Back in Harper's!

9-3-09 day 93
start: Steve's place in Washington D.C.
end: Sandy Beach in Harper's Ferry, WV
daily mileage: lots that don't count
total mileage: 1165.8

This is it - our last day of vacation! Tomorrow, it's back to work hiking! :-)

No trains leave D.C. for Harper's until late afternoon, so we slept in and got a late start again. After eating, we did our grocery shopping for the next few days. We baked (and burnt) some cookies while we waited for the train, but finally headed down to Union Station.

We bought our tickets and mailed the last of our city clothes home, and made our train with about 2 minutes to spare. It was a pretty comfortable ride down to Harper's (I was surprised at all the people in the upper compartment making no secret of drinking booze from open containers, which I'd have thought would be illegal?) and arrived around 6:30. Unfortunately, Sea Monster realized as we were getting off the train that he'd forgotten his hiking poles at the Post Office... oops! At least they were free (since he found them), but the transition back to bipedal will be tough.

Being back in Harper's was a bit weird... it's been a long time, and it kind of feels like we're starting all over. We grabbed some dinner in town and found out that the only hostel options were $30 (too expensive for us!) so we decided to steath camp. We slept on a little beach under a railroad bridge, down by the river, just like hobos. Yes! Excited for our first southbound day of hiking tomorrow.