MAY 23-26, 2016
Had to pack truck in the drizzle and rain. A farewell to Donald and Lucy in our driveway and a last look at the homestead. Lucy had put signs on the mill for us, Burma Shave style, sending us on our way.
Every cubic inch of truck bed was filled and there wouldn’t have been room anyway for the things we soon realized we had forgotten—can opener and little green scrubby pads for washing dishes, for example.
One hundred miles to Greenbrier State Park. A nice park built around one of Maryland’s lakes. All lakes in Maryland are man-made which makes one think a little less of them, but lovely still. Elevation one-thousand feet on South Mountain. Slate and granite outcroppings, mature mixed hardwood forests with ferns and flowering mountain laurel understory We’ve taken a number of five+ mile hikes around the park, around the lake and up the mountains. Also took a hike around Antietam battlefield in nearby Sharpsburg. Antietam’s doleful distinction–the bloodiest single day battle in America military history, twenty-three thousand dead and wounded. A nice mountain view landscape to walk is Antietam battlefield, paths through fields of green winter wheat, and then you come upon some site like the notorious ‘Sunken Road” where the bodies piled up like cordwood in 1862.
No excitement, no downside so far. Unpacked and repacked the truck a couple of times to gain access to the more in-demand items; this will probably happen a couple times more as warm weather clothes and exotic kitchen gadgets migrate to the rear and everyday items are put within reach . Where is that potato peeler, anyway?