Once we wrapped that up, we headed up the hill to the actual monument, grabbing some water and reading the various plaques along the way. The A.T. split off about halfway up, but we continued on the historical trail to the monument, which we then climbed for the views. After a few pictures, we returned to the trail and continued on our way. It was a real mixed bag on the trails today - some easy stuff, some brutally rocky stretches. We also crossed over a half a dozen roads today, some of them quite busy. Mark's feet are really bothering him - apparently his new boots are too narrow, and are causing him serious pain, especially on the rocky areas.
We reached the Pine Knob Shelter; we dropped our packs and Mark headed down for water and to check the register. Later we passed the "Pogo" primitive campsite; it had a spring there, but otherwise it wasn't a good place to camp (no level tenting area, lots of rocks). Later we threaded our way through a small residential zone, just before I-70, with the trail running along the property lines of several houses. There was also a trail log there (which we signed); again, very few familiar names over the previous two weeks - most of those signing in are section or weekend hikers. I am beginning to wonder just how many through-hikers are actually out here any more - people who should have easily passed us during our 4-day home visit are not in any of the trail registers, and only about half a dozen of the folks we knew (who had
passed us earlier in the trek) are still ahead of us.Once we passed over I-70 (on the long overhead footbridge that the Troop has gone under a hundred times in my career), we were back in the woods for awhile. Climbing back up the ridge on the opposite side, we were both quite surprised to catch up to Rush Williamson, a Scoutmaster from Maryland and a Contingent Leader for the first one of the Council's Philmont trips this year (Mark knows him very well). He was heading up to Annapolis Rocks to repair the privvy there (and also as a personal shakedown for Philmont). He had through-hiked the A.T. and had more than an hour's worth of advice for us. He split off at Annapolis Rocks, and we continued on. Mark decided to try and get his previous set of boots overnighted to his cousin's house (our destination for the day); after a lot of phone calls (from the top of the ridge), we finally got through, and his mom decided to bring them up to Smithsburg herself. [It was fortunate that we're still close to the Washington area.] The phone coverage in this zone is U.S. Cellular, and (apparently) it doesn't like Verizon very much, so making and receiving calls and voicemails was problematic, requiring multiple attempts.
It got noticeably hot as the afternoon came on, and we had to really hit the water as we were going along. But it wasn't all that oppressive, just hot. Finally descended down to Wolfsville Road, where Carol Fitzgerald picked us up, and 3 minutes later we were at their house (a nice place, set 300 yards back in the woods). So, only 13 miles today, though it felt longer to me. Mark's mom was already there, with Mark's boots, and (after some showers and a load of laundry) we all chatted for a while. David Fitzgerald showed up about an hour later, and Carol took off for an evening function. We headed off with David to a mini-mart and then Food Lion to resupply (and buy some dinner items), then returned to the house. Mark prepped hamburgers on an outside grill for dinner while I did a quick check of email. We continued chatting with David and Mark's mom over dinner about the trail, and then I headed up for bed around 7:00 - for some reason I was really staggering with fatigue today, probably due to the heat. Mark's mom left for Arlington about the same time. David offered to clean everything up, which was greatly appreciated, and he and Mark talked for several hours as I caught some extra sleep. A nice break!
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