June 28

Rave

Ugh.  Not a great start this morning.  Getting the motivation to hike is hard.  I've heard of the Virginia blues, but I seem to have a case of the Maryland blues.  It's got to be the heat.  We had some nice views up at Annapolis rocks, only a mile into the hike today.  Seemed like it took forever to get there though.  More good views at Black Rock cliffs.  Stopped at the Pogo Memorial campsite, and filled up on some much needed, cold spring water there.  Pretty easy hiking the rest of the afternoon, along a long ridge for about 5 miles or so.  Just before the trail headed down off of the ridge, there was a brief, steep, rocky section.  Just up the trail, I heard a loud crash of rocks banging together.  I looked up and saw a large black animal walking along the rocky ridge.  I finally saw my first bear of this hike!  Not in Georgia, with it's ninja, food stealing bears.  Not in the Smokies.  Not even in Shenandoah.  In Maryland of all places.  LOL.  In the evening, we made it to Raven Rock shelter.  This was a brand new shelter, and to say it was nice would be a gross understatement.  Two stories.  The place still smelled like wood.  The floor was freshly lacquered.  It was so glossy, it looked like you could go bowling on it.  Even the privy was nice.  Packages off wood chips, clearly store-bought, for you to 'flush' with.  Nice.  There were only a couple other thru hikers there, and a large group of section hikers that were tenting away from the shelter.  I unpacked my stuff to start setting up for the night.  The disco ball became a conversation piece.  Well, every one seemed down with the idea, and this being such a great shelter, we decided to throw the first ever disco party here.  At dusk, I used my bear bag line to rig up the motor from one of the roof beams inside the shelter.  Attached the 8" mirror ball.  Others strategically placed their headlamps, focusing the beams on the mirrors.  One headlamp was put on flash mode to act as a strobe light.  Tink whipped out some glow sticks she had been carrying.  I hooked up her Ipod to my speakers.  Turned on some Daft Punk.  And we all partied like it was 1999.  Slims, Tink, and I danced in the upper level.  Unfortunately, I think the speakers had gotten turned on in my pack somehow, and they were drained after only a couple of songs.  Oh well.  For how long it lasted, we had a blast.  And now we know that the disco party can be a success.  Some of the others were skeptical at first, but it was great to hear that they thought the disco party was awesome.  I wrote in the shelter log about our party, and noted that this shelter should now no longer be know as Raven Rock, but rather Ravin' Rock.  Epic!  I'd been talking about doing this for so long, and carried this thing for over 100 miles.  Now I can officially don my other trail name, known only among our inner circle, the "DiscoBear".

Getting set up for the disco party at "Ravin' Rock" shelter