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American Discovery Trail 2019
After my last post, on May 2, I walked five more days along the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal to reach its terminus in Cumberland, Maryland, a small city in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. En route, I passed through the Paw Paw Tunnel, a notable feat of nineteenth-century engineering. Over the course of fourteen...
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Since my last post, I’ve spent another six days traveling on the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal towpath. I go for long stretches without seeing any other hikers or bikers; occasionally, a squirrel scampers across the path ahead of me or I spot some white-tailed deer. As the new leaves grow bigger on the trees, I...
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This week, I’m continuing along the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal towpath toward its terminus in Cumberland, Maryland. At the moment, I’m in a library in Shepherdstown, West Virginia; I crossed a bridge over the Potomac River from the Maryland side to charge my electronics and pick up supplies. I thought some of you who read...
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I’ve spent six days hiking the C & O Canal towpath. The canal starts in Georgetown, a neighborhood in Washington, DC. It parallels the Potomac River along the western border of Maryland to Cumberland, nearly 185 miles in all. I began walking at mile marker 5 – on the Maryland side of the MD/DC line...
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I’ve spent the past week in Washington, DC, as my knees continued their recovery (I’m very happy to report that they seem pretty much back to normal). While here, I’ve met with members of Maine’s Congressional delegation and their staff: I spoke with aides to Senator Susan Collins, Senator Angus King, and Representative Jared Golden,...
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This past week, I stayed in Baltimore at the house of my friend Marie Bellantoni while my knees recuperated. She introduced me to Lake Roland Park, a 503 acre tract within the city limits. The park is accessible via public transportation, allowing broad access for Baltimore residents. The lake was created in the mid-nineteenth century...
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When I wrote my last post a week ago, I was preparing to hike the five miles from Kent Narrows, Maryland to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, after two days of rest for my road-weary knees. On the morning of Friday March 22, I strapped on my new braces, shouldered my pack, and crossed the Narrows...
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When I wrote my last post on March 16, I had just crossed the Delaware border and was in Denton, Maryland. Today, I’m in Kent Narrows, and I plan to cross the Chesapeake Bay Bridge tomorrow. The past five days have brought both joys and challenges. After posting my last blog entry on the 16th,...
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Today, March 16, the seventh day of my journey along the American Discovery Trail, is the first time I’ve had Internet access in four days. When I last posted on March 12, I was at a cafe in Milton, Delaware; now I’m at a Dunkin Donuts in Denton, Maryland. The past four days have been...
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I spent the second day of my journey on the American Discovery Trail hiking across the Delaware Coastal Plain. I mostly walked on roads by old farms – with fields where corn, soy, and winter wheat are grown – and large tracts of former farmland covered in new “cookie-cutter” residential developments. Here and there were...
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