Three weeks ago, I left on my usual yearly road trip. I wanted to leave on Monday or Tuesday of that week, but it wasn't until Wednesday that I finally could get myself together enough to head out. Even then, I left the house so late in the day that I only made it to western Maryland before calling it a night at Spring Gap Campground along the
C&O Canal Towpath.
Depression sucks like that. I had the same issues last year as well.
I'd changed the oil the day before in the
Crosstrek, and I actually started the trip with a quick stop at the local grocery market and the nearby carwash.
I rolled into the campground around 5:30PM and set up my little tent. For those new to my adventures, this is a "
Rhinowolf" tent which I bought via Kickstarter a few years ago; they have since apparently gone out of business. Anyway, one of the selling points for this tent was that single tents could be zipped together. So for the first part of the road trip, you'll see my green single tent, and after Pat joins me, you'll see his blue tent zipped together with my green one.
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| My campsite at Spring Gap |
As I put up my tent and contemplated what to do for dinner, I did notice that site 1 was
very occupied; there was at least one family there with at least two dogs. Everyone (including the dogs) was super friendly, and the kids were kind of goofy and totally into fishing for catfish. A group of cyclists came by while I was settling in and set up in the group camping area at the "end" of the campground. And, in site 3 there was a small pop-up tent and a couple of chairs, but no one else around.
I decided to wander up the towpath;"up" the towpath always means "towards Cumberland" to me for some reason, while "down" the towpath is "towards Georgetown. I'd last been in this area almost a year ago to the day when I camped here on the first night of my 2021 road trip. No surprise that there were things to see.
Some foreshadowing occurred during the #ParkChat conversation....
And then just after 10PM, it was all done. I was tired of trying to keep the mosquitoes at bay (the repellant and the Thermacell can only do so much), so I retired to the tent.
Sadly, around midnight, the mysterious campers at site 3 showed up, lights ablazing directly towards my tent. They were loud. They were shining lights every which way. They were clearly drunk. It was Camp Groinia all over again, minus the lighter fluid shots and 30 degree weather. With the National Park Service short staffed, plus knowing that rangers on the 184.5 mile towpath are often spaced quite far apart, I just gritted my teeth, put my good ear to the pillow and tried to ignore it.
I have to admit though that I, the cyclists at the group campsite and the family(ies?) at site 1 made absolutely zero effort to be quiet as dawn broke. The hungover jerkwads were clearly struggling as the rest of us did our morning things with just an extra touch of noise.
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| Carolina horsenettle |
From the campground, I headed into Cumberland to poke around at the very end of the towpath and beginning of the Great Allegheny Passage (GAP) trail. The visitor center was closed, so I just wandered around and looked at the railroad cars and caboose that were there. I was testing my ability to figure out when they were built, something I was taught years ago when visiting the
Western Maryland Railway Museum in Union Bridge.
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There should be something that says "BLT" with numbers for the month and year, but evidently these are repaints.
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| The trucks have the manufacturing date built into them. These are from January 1957. |
Pat had been talking about maybe getting tickets to a train ride out of Durango, CO as part of the road trip, so maybe that's why I stopped here. I do know that I would like to do one of the
Western Maryland Scenic Railroad trips some time.
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| Western Maryland Scenic Railroad Depot |
I headed out from Cumberland with no real plan in mind. After tossing around some ideas in my head, I decided to go to
Cuyahoga Valley National Park, since it had been a few years and it wasn't all that far away.
Waze took me off I-68 and up to the Pennsylvania Turnpike, joining the turnpike from an area where Pat and I had stopped on the way out to Detroit in the spring.
I rolled into the Boston Mill Visitor Center parking, parked next to a cool gray khaki Crosstrek twin, and headed towards the visitor center when I saw a group of people next to a sign that said "Citizen Science." I remarked, "That's cool! I need to do more of that with my students," and next thing I know, they invited me to join them. It was a group of rangers and park employees/volunteers who were looking at the pollinators in the areas around the visitor center over a few weeks time. We started by looking at the different types of flowering plants we saw, and using iNaturalist to identify them as needed. We also estimated what percentage of the surveyed area was covered with each type of plant. Then we went back and started looking for pollinators, and again, used iNaturalist to identify them. We also added our findings to a group on iNaturalist (that's the citizen science part!), to help with the documentation of which pollinators were found with which type of flower.
I totally want to do something like this with my students this year!
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| Don't you park next to your car-twin when you can? |
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| Ranger Chuck is the brains behind this citizen science project |
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| It wasn't always clear if something was a pollinator or just happened to be in the flower |
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| This is a pollinator, on red clover |
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| Wild carrot (Queen Anne's lace) was one of the predominant flowering plants in the area we surveyed |
After my work-related diversion, it was suggested to me that the Ledges Trail would be a literally cool place to visit for some hiking. With the tall trees, hidden springs and small caves, a cool breeze was present during much of the trek around the ledges area.
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| This was a great spot |
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| The trusty Biolite campstove with the kettlepot "attachment". This thing has been so great over the past 8 or so years since I bought it. |
The sunset made the sky look to be on fire as I wound down for sleep. I had no idea where I'd be going the next day, and I would figure it out as I went along.
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| Goodnight |
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