Date: 2005-06-26
From: Shelter, Ed Garvey Shelter

To: Tent, Annapolis Rocks
Miles today: 18.2

We got up a little after 0530. We got our stuff out of the shelter and cooked breakfast on a rock beside the trail. We were able to get hiking by 0700. That was good. It was nice and cool. It was much easier to hike in cooler temps.    In about an hour and a half, we were at the GATH state park. I had heard about the war correspondent memorial arch from other trail journals. What I didn't realize until today was that it was put up to honor war correspondents from the civil war. I'm just so used to putting the word foreign in front of the phrase war correspondent that I did it without thinking about it. But it kind of blew me away to realize that this was to honor our domestic war correspondents.    Since entering Maryland, I have been seeing these "Trash Free Park" signs. I somehow assumed it was a slogan, like the anti litter slogan in Texas "Don't Mess with Texas." The GATH state park had a sign explaining what "Trash Free" meant. It means that they don't have garbage cans. They ask you, the consumer, to make sure that you pack it out. Well I do pack out my trash. But when I hit a park, I expect to be able to dump the trash that I always seem to collect. But NO Trash can for me.   Today, hornets bit all 3 members of the Troll family. Troll and Oblivious were hiking with Mayfly. I saw them ahead of me trying to tell me something. I had my radio on and couldn't quite hear them. As I was trying to turn my radio down, I got bit on my calf. Apparently, they had been trying to tell me to hurry past the hollow stump of angry hornets. When I met up with them, I found out that Troll had been bitten on the ankle and Oblivious had been bitten on his right cheek. Poor baby.   We seem to be in the middle of all this American History around this area, like Harper's Ferry. A stonewall that George Washington surveyed. And so on. Today we passed the original Washington monument. It is a stone tower built by the citizens of Boonesborough. Oblivious said climbing up it was like climbing up into a cave.   Today was also a great day for trail magic. We got a soda at the war correspondents arch. Popsicle (GA-ME '03) left those. She came by to check on her cooler and took our trash from the trash free park. Then we passed another cooler from Popsicle in a field and got another soda. We stopped at a campground with free showers for our long nap break. Laying down to rest after a shower with cleanish rinsed off clothes was awesome. I could learn to be spoiled like this. While lying there a gentleman came up and said he had trail magic down at the parking lot. His son & daughter are previous thru-hikers. Every year he goes out for a big camping weekend with the 4-H. Afterwards, he brings the leftovers and some extras out for thru-hikers. We had hotdogs, garlic bread & lukewarm chocolate. yum...   We actually hiked a little further than we had planned. The shelter we had planned to stay at - Pine knob - was closed until further notice due to a raccoon attack. I am very curious to find out more on this issue. We went on to the next campsite, which was very nice. On the way we met a guy out geocaching. Very cool. We are beginner geocachers back home in Washington. The guy had just been to a book exchange cache and Troll managed to yogi a book.               I'm giving my baby boy a benadryl and sending him to bed. His cheek is swollen from the bite.   Take care and we will see you on the trail.