Diverted Trips (C&O)

 

After our Saturday morning chores, we wanted the opportunity to take advantage of cooler weather and make our way to the towpath. I had successfully walked away from the animal rescue tent outside our local Tractor Supply Store, and the sad tale of Kitten (her temporary name), who had survived multiple surgeries and a rough start to life. The five-month-old was now ready for adoption. There was no way we could adopt this cute thing with our monster cats. Yet, her story was compelling, and something inside of me wanted to care for her, nonetheless. The volunteer successfully did her job: I dropped a donation in the box. Kitten would get a home, and the work of the local shelter would continue, and I would only be out a few dollars. Of course, I would later tell the tale to Clowder and finish with, “What lucky cats you are.”

Because it was a relatively nice weekend, albeit cloudy, I wanted to start at a closer access point that was not too crowded. The area around Taylors Landing is an interesting area, and relatively close for us.  Once we had our boots on, and cameras and maps arranged, only to find a man sitting on the edge of the canal. At first, I thought he was waiting on someone, perhaps a pickup after a long walk. But it was obvious that he was in some distress. Steve was asking for help; he had walk out pretty far, 14 miles by his guess, and had only made it back halfway before his hip hurt so much that he could go no farther. We offered him a ride back to his car – actually, Angie did before I even realized what was going on – which was at Lock 38 parking lot, across the river from Shepherdstown. Along the way, Steve was quite chatty, explaining that it was his first-time walking on the towpath and how he had just moved to area to take a one-year job at Shepherd University. He was staying just outside of town, and was awed by all the trees in the area, something that I confessed, many of us take for granted.

The towpath around Shepherdstown is beautiful and compelling. But it is narrow, and the number of people who are biking numerous. This is especially true on a Saturday afternoon when the weather is very good. During the summer, it can be muggy with bothersome with mosquitos. But it was cool enough that insects were not a problem.

Following the Battle of Antietam, Confederate troops withdrew from Maryland at Pack Horse Ford, just downstream from the bridges to Shepherdstown. It is well documented and many people on the trail are neither hikers or bikers, but Civil War buffs interested in seeing the terrain where the battle took place. More interesting to me, but without the signs explaining its history, is the little village of Millers Sawmill, nestled between bluffs and the towpath. The trees are laden with English Ivy, whose fragrance gives a slightly sweet smell to the air. I remembered that I had walked through the village in the winter a few years before and watched a flock of Eastern bluebirds waiting out the cold weather in the safety of the big sycamore trees. Now, however, two hummingbirds looking for sustenance at late summer forget-me-nots on the towpath. As September unfolds, seeing hummingbirds in the wild, rather than at a feeder remains a thrill. The eastern US has only one species, the ruby-throated, which darts with no more than the sound of a large insect. If you are not looking for them, they usually remain unobserved. Their movements, insect-like, means one is never sure about what you saw, large insect or your imagination. Observing them at a feeder is like watching an endless game of capture the flag. A bird shows up, tentatively approaching the feeder only to have another divebomb leading to an aerial battle. Meanwhile, a third bird comes to partake from the sugar water in the feeder. The process begins once again. 

 

Dragonfly sunning itself along the banks of the Potomac

Male sentinel wild turkey monitoring the retreat of the flock at the C&O parking lot