Date: 2017-05-19
From: Raven Rock Shelter, MD

To: Tumbling Run Shelter, PA
Miles today: 13.2
Weather: broken clouds

5/19/17, Tumbling Run Shelter, PAMiles hiked: 750.0 Miles to go: 1434.8This turned out to be a fairly short day - 13.2 miles; but, that's OK. Some days you just have to take it easy. We got up, ate breakfast, and were on trail by 7:30 AM. Gibby had gotten up and headed out earlier. We weren't in too much of a hurry because we were meeting my friend and former co-worker, Ahmed Rahman, for breakfast at 10:00 AM at Pen Mar Park, which was 4.7 miles away. Ahmed took a vacation day and drove five hours round-trip just to come and have breakfast with us. How cool is that!?As we hiked along, we came upon two young thru hikers sitting on a log looking like zombies. We recognized one of them as Calves, whom we'd last seen at Partnership Shelter in Southern Virginia. It seemed awful early in the morning for them to look so worn out. A conversation ensued:"Hey guys! How are you doing?""We're alive...barely""You look beat. Where did you start hiking today?""Virginia"Ahh, now it all made sense - the Four State Challenge. You see, hiking day in and day out tends to get boring. And it appears to affect the younger hikers the most. They haven't had years of mind-numbing jobs to prepare them to be bored every day. So they come up with challenges, such as the Four State Challenge. The Four State Challenge involves hiking in four states in 24 hours. You start just south of the WV line in VA, hike through WV and MD, and into PA. 44 miles in 24 hours. These two were just about five miles south of the PA border when we saw them; but, their time was about up. I hope they made it. The next challenge happens at the mid-point of the trail in about two days. It's called the Half Gallon Challenge. It involves ice cream, so it's more my speed. You'll hear more about it at a later date. Even though the trail was rocky and hard to follow in places, we made it to Pen Mar Park just about the same time as Ahmed. He drove us to town (I noticed he put the windows down. Hmm...) where we had a wonderful breakfast at Dixie's Diner and a nice visit with Ahmed. After breakfast, he returned us to the trail and we continued north. About a half mile later, we came to the Mason Dixon Line. This is the border between Maryland and Pennsylvania; but, it is much more than that. It is the demarcation  between the South and the North. We are no longer hiking in the Southern Appalachians. We are now in the Northern Appalachians. Not only that, it is no longer the AppaLATCHians. It is now the AppaLAYSHUNS (it'll always be the AppaLATCHians to me).Whereas the underlying theme of the Southern Appalachians, with the Georgia Mountains, Smokies, and Roan Highlands, was a rugged beauty; in this section, there is a real sense of history. There are monuments and placards describing Civil War battles everywhere. We walk through the woods and come upon stone walls that are hundreds of years old slowly being reclaimed by the forest. They are very poignant. Someone spent hours and hours of back breaking labor building those walls. Not only that - if you put your ear down to one of the stones, close your eyes, and listen intently, just above the sound of your heartbeat you will hear the crackle of muskets, the booming of cannon, the screams of men and horses, and the moans of the dying. I hear that if you come out here on a night when the moon is just a sliver, you can see the forms of the combatants in the mists, locked in eternal strife. Luckily, we were hiking in the daylight, with full bellies, and lazy attitudes. We even stopped at one point to soak our tired feet in an ice cold stream. A brief thunder shower, more thunder than shower, helped cool things down. Trail magic, in the form of cold juice boxes over ice, helped even more. It was after 4:00 PM when we reached Tumbling Run Shelter. We contemplated hiking another 6.5 miles to the next shelter; however, that also included a 1000 ft climb. We liked the looks of the shelter area, there appeared to be a lot of nice people here, and there was a stray cat living here. The cat tipped the scales  in favor of staying. She is a very sweet cat who is making out like a bandit, with a new group of hikers feeding her and loving on her every night. I am now fed, my chores are done and I'm hanging out in my hammock. I can hear the younger hikers talking and laughing by the campfire. We've come into a small bubble of Flip Floppers who started in Harper's Ferry. They are very excited and nervous and still figuring it all out - just like us in February. It's been another good day on the trail. Tomorrow - 20 miles.