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Lock 6 is about halfway from TBC to Carderock. I missed a turn (onto Whitehurst Freeway) and ended up winding my way north on the Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway. Turning around is not as straightforward as one might like, and I ended up twisting my way around Mass Ave., Q St. and 28th St. to M St. which got me to Canal Rd. with a much more circuitous route than if I had been paying attention. Canal street turns into the Clara Barton Parkway (kind of, I think) and lock 6 is… Wait! Where is it? Ahh… you can’t get to it by going west. You have to turn around, which is about as obvious as turning around on the RC&PP, and finally it appears. I think I met Elaine there, but the logistical fog of the moment has obscured the memory of whether I achieved the primary goal.

If you resonate with this DC travelogue, you may synergize with the ranks of common folk like me who find Washington one of the more confusing cities on the east coast. I think the signage is for natives, with classics such as “Key Bridge next exit.” Wonderful if you know where the Key Bridge goes. (I have a great story, out of the scope of this blog, of taking a wrong turn out of Reagan National trying to find the GW Parkway and ending up sitting in a bemused state next to the Washington Monument.)

I am very tempted to extol the virtues of my GPS at this point, but I can already hear the groans. You know you have a good GPS if it helps more than hinders at least 51 percent of the time, and it doesn’t go belly up in the building canyons of the city, and it keeps its cool when navigating dense woods such as are found near the Potomac. Mine almost meets these standards, and I’m sure it has saved me hours of lost behavior. I’m trying to trace the entire path traversed by our vehicle. If I actually achieve something more substantial than embarrassing, I may include it in the blog.
…Sample Trace, Day One, Georgetown

Well, we drove from the camp to Georgetown to find the beginning of the trail. None of the guides were really too helpful, with only the description: Thomson Boat Center. TBC is near a section of winding on and off ramps for I66 down to the Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway. It turns out that you have to navigate a couple of ramps in order to get to the start of the tow path. We found it and Elaine was on her way. …C&O Canal Beginning

The reference to Carderock in the title is to her goal for the day, but that’s all for this post…

Elaine applied for and received a grant to do several things on her sabbatical. The most time consuming part is planned to take seven weeks. Her goal is to walk from Washington DC to Pittsburgh while memorizing the gospel of John. The Lutheran liturgy is in three one-year cycles, one each for Matthew, Mark and Luke. John is spread throughout the three years, making it hard to see its structure and themes.

…Vines like the interwoven themes of John

Elaine’s goal is to do a series on John when she gets back, which will be the first time that most of her congregation will hear a systematic approach to the gospel written by the man singled out as the one who loved Jesus. She wants to know it well enough that she can recite from memory the scripture for a given Sunday as part of each worship service. I never cease to be amazed by my wife’s intensity and her single-mindedness in going for goals to which she is committed. (Her becoming a pastor is a primary example of this… but that’s for another day and another blog.)

There is an old canal, call the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, that goes from Washington DC to Cumberland MD. It fell into disrepair and was saved through the efforts of Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas in the 1950’s. The 184.5 mile length of the C&O Canal has now been preserved as a national historical park. There are really two “water ways” involved: the canal itself and the Potomac River, along which the canal runs for its entire length.

From Cumberland there is a rail trail called the Great Allegheny Passage that goes all of the way to Pittsburgh. This will be the second leg of the walk, a distance of around 150 miles. The railway runs along several water ways for pretty much its entire length, with the major exception being its traversal through Mount Savage. Out of Cumberland the GAP runs along Mills Creek, Jennings Run, through Mount Savage, Flaugherty Creek, Casselman River, Youghiogheny River, and finally the Monongahela River to Pittsburgh.

The pilgrimage will be interrupted with a couple of breaks where we are doing other things, but those will be part of another post…

I hope to keep track of the time my wife Elaine and I spend over the next few weeks. Elaine is a pastor, and her church (St. Paul Evangelical Lutheran in New Cumberland PA) has agreed for her to take a sabbatical. I work for Messiah College. The college has graciously granted me some administrative leave in order to be able to travel with Elaine. We had a rather hectic start, due mostly to my responsibilities at Messiah. One of the most interesting (and challenging) things was the Compassion Forum, which was structured as interviews with the presidential candidates about faith and caring for disadvantaged people. Messiah was chosen to host it, which meant that my department (Information Technology Services or ITS) had to care for all all of the technical details. CNN brought most of what they needed, except for phones and an internet connection. There were a couple hundred (rough guess) press there for whom we provided WiFi connection to the internet, cell phone coverage, and televisions and video projection of the actual event since they were not allowed to be in the venue. It turned out that the cell phone coverage was the most challenging. We worked with Verizon and AT&T to boost the signal in the locations where the press and others were located. There was an anxious moment or two, but everything ended up working very well.

At the same time as all of this (plus me just getting ready to be out of the office) Elaine and I were getting ready for the trip. We moved the travel trailer to our first camping location on Friday, and I came back for the weekend to see the forum through to the end (and to pick up a number of things that were left behind).…St. Paul’s Jesus doll relaxing at the camp. Did Jesus ever do any camping?

On Monday, Elaine started her pilgrimage on time… but we’ll leave that for other posts.