Sunday out with Lagniappe

Since it was Sunday and a beautiful day in addition, I decided to put other topics on hiatus for the day and I took Lagniappe to Harpers Ferry to climb the Maryland Heights trail to the overlook above the town.


First I sent Lagniappe down into the C&O Canal to drink some water, since I knew that it was going to be a long climb with nothing for him to drink once we got started. However he pretty much just wanted to play with sticks instead of drink. You can lead a dog to water...



Then we started up the trail. The first part's actually the old road that Federal troops initially carved out of the side of the mountain to allow their oxen to drag heavy guns and other supplies up to the forts and batteries that once overlooked Harpers Ferry.

We got to a junction in the trail and while I was reading a sign, Lagniappe asked this snake for directions. I heard Lagniappe bark and saw him skitter backwards as this snake--whatever is was--raised up, puffed it's head and neck, and hissed loudly. I snatched Lagniappe back and managed to get a couple shots of the snake before it left. No idea what kind it is, but I don't think it was poisonous. Still, there was no call for a dog v. snake match and one was definitely brewing for a few seconds.


We moved on and reached the overlook. When we got there, there was no one else there and the view was, as usual, fantastic. The sun was warm and there was just enough of a breeze to keep the bugs down. Definitely worth the hike out of town and the climb up the mountain.


I sat there with Lagniappe for a fair bit of time, enjoying the view, talking on the phone to my father, who happened to call just as I sat down ("Just calling to see if you went to church today..."), then reading a bit of Uncle Tom's Cabin, a story which seemed somehow appropriate for Harpers Ferry when I was perusing the bookshelf for a pocket-sized book before coming up here.


Then sadly the tranquility was shattered by high-pitched screaming voices as a cub scout pack appeared, shouting and screwing around and doing practically everything except quietly enjoying the view. I tried to tune them out for a while but it didn't work--in large part due to a particular kid named "Mitchel" who obviously has some sort of disorder that causes him to shout every time that he wants to say something. And there was no place up there to get away from Mitchel's loud, shrill,piercing voice. It would have been nice for all if one of the adults had pulled him aside and told him to talk normally instead of screaming, but none did and Mitchel continued to scream about how fast he can ride his bike, and how fat some girl in his class is, and many other things which apparently only interested Mitchel.

So I got up to leave, and began walking back out. Another of the urchins saw Lagniappe and began waving his walking stick in front of Lagniappe's face, saying "Here boy...get it!" Lagniappe backed off for a second as if unsure about what I'm sure that he saw as a gift offering, then he lunged and grabbed the stick, yanking it out of the boy's hands and scampering off with it. The caused the kid to yell to me. "Mister, your dog took my walking staff!" I looked to see where Lagniappe had gone and he was half way up the hill, doing his best to bite the stick in half before I could take it away from him.
"Yeah, I guess he did. Next time you might want to think twice about poking at strange dogs with a stick." I called Lagniappe and he came back, but typically, he left the stick where he'd dropped it. I leashed him back up and we headed up the trail. Darn the bad luck, but the scouts also began coming up the trail shortly after us and they began to overtake us, making enough noise to drown out a brass band as they did.

As Lagniappe and I neared the top of the trail up from the overlook, Lagniappe froze and alerted on something in the woods. I stopped and looked and saw four deer a bit off the trail. But before I could get my camera out, I heard footsteps and another cub scout came running up the rail towards us. I held up a hand to stop him, put a finger over my lips to tell him to be quiet, and pointed the deer out to him. I mean, this is what nature's all about and why these kids are presumably here, right?
But as soon as the kid saw the deer, he screamed at the top of his lungs: "Hey Trevor! Come here! There's DEER!" The deer were gone in a flash. Yet another reason why I hate kids.

When Lagniappe and I got to the trail junction above the lookout, about half the scouts where there, with a couple of their adult leaders. They were looking up the steep trail that ultimately leads over the ridge and back down to the C&O Canal, and in the other direction, down an inviting trail that descended, one would think, right back towards the bridge across the Potomac and into Harpers Ferry. One of the adults looked at me and asked: "Does this trail go back by the bridge?"

Now I knew that it didn't. I'd explored it last year and I know that it leads about a quarter of a mile down a steep incline to a field, and then it dies out. I also knew that I was probably going to be stuck with these scouts for the whole return trip if they went the correct way.

Shame on me, but I heard this voice that sounded a lot like mine say "Yep, sure does," and the leader thanked me and began to lead the scouts down the path to nowhere. Yeah, I may go to Hell for that, but at least my hike was finished in peace and I was able to enjoy the quiet of the forest and see a bit more wildlife. By the time that the scouts got to the bottom, realized that it was a dead-end, and trudged back up that hill, Lagniappe and I were undoubtedly almost back to the C&O path leading back into town. If nothing else, it helped burn some of those kids' excess energy off, and it should drive home a lesson that I learned back when I was in scouts--"Be Prepared". If even one of those adult leaders had bothered to pick up even the simplest Park Service trail map, they'd have known that I was giving them a bum-steer.

So we returned to Harpers Ferry.Lagniappe got his usual ice cream cone at the Swiss Miss shop, and we came home and had a nice dinner of baked catfish.