Segment 5: Mid-Segment Post

 

Potomac Great Falls

I am about 75 miles along a 167-mile stretch that follows the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, which follows the Potomac River and has not operated as a working canal since 1924. It is now a National Historic Park with a trail alongside the canal.

By now I have traveled from Georgetown in DC past Great Falls, pictured here, and the West Virginia town of Harpers Ferry, known for, among other things,  John Brown's raid in an unsuccessful effort to start a slave revolt in 1859.

Maryland has a strange shape to it; it is divided into three sections: one east of Chesapeake Bay and mostly cut off from the rest of the state, a main area west of the bay, and then a panhandle that pokes west between West Virginia to the south and Pennsylvania to the north. At one point in this western part of Maryland, the state narrows down to two miles wide, but then it widens out again and goes another 40 miles west. In this western area, there are only little towns like Accident, population 338; Friendsville, population 437; and our eventual destination, Oldtown, a census-designated place with a population of 30, where we will cross the Potomac River into West Virginia by way of a privately-owned bridge, about 90 miles from where we are now.

August has been a good walking month, as I have walked over 5 miles and 12,000 steps per day, but tomorrow, the 14th, is the last walking day of the month. Starting Tuesday, we will be driving across the country, on vacation and taking a break from walking, and we will not get home until a week into September.

Total walking so far is just under 225 miles, less than five percent of the whole trip.