It’s a bit incongrouous that one of the best smelling plants (honeysuckle) and the worst smelling  (skunk cabbage) flourish at the same time.  About the end of April to early May, the woods of Maryland fill with the wonderfully fragant smell of honeysuckle while the wetter parts fill with fresh green leaves of skunk cabbage.  Fortunately, skunk cabbage does not blossom until the winter.  Because it polinates by attracting carrion insects, it mimicks the smell of rotting bodies.

You can learn more about limestone kilns at http://www.canalcenter.org/historyBehindLimeKiln.php

Laura Beck of Potomac, a lifelong customer, has started a petition drive to keep the store open. She is collecting signatures at the Poole Store, The Surrey saddlery in Darnestown and Callithea Farm stable in Potomac. She hopes the petition will convince the building’s owner, the Montgomery County Department of Parks, to hold a public hearing before deciding the store’s future.

“The store is a huge part of this community,” Beck said. “People are devastated.”

The Poole family has run the store along the C&O Canal for 45 years. Read the full story at the Montgomery County Gazette.

“It was really a risk, because nothing like it has been done in a national park system,” Logan said.

Conceived of as a way to provide visitors of the C&O Canal with a unique and educational experience, there are now three historic lockhouses in Bethesda, Potomac and Clear Spring that can house guests overnight. The first year was so successful that plans are in the works to open three more lockhouses in 2011.  Read the rest of the story at Gazette.Net.

If you want to stay at a lockhouse yourself, check their website http://www.canalquarters.org/ for availability.

Federal taxes will also fund the following:

Read more about the Slackwater restoration and how they’re going to make it work Hagerstown Herald-Mail.

I was part of Troop 681 of Falls Church, Virginia from 1969 – 1975.  Our troop was very active in camping and hiking, and in addition to the four or five weekend hiking campouts we participated in over the year we also took part in a “50 Miler” every summer.  These week-long hikes were not as they are today where the guys have ultra-light packs, freeze-dried foods (or food drops!) and light-weight tents.  We carried everything we needed: a week of dehydrated food – mostly beef stroganoff – cloths and a piece plastic we tossed over a rope for a tent.  Sleeping bags were weightier and everyone wore heavy, durable, supportive hiking boots.  A typical week long hike required a 50+ pound backpack and few of us had hip belts to take the load off our shoulders.  Ah, those were the days!

Our summer “50 Miler” routes alternated between the Appalachian Trail in the Shenandoah National Park, North, Central, or Southern section, and the upper portion of the C&O canal from Cumberland to Hancock – the dreaded 60 Miler.  In 1970 the senior scouts, a couple years older than us, had hiked this section in 8 days, one day longer than planned, and filled us with horror stories of the monotonous and blister-ridden adventure.  So when our turn came a couple years later there was a lot of apprehension – at least on my part.  But most of us had hiked the entire canal towpath except that upper portion and we wanted to finish it and earn the BSA C&O Canal medal.

We began the trip on Saturday, June 17, 1972 from Union Station in Washington, DC.  For those familiar with canal history this date is particularly noteworthy.  We boarded a train late morning and by mid-afternoon were in Cumberland, Maryland.  There were about a dozen of us on this trip and it was led by my older brother, Paul (who is still very active in scouts.)  We spent much of the next hour trying to find anyone who knew where the canal towpath started and finally accepted a ride in a pickup to the trail.  The weather that had started so clear that morning turned rainy and everyone hustled to set up camp and cook dinner.  Around 8 that evening, as we sat in our tents avoiding the spring downpour, Paul came in and told us we were having guests for the night.  A couple cyclists had been caught unprepared for the rain and my brother had offered our tents.  There were 2 of them so Paul bunked them with me and another couple scouts who had combined our plastic tents into one long tube.  They were most grateful and shared stories of their travels.  Day 1: 0 miles down, 59.5 remaining.

The next day, June 18, we covered about 12 miles and spent the night at Spring Gap.  Another thing that has changed since 1972 is the quality of the “facilities” at these hiker-biker overnighters.  The only sanitation facilities at the time were a decrepit outhouse over a rough hole a few feet deep and a water pump spewing rusty tasting water.  I feel a little nauseated just thinking about that outhouse now, but at 14 it did not bother me much.  In fact, I distinctly recall a group of us inspecting the inner workings of the structure after someone discovered gophers living in the cesspit.  My how times have changed!  Day 2: 12 miles down, 47.5 to go.

The weather was excellent on day three, June 19, and we felt so good about the hike that when were came to our planned stopping point that morning (we were early hikers) we took a long break and decided to continue on.  In fact, we ended up covering 25 miles that day without a single blister or much griping.  The real talk all afternoon was of the older scouts and how they had taken two days to reach this point and had to rest for a day due to blistered feet and exhaustion.  We were proud!  I believe we spent that night at Stickpile Hill.  Day 3: 37 miles down, 22.5 to go.

Excellent weather continued on Tuesday, June 20, as did our drive.  Again we did 2 days of hiking and covered about 18 more miles.  We finished that hike at Leopards Mill campground, only about 3 miles from Hancock.  My brother walked into town to call the troop coordinator and arrange for an early pickup.  We had covered nearly the entire 59.5 miles in four days – half the time the previous group took.  I recall bathing in the Potomac’s cool waters that afternoon as the warm sun fell behind some rather menacing clouds.  By the time Paul had returned from town (graciously having brought me a hamburger) the rain had started.  Paul told us we would be picked up at noon the following day and mentioned something about bad weather.  Little did we know!

Our excellent adventure finished the following day, Wednesday, June 21, 1972 in a pouring rain.  The remnants of tropical storm Agnes were inundating the east coast with rains that would soon cover the C&O Canal with record flooding – and we had just missed it.  Good luck, good fortune, good legs, or a caring God – or all of those – might have saved our lives that summer.  But our feat of completing the 60 miles in four days was mostly lost on our parents who were happier that my brother got us out of there before disaster struck.

Maryland is rife with ticks and this year there’s an especially bountiful crop. Something about a rainy winter and mild spring. For those of you who haven’t seen them, they’re arachnids, not insects. That means they have 8 legs (not six) and only two body parts (an insect has three). It’s sort of disturbing but I have included a photo.

The authority on lyme disease and ticks is probably the Center for Disease Control. Although it’s 24MB, you can download a very thorough PDF from http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/lyme/resources/handbook.pdf which will tell you almost anything you want to know. For those of you who don’t have the time to go through all 72 pages, let me hit on the highlights:

Besides sucking your blood, they can pass on a variety of diseases. Although not all ticks are infected, this is how lyme disease is transmitted.

There are two main types of ticks in Maryland: Dog ticks which are bigger, about 1/4 inch. These do not carry lyme disease but do bite. The deer ticks are very small, about the size of a poppy seed. Because of this, they are difficult to see and remove. And they are the ones that carry the disease!

The early stages of Lyme disease is usually marked by one or more of the following symptoms:

If you find yourself with a tick, use the following procedures to remove it:

It’s better to avoid ticks altogether: