Day #99

Ignore the orange safety cones! These steps were hand-carved in the early 1800's.

Wow...99 days of walking!

99 days of walking,
99 day of walking,
You walk up and down,
Pass out on the ground,
99 days of walking around!
(Sorry, I just couldn't resist!)

Today I went over to Harper's Ferry and walked for 70 minutes. The weather was brisk today, compared to the warm temperatures we've had over the last several days. While there I met a woman who was visiting from Germany, and of course we started chatting because my husband is from Germany too.

She wanted to visit Harper's Ferry, W.V. because she was very interested in the Appalachian Trail and had done a lot of reading about it prior to coming to the States. She told me about a book she had recently read on the topic that was written by an American. I told her that I had just recently read a book written by a famous German, Hape Kerkeling who had written about his experience hiking the Camino de Santiago in Spain. We got a big kick out of the fact that I had just read a book written by a German, she had read one written by an American, with both being written about hiking very long trails!

As we sat and chatted, she got very excited when she noticed a man walking up the hill towards us. He was obviously a hiker--large backpack, hiking poles, boots, etc. She whispered to me, "Oh, I would love to talk to him about hiking the trail!" I yelled out to the guy and asked him to come over to us. She couldn't believe it. I introduced myself and asked if he indeed was walking the Appalachian Trail, and when he indicated that he was, I told him that the lady next to me was from Germany and wanted to ask him a few questions, which she did with gusto.

This is part of the conversation that followed:

German Woman: Have you seen any beer?

Hiking man: Beer?

German Woman: Yes, beer. A big black beer.

Me: Do you mean black bear?

German Woman: Yes! I mean bear! I read that you can see black bears when you are hiking.

Hiking man: No bears...and no beers either.

Me: How about a bear drinking a beer?

It was funny.... straight out of something you would see in a movie!