Day 3 - Harpers Ferry and the Appalachain Trail! by Kenny & Kristen

We woke up this day after staying the night at my dads house after our pit stop in Roanoke. We cooked some eggs and sausage and Kristen made some made from scratch biscuits. After Breakfast we packed up the van, re-filled our water supplies and said our goodbyes as we hit the road northbound to Harper's Ferry West Virginia. The drive started out pretty well. We were checking out some beautiful scenery along interstate 81 and Kristen was reading some Harry Potter to keep me company. We made it in to Fairfield to get some gas as it was the cheapest around by about 20 cents. But what we didnt count on is me getting distracted and forgetting to put the gas cap back on the van and subsequently driving off and loosing it forever. So after driving several miles without noticing, we made another pit stop in Harrisonburg to get a new one. It took a few tries but we finally found an auto store that had the correct-ish one - os we celebrated with Slurpee's and hit the road once again. Once we made it to Harper's Ferry, we stopped at the National Park and museum but it turns out it was closed - likely due to COVID-19 and seemed almost abandoned. You can park your vehicle here and walk about 2 miles down to the main town, but we figured we would try to find a place down in the town itself. ##### Pro-tip If you don't mind walking, this isn't bad. Down in the town it is mostly paid parking until 6pm at 3$ an hour ( at the time of writing) so it could rack up to a hefty price if you plan on staying all day. Normally the nation park offers a shuttle service - but these were also shut down with the park. Once we Parked, we walked around the town and took in the beauty that is Harper's Ferry.  Ive written a bit about it before but I was excited to bring Kristen here to show here how I loved this place. The small shops along the hill are sitll there - some open and some closed (COVID) but its just pretty to look at. After we explored a bit, we did some history reading around the ruins of the old fort and other historic areas. When you are here, you really cant help but be interested in the history of the area. Its a really cool place to be.  At this point, we had decided that we wanted to try and get some miles in on the AT as it runs right smack dab through the middle of the town. What's even cooler is that it is the meeting point of three major trails: the Chesapeake and Ohio Channel trail, The Potomac Heritage Trail and the Appalachian trail. The area where these trails meet is a nice smooth gravel path that is extremely flat and follows the river most of the way. We hiked along this for about three miles and it was awesome. Look to the left an its the old channel and lock system that helped boats up and down the area, and train tracks, look to the right and you are right along the river where folks kayak, raft and tube during the warmer times. (unfortunately we saw some emergency boats out and we could see someone getting CPR - hopefully they were OK). At this point though, we were only about a mile away from an overlook called Weverton Cliffs - and as much as Kristen will say otherwise I did offer to turn back here. But we didn't and we hiked up the cliffs to an amazing overlook over the river. It was a bit steep though and a a tough section but only about a mile or so. We enjoyed the view for a bit and then headed back down the mountain and our way back to the van. One we did make it back to the van, Kristen cooked some dinner while it was my turn to read Harry Potter. ###### Kristens Van-balia Dinner Recipe - 1 can diced tomatoes - 1 can black beans drained - .5-1 Kilbasa Sausage - 1 package of taco seasoning - 1/2 package of stuffing (cornbread flavored) Cook/heat to your liking and serve mixed. (Or seperate if that sounds weird - but it was GOOD). After dinner, we made our way back to where we were going to spend the night. We did happen to make a pit-stop at Walmart to pick up a halo-top ice cream. However before we ate the ice cream we tried out our solar shower to try and clean up and get a little less sweaty. It worked pretty good, but you need to have a fair amount of water as it runs out faster than you think!

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