Day 71
This morning I woke up super excited about being in Maryland! After a short 2 miles, we found ourselves up at the original Washington Monument on a sunny morning. We took photos and a snack break before heading to some undulating terrain. We ended up walking through a neighborhood and across I-77 before heading to Pine Knob Shelter for lunch with Flash. After lunch, we had a climb up to Annapolis Rocks and I was really hauling since I had on some music and was wearing my knee brace! I hauled up the rocky hill and kept a good 3.2 mph pace for nearly and hour and a half before realizing how tired I was. The boys caught up and we took another break. There was lot of thunder and a threat of rain, but it held off for a while. An hour later we were all beat and decided maybe we should cut our day short at the next shelter, or at least take a nap before heading on. We decided to hitch in to Smithsburg for something to eat and some sodas. We got a ride in pretty quick and headed to Dixie Diner. When we got inside, a pretty bad storm blew through so we were happy about our decision to come in! We had dinner and dessert (Boston creme pie for me and chocolate shakes for the boys) before trying to get back on trail. On our way back up to MD 17, a truck pulled over and asked if we wanted a ride - a hitch without even putting up our thumbs! We got back on trail and walked in the short 0.2 to the first shelter, calling it an early night with a promise of an early start in the morning. The photo is me at the Washington monument.