August 29. Lost and Found

   Today we said goodby to our gracious host in Cumberland.  She has a foldable bike that she has taken to Europe and also traveled with it widely in the US.  We also heard her amazing story about when  she was scuba diving and had a large alligator swim up rapidly to her  and touch her flippers.  Just before this her diving companions had told her to freeze and not move, so she did. Then after what seemed like an eternity the large alligator drifted away.  

She escorted us to the canal and we parted with hugs and a prayer.

The towpath on the C & O canal is not  as smooth as most of the rail trails we have been on; it has a lot more ruts and stones. But it has the wild Potomac River on the one side about 2/3 of the time and on the other side is the canal, which sometimes has water in it and other places is dry with trees growing up in it. There are old locks and lock houses or their foundations  and occasionally an aquaduct. 

We saw deer, many turtles sunning themselves on logs, a few  green & blue herons, and different species of ducks which we were unable to ID as our duck knowledge is very limited. We met a person riding the canal who is from Vietnam and has children going to college here, one at LeHigh university.  Besides his current bicycle trip from Pittsburgh to DC, then to New York, he has traveled by bike extensively in SE Asia and a few years back he rode the Pacific Coast of the US.  We also met a retired bankruptcy lawyer  who now is a C & O Bike Patrol volunteer and rides the towpath regularly seeing if he can answer questions or if anyone needs aid. 

We also found a plastic bag with one shoe and sock, which we left a short distance away at an access point to the canal (where there was another, different sock). Then a short distance beyond that, we found a hoodie caught in a thornbush. We freed it and placed it in a highly visible spot.  This evening a bicyclist stopped by our campsite to ask if some sandals he had found were ours.

    The one tunnel that the canal goes through, the Paw Paw Tunnel, is currently closed at one end, so instead of traveling on a flat towpath  following the canal through the tunnel,  we had to walk up a steep trail to 362 feet above the tunnel then back down to get through this area.  

   Both yesterday and today have been hot and sunny, with temperatures in the high 80s to low 90s.  We are thankful the towpath is mostly shady.

  Tonight we are camping at Stickpile Hill, one of the hiker biker campgrounds that are every few miles. It has a hand pump and a port-a-potty next to the towpath, then farther back, a grassy area with 2 fire pits, a grill and a picnic table. 

The great thing is that it has a short path down to the Potomac River.  The river is fairly shallow here but the current is quite strong so at mid-thigh depth you had to work to stay upright, so we didn't dare swim. We went into the river to cool off and wore our clothes  to rinse them off. After Kay rinsed out her socks which she had carried in, she tucked one in each pocket.  Instead of swimming, we had fun holding onto a rock on the bottom in the shallower  water and letting the current pull at us while we hung on tight.  Alas, when we got to shore there was only one sock in one pocket and no sock in the other.  We tried a little bit to look for it knowing full well it was already far downstream unless by some miracle it had caught on a rock. We are hoping congress can retrieve it and use it to plug up any financial  leaks.