7-1-2009 Wed

I'm sad to have to go, I was having a great time. I think Philly is pretty cool and I think my friends will enjoy living there. Its been great getting to spend some time with them, hopefully after my hike is done I can stop through again on my way south. Headed to D.C. later this afternoon.

Took the Chinatown Express back to D.C., met Chioma who I was sitting next to, it was good to meet you Chioma! When I got to D.C. I had missed the last train to Harpers Ferry so I decided to start walking the C & O Canal (Chesapeake and Ohio). It goes from D.C. to Cumberland, MD, 184.5 miles alongside the Potomac River the whole way. In 1971 Congress established it as a National Historic Park and opened the towpath next to the canal to hiking and bicycling. There are hiker-biker overnight campsites for tent camping at five mile intervals between mileposts 16.6 and 180. I had heard some fellow hikers talking about doing the hike from D.C. to Harpers Ferry (about 60 miles), so they gave me the idea, but wasn't sure if I was going to do it or not until today. I walked from the bus stop to the Whitehouse, stopped and had a few pints at a bar nearby, then headed to the start of the canal. At the beginning the towpath is on one side, then for abit there are path's on both sides, and basically I ended up on the wrong side (it was already dark at this point which might have had something to do with it). The side I was on took me up to the road (Canal Road) where there was no sidewalk, no shoulder, and being the stubborn hiker that I am I didn't wanna walk all the way back to the last bridge I passed to get on the other side. I finally made it to the Boathouse at Fletchers Cove where I found a spot on the bank of the Potomac to set up my tent. I thought I had such a great spot, then in the middle of the night I felt something wet.. Sat up and realized the river had risen and now half my tent was in the river! Luckily most of my stuff was in the front part of my tent which wasn't in the water yet, so I pulled everything up a good 10ft from the water and re-setup there. One of the more hilarious things thats happened to me out here.