Sugarloaf, MD
Quick Facts
Elevation: 1282' Cliffs: Rugged Claim to Fame: Lookout point from where Federal troops first saw Robert E. Lee crossing the Potomac on his way to Gettysburg
Miles Today: 160
Total Miles: 610 Days on the Road: 22 Miles Hiked: 4 Depth of Snow: Knee Confusing Sign o' the Day
Word of the Day
monadnock: a mountain that remains after the erosion of the surrounding land.
Usage: "Wow, look at that monadnock." |
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One Never Knows, Do One
We tried and tried but could not start even the smallest forest fire. Smokey lied to us. In a bout of Liz inspired lunacy, we planned to get up this morning and get some exercise. I, Anthony, am generally against this practice, as I'm trying to cultivate a nice beer belly, and every step I take physically is a step backwards. Not literally you understand, I do often proceed in a forward direction, but backwards in my progress towards the perfect beer belly. Up at the crack of 9, we drove down to REI in College Park, MD to rent some snowshoes. That went well. Then it was off to Sugarloaf Mountain, a doozy of a monadnock (see sidebar) in western-central Maryland. We strapped on all of our ridiculous gear and headed for the hill. The snowshoeing didn't last long; the snow was too wet and heavy, we sank and it was very tiring. After a quarter mile or so, we buried the snowshoes, marked their location with the GPS, and continued on foot. Naturally we were soon up to our knees, sometimes hips, but there was no turning back. We reached the dizzying heights of the summit in about an hour and a half, it started to rain, and we slid back down on our asses. The rest of the afternoon was spent enjoying the Car Ride From Hell. The heater pipe in the Badunk is broken again, so we were wet and freezing, the headlights don't work, and the blower for the windshield went out again, thus we couldn't even blow the frigid air we had plenty of onto our continuously fogged-up windshield. Oh, and the traffic was about as bad as any either of has ever seen. (At least it seemed that way. We couldn't really see anything so it was hard to tell, though we did catch glimpses every now and then after we wiped the windshield with Kleenex.) To top it off, the transmission is making disturbing sounds, something like a bag of concrete in a washing machine, and I (still Anthony) had no socks. The night picked up as we watched Ain't Misbehavin' at Center Stage. Great music, no plot to have to follow, perfect. Why am I telling you all this? No reason, really.
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© 2002, 2003 Anthony Hecht and Liz Jones. All rights reserved. |