Date: 2017-08-25
From: Dahlgren Backpackers Camp

To: Harper's Ferry
Miles today: 18.0
Weather: overcast clouds

Any time you cowboy camp and there¢s no condensation, it¢s a good night. (Frodo: But especially when your spouse is sleeping beside you.)Today I am hiking 18 miles, slackpacking. I will walk into the ATC¢s main office at day¢s end. I will sleep in the home of a friend who also happens to be the National Park Service¢s chief trail officer, overseeing the Appalachian Trail and 22 other National Scenic and Historic Trails. But the day starts with a sobering but happy reunion. Not Dot and Franky; that will happen at the end of of the day. ¢You look familiar.¢ After hiking 3 miles I meet a woman with an intentional 4-inch-long blond cowlick stopped on the trail. She¢s northbound. I can¢t dredge up her name, but she recalls mine. And I know I¢ve seen her. She¢s with a guy who doesn¢t look familiar. It¢s Janine. And you¢re forgiven, too, if you don¢t remember her. On the night after I summited Katahdin, June 5, Rolling Thunder and I had dinner with Skippy John Jones and German Janine. I had chicken parmesan. The four of us posed with our shiny new AT tattoos. Rolling Thunder and I had wondered what became of her. And why is she hiking north now?¢I had ten days in a row where I didn¢t see another southbound hiker.¢ She is going home. To Germany. But before leaving, she jumped a full week south and now is hiking north with her boyfriend Mark.  She is hoping to run into her southbounder friends; a kind of Farewell Tour. She¢d seen Franky and Dot this morning. Now me. We chatted excitedly for 15 minutes. I gave her and Mark new AT tattoos. ¢Here¢s one for Rolling Thunder when you see him.¢  http://www.trailjournals.com/j...Now she¢s gone. For good. Loneliness. I went 5 full days once without seeing another SOBO. But one solace for me is all of you.Remember Tinkerbell? Remember when she was hurting so badly and we were all asked to ¢clap our hands.¢ In my loneliest moments out here I can still hear a faint clapping.  All of you. Thanks.It has astonished me today how the contemporary world intersects with the trail. I¢m walking through echoes of heated battles, cannonball whizzing, musketfire, 23,000 casualties in a single day, Antietam September 1863. And I walk through Fox Gap, Lamb¢s Knoll, sites of fierce skirmishes. At Fox Gap two generals died, one Union and one Confederate. The Union general, Jesse Reno, has an 8-foot memorial monument surrounded by a dignified low stone wall. Brigadier General Samuel Garland, Jr., C.S.A., has a 4-foot-tall stone marker with engraved words and engraved crossed Confederate flags.  http://www.trailjournals.com/j...  I saw no protestors there and doubt if anyone will be pressing soon to remove the marker. But it brought front and center the recent nighttime removals of statues of Confederate generals and supporters. The second contemporary world invasion came from an unlikely venue ¢ Dot¢s trail journal. My off-trail journal transcriber runs like a fine Swiss watch.  (Frodo: He better say nice things, because that¢s me.)  But Dot¢s journal has had significant delays and she is on her second transcriber. So what¢s the delay now? ¢She was one of the Charlotteville 19.¢ Yes, those 19 protestors injured by the car that killed Heather Heyer. Wow.Hiking in to Harper¢s Ferry in the late afternoon, I walked 2 miles on an 1830s canal tow path, passed over the Potomac River on a long railroad bridge, walked by the very armory John Brown took over on his ill-fated raid just before the Civil War, and then marched myself right in to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy Home OFFICE. Dave took down my particulars, then positioned me outside for my official photo, for their records. I am Southbounder #24 for this year. http://www.trailjournals.com/j... Then Frodo whisked me away by car and we picked up Dot and Franky, who I haven¢t seen for 15 days. We drove to the home of Rita and Sean http://www.trailjournals.com/j...  for a wonderful dinner ¢ with fresh sweet corn! ¢ and wonderful company with the two of them and their neighbors Craig and Louise. And I will fall asleep in a bed next to Frodo, all thoughts of loneliness held well at bay. Good night.