Date: 2017-08-24
From: Pen-Mar County Park

To: Dahlgren Backpackers Camp
Miles today: 23.4
Weather: broken clouds

I admitted defeat once in this journal. Do you remember? It was Day 2 at the Blue Moose Restaurant. I was roundly defeated by a platter of pot roast and fries.  I was being facetious.But if there¢s one thing I¢ve strived for in this journal it¢s to be honest, to tell you how I really feel, good and bad.So often I¢ve written about feeling triumphant. ¢I¢ve summited Katahdin!¢ ¢I¢ve reached my 5th state.¢ Maybe that's a theme for my hike, for any thru-hike. How often in your daily life do you get to celebrate milestones? Here, at times it¢s every day.What I¢m getting to, is that I have to be honest in defeat. Last night I felt defeated, a sad sack, a mangy cur slinking off with its tail between its legs. The first note on my guidebook pages after the notation for the Pennsylvania-Maryland border says, in Maryland, ¢camp only in designated campsites.¢ Just after 6:00 pm I¢d reached Pen-Mar park in Maryland, just past the border. It¢s popular; even on a weekday night there were many picnickers. They lingered to watch the sunset from this high point with a clear view to the west. The park rules are explicit: No Camping. The next shelter was 4 miles away. I¢d already hiked over 20 miles and I guess I was thinking I could stealth camp nearby. But people lingered past dusk. Past dark. Cars were actively driving by. I leaned against my pack in an out-of-the-way spot, but I was still clearly in view. I started to wonder, what if there¢s a night sheriff patrol through the park? What if it¢s a late-night hang-out spot for local youth?  We often joke as thru-hikers that we¢re homeless, but I felt like a vagrant hanging out near a park. Honestly, I got spooked. I¢ll camp anywhere in the woods; doesn¢t scare me. But this edge of civilization did. Just before 9:00 pm I pulled the plug. ¢Do you have a room for the night? Can you pick me up?¢ I felt defeated. Frodo assured me later that it was the right thing to do, but I still felt I crawled away, head hung low. (Frodo: My husband is being entirely too hard on himself. He didn¢t know there wouldn¢t be any good place to stealth camp near the park. You just have to figure out, for whatever set of circumstances you are in at a given moment, what¢s the best course of action. I¢m glad he took care of himself.)Today is a new day ¢ what a difference that makes. I am hoping to do over 23 miles. Frodo picks me up early from the B&B and facilitates a slackpack. The hike starts well. I find another message on the trail, FF followed by a heart, then D. I put twigs into the indentations carved in the mud, so it would stand out better, and texted a photo to Dot and Franky. http://www.trailjournals.com/j...  I get a text back from Dot an hour later, just an emoji with its tongue sticking out. I run into two freshmen trekking groups from Johns Hopkins University. More eager faces.  http://www.trailjournals.com/j...  Today I have enough tattoos. One gal already has five or six temporary tattoos on her face. http://www.trailjournals.com/j... And there¢s another trail challenge I¢m ignoring. The four-state, 44-miles-in-a-day challenge. But what undergirds that bone-jarring, joint-testing race against time is that the trail is good, to very good, to soft as a modern track & field track. And I finally get the mushroom video I¢ve wanted to shoot! Mushroom video?? What, do they dance like the mushrooms in Disney¢s ¢Fantasia?¢ No, this is even better; you¢ll just have to watch it. And make sure the sound is on so that at the end you can learn something interesting.  http://www.trailjournals.com/j...Frodo had lunch for me after 10 miles ¢ a Subway sandwich and fried chicken. Better yet, I had her company and her soft shoulder to rest my head against.An afternoon of hiking brought me to another ¢last¢ northbounder. Baloo was in a kilt; he was jaunty and not sad like many of the late NOBOs I¢ve seen. He started in April and will be happy to end wherever he is in six more weeks. http://www.trailjournals.com/j...More pleasant hiking. Well over a 2-mile-per-hour pace. And I¢ve been meaning to mention Patsie. I met her over a month ago, a NOBO. And why was she memorable?  Above is a drawing I found of her on the back page of a register yesterday.  I didn¢t particularly remember her face, but¢¦.  Yes, when I saw her on trail there was something odd sticking out of her pack. ¢That¢s a rosin bow. For my violin.¢ Here¢s my photo from weeks ago. http://www.trailjournals.com/j...  Boy, I would have loved to have shared a campsite and heard her play.And speaking (Frodo:  Ummm, writing?) about odd things that hikers carry, here¢s the oddest I¢d heard of this summer. Care to guess? I didn¢t see it myself. It¢s a photo Nature Boy took. http://www.trailjournals.com/j...And now, with 23.4 miles done, a fine cold dinner ¢ smoked cheese, crackers, a bagel and grapes ¢ in my belly, I am cowboy camping for the second time on the trail. Dahlgren Backpacking Campground is not to be missed ¢ running water, flush toilets, and showers. No fee. Cuddling with Frodo (and tonight that¢s no euphemism). ¢Night.