Astral Nomads

One man, one woman, one rabbit......traveling with the stars.

Monday, November 8, 2010

Harper's Ferry


For today's mini-adventure, we cruised down to Harper's Ferry, West Virginia, site of John Brown's famous raid and now a National Historical Park. I actually had to look up what state it was in because it's located right where Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia meet. Driving there you get to experience the triumvirate "Leaving-Maryland-Hope-Your-Enjoyed-Your-Stay, Welcome-to-Virginia-Leaving-Virginia, West-Virginia-Wild-and-Wonderful" within about two minutes. What state am I in? Confusion.


The town of Harper's Ferry is located where the Shenandoah River meets the Potomac River and it is wonderfully scenic, although there's not much flat land because both rivers flow through a water gap in the mountains there. About half of the small town belongs to the park and features historical buildings restored to their period glory. The other half is comprised of small quaint shops and residences. We also ran into two of our old friends there: the Appalachian Trail and the good old Chesapeake and Ohio Canal towpath. Nothing else much to do so, after milling about the town for a spell, we hiked a bit along each one of those again. It was about 55 and sunny and the autumn colors are still sustaining.



This view is from Jefferson's rock, which is a promontory a short hike up from the town proper. Thomas Jefferson really liked this view and said:

"The passage of the Patowmac through the Blue Ridge is perhaps one of the
most stupendous scenes in Nature. You stand on a very high point of land.
On your right comes up the Shenandoah, having ranged along the foot
of the mountain a hundred miles to seek a vent. On your left approaches
the Patowmac in quest of a passage also. In the moment of their junction
they rush together against the mountain, rend it asunder and pass off to the sea."












-Gerry (text) and Wendy (photos)

7 comments:

  1. Wendy - your photos are off the hook! what are you shooting with?

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  2. I have three cameras with me but the most frequently used one is a Canon G10. It has lots of dials and settings but mostly I just keep it on automatic and if I don't like a shot, I might use the tools in iPhoto to crop, correct, or enhance...much like a child playing with scissors, crayons, and coloring book. Thank you for your compliment, I do spend a lot of time doing what I love!

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  3. @erica: Looks like the Voltaire in Dali's "Slave Market with the Disappearing Bust of Voltaire".

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  4. Couldn't have said it better Gerry

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  5. Thanks for using a relevant quote this time, Gerry.

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