Evening Encounter

We took a walk along the lake after dinner and on the way back came across this little bunny who froze when it saw us and let me get quite close for a picture. (It's better in LARGE.)

We are in Western Maryland overnight.  My husband continues his quest to run all 184.5 miles of the C&O canal towpath.  He is down to the last 9 miles, six of which he knocked off today. We have waited two years to do this last section because the Paw Paw tunnel has been closed for repairs, and only recently reopened. (I say "we" loosely. I drive him to his starting point and pick him up at his destination. I am the support crew with food and beverage).  This trip has involved getting to the most remote areas of the canal, where we have to travel on dirt roads for many miles to reach it.  The roads today were in terrible condition and nearly inaccessible due to the last year of heavy rains so he had to walk the last mile and a half to get to his starting point.  I drove back to the other side of the Paw Paw tunnel, parked and then walked through the tunnel, carrying a lot of anxiety because we were both out of cell phone service the entire time.  I was so relieved when he finally showed up.

The canal runs alongside the unnavigable Potomac River.  This part of the river has many miles of bends and the engineers in the 1800's decided it made more sense to create a straight tunnel through a mountain and bypass the 6 miles of horseshoe bends.  It took them 14 years to build the tunnel (10 years longer than expected). The tunnel is nearly 1000 m (3118 ft) long and is a canal tunnel, with a path beside it that was used by the mules that pulled the boats and is now used by hikers and bikers.  I have included a photo of the outside and the interior of the tunnel in extras.  The interior is completely dark. I used my phone flashlight to go through and used Lightroom to lighten it up for blip. 

Whether he finishes the last 3 miles tomorrow is now up in the air as we would have to go back again to where the roads are washed out and he would have to walk in and run out, then back and walk out, which will amount to another 8 miles. We are thinking that it might be better to wait until there has been a period of dry weather, and we will rent a 4 wheel drive and come back for the final stretch.  It is really tough going in the Prius and that's a lot of miles in two days for an old man.