually got back to sleep.The next morning, as I was starting to get myself organized, the dog came back. Turns out he was a really cute beagle (in the middle of the night he sounded like a gigantic wolfhound). I said "HEY" really menacing, and he started growling while wagging his tail really hard. Then he took off, but I could hear him the whole time I was packing up.It was a beautiful sunny morning and was about 70 degrees and breezy all day. The 2 miles to the Dahlgren campground took no time at all, but I think it might have taken me forever if I tried it the night before. Plus, the campground seemed full. If I had pushed myself and made it there, and there was no room, I think I would have thrown myself on the ground and waited for death to take me.I spent 2 hours at the campground - I took a hot shower, had a leisurely breakfast, cleaned some stuff and got rid of my trash. After I started out, I saw alot of people out since it was such a gorgeous Saturday. However, this weekend there's a big thru-hiker festival in Damascus, Virginia called Traildays. A lot of thru-hikers get off the trail where ever they are to go to it, so I didn't run into any thru-hikers. I went through Washington Monument State Park. There's a tower there you can climb up, and you can see West Virginia from there which looked satisfyingly far away. After the park, I turned on the radio just as they were intoducing Gluck's opera "Ephigenie en Tauri" so I listened to that until I lost reception in the 3rd act. I went to Annapolis Rocks campground and got set up and ate dinner. The campsites were pretty nice, but the cliffs were above a drag racing course so the sound of drag cars was a little overpowering. After dinner, I went to the westward facing cliffs to watch the sun set. There was a group of guys there - turns out they were Ridge Runners for the northern half of the AT doing a training weekend. The ridge runners are assigned a certain section of the trail to oversee and to educate hikers on Leave No Trace practices. They asked me if I was thru-hiking, and I said I'm going from Harper's Ferry north, then later I'm going to from Harper's Ferry south, and several of them said "Oh, you're doing a flip-flop". Duh, these are the people that would actually know what a flip-flop is. One asked me if I had my picture taken in Harper's Ferry at the ATC headquarters, and I said I was planning to do it when I come back. The guy who asked me is the guy who takes the pictures. One of them asked me how far I've come total and I said about 25 miles. He said "You have a long way to go". I answered that I'm over 1% done. Another one said that after this you'll have to do the PCT (Pacific Crest Trail) and I said I'm just taking it one day at a time. Another one commented "That's what so great about the AT. You get up when you want, you hike as far as you want, you have total freedom". After the sun set, I went back to my tent but I'd been fighting a cold since Harper's Ferry. I couldn't get warm and I couldn't stop coughing so I made a second dinner and hot chocolate and then I fell right to sleep.