Date: 2015-05-19
From: Turners Gap, U.S. Alt 40

To: Wolfsville Rd., MD 17
Miles today: 13.4
Weather: broken clouds

OK, I know the photo has nothing to do with the trail. But - in our other life we are hockey fans. Our local AHL team in Norfolk was the Admirals. The AHL is the closest farm team to the NHL, so we got to see really good hockey. Two years ago our NHL affiliate was the Tampa Bay Lightning, and TB is currently playing in the East Coast semifinals for the Stanley Cup. What makes it neat is that we got to know some of the players, and Princess' favorite player was Tyler Johnson. She bought his jersey and got him to sign it for her. That's the 2 pics that I've included today. What makes it really, really neat is that after an incredible year as a Norfolk Admiral, Tyler made it to the bigs and now is a regular with Tampa Bay. The icing on the cake is that so far he is the Stanley Cup superstar. He's scored more 2015 Stanley cup goals and points than any other player and last night he scored a hat trick (3 goals) against the Rangers. If he can keep it going, he could be the playoff MVP. OK, so what about the trail today? Hal took us to Turners Gap early again, and today we headed NoBo. We loaded up our backpacks, said goodbye to Harpers Ferry, and after dropping us at the trail, Hal drove our backpacks on to the Burgundy Inn in Waynesboro, PA, our next "base camp."It rained hard last night and the trail was wet, but it drained well and wasn't super muddy. We planned a shorter day to let me ease back into hiking, only 13.4 miles and we hoped to do it in about 5 hours ( starting at 6 and finishing about 11). Most of the morning was overcast and we hiked in a light fog, with occasional sprinkles of rain. Eventually the sun did appear for the last half hour or so. We went through Washington Monument State Park early in the hike. As we climbed the hill to the monument, there was a series of signs describing major events in George Washington's life. A couple of miles later we crossed over I-70. That's a major event for me since I travelled that highway frequently over the years, saw the sign marking the AT crossing and always wondered what it would be like to look down on the highway from the trail. Now I know. The rest of the trail was quite nice and well-maintained, but without any unique features that I noted (other than a super rocky stretch of trail maybe a quarter to a half mile long that really slowed us down). We alerted our shuttle driver, Dave, that we were running late. As it turned out, we were only about 15 min late and he arrived shortly after we finished. One trail tradition that I forgot to mention yesterday is the "Four State Challenge." The challenge is to set foot in four states along the AT in a 24-hour period. Typically this involves starting with one foot in VA at the VA-WV border, then crossing WV and MD, and finishing by stepping over the MD-PA border less than 24 hours later. When we were hiking SoBo yesterday, we met Gandolf the Brown moving quickly northbound, and he told us in passing that he was doing the challenge and in a pretty good position to finish within the time limit. As far as I know, the only prize is bragging rights. We'll see if he made it. So we finished the hike in decent time for us and Dave picked us up at MD 17 and drove us to the Burgundy Inn B&B. This is our first time in Waynesboro and we had a beautiful afternoon to get acquainted with the town. It appears to have about everything we might need. Our biggest challenge at this point is dealing with poison ivy/oak. Apparently we got it on our poles and/or our gloves and now it's pretty well set in. We discovered new spots of rash all afternoon. Princess had some last year, but nothing like this. We have several different strategies that we're trying. I'll let you know if we find one that works.