Morning of Day 2

No vast insights into the cosmos yet. I expect those to come in a week or so. Yesterday was a much bigger day than expected. The train got held up during the night and I got into HFWV [Harper's Ferry, West Virginia] about 2.5 hrs later than expected. I remember seeing all the graffiti tags in Chicago before I fell asleep at my window seat. When I woke, we were pretty much in Pittsburgh. I saw a junkyard full of cars highlighted by a single pink Cadillac out of the plethora of junked cars. Eventually, it all faded into rural settings and even more eventually to my stop.

Michelle gave a "Yay!" and we went to her car to lunch and water up before heading out. We talked about how she goes tubing down the Shenandoah and how Zary doesn't like camping. We talked a bit about Landmark and how sometimes the story is the facts though I don't think she agreed with that interpretation. We said our goodbyes around mile 4 after which I still had 5.2 to the campsite and another .6 to the spring and back.

The spring was almost straight down the side of the mountain and I pretty much sweat out all I had earned. Had to go again this morning to fill up, too. Brutal way to start but it was pretty peaceful. Actually almost forgot to mention how lost I thought I was. That I thought I had walked right past the shelter. But I hadn't. A family of deer greeted me when I finally got there.

Commentary:

This was the start of my backpacking trip from Harper's Ferry, WV to what would later be McAfee Knob as opposed to my original plan of Troutville. I actually started from Aurora, IL where my former supervisor broke me to the train station to start my journey. I would have to return in a month to move my things but for now, I was on a path to freedom. I would meet my brother James at Chicago's Union Station for a bit of lunch before heading out. All in all, it was a good start to a good trip. I slept on the train and Michelle would greet me when I arrived with my first ever Wawa sandwich before hitting the trail. I remember the difficulty of finding the trailhead and the quickly tiring climb that was the first of the trip. Later, after days and days of conditioning, the end of the trip would look so different than these first few days of acclimating my body to daily backpacking.