Hiking with a Random Dog

Random dog that followed us hiking.

Right now I am TDY* to Huntsville and have been for about a month.  Sunday, after the torrential rains we had Saturday, I decided to go on a hike with a colleague at Monte Sano State Park.  The park was really nice, it has a lot of buildings built by the Civilian Conservation Corps back before World War II.  The neatest thing was how a dog decided that my colleague and I made for more interesting hiking companions than its owners, and took off with us for about three quarters of a mile as we started to hike around the mile.  Eventually, its owner came over and retrieved it, but I was beginning to wonder what would happen if the owner was not there when we got back to the car, and whether I was going to have to figure out how to smuggle a dog into the University of Alabama in Huntsville's housing.   It was a nice hike, though, even if it was a bit muddy and cut short because of time.
* TDY, for non-Army readers of this blog, means temporary duty (or, in normal English, a business trip).  It is sometimes used like a verb.

Skyline Drive History

For anyone in the Maryland Outdoor Club reading this (or anyone else for that matter!), here's a link to a historical site on Skyline Drive.  For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, that's the road that traverses Shenandoah National Park.  There's a picture on the National Park Service's website of what looks like the same overlook that I stopped at last fall and took pictures at.  I'm looking forward to the fall.

Hiking Across Maryland

Last Saturday, I hiked forty-one miles across Maryland in the Hike Across Maryland.  We started at 5:20 a.m., when a school bus disgorged us at the start of the trail.  After a rock scramble at 6:30 a.m., I was at the second checkpoint (and had hiked 5 miles) by 6:57 a.m.  According to the statistics, of the people that finished this hike, I placed in the first quarter.  I was hoping to finish faster than I did (11 hours and 49 minutes), but I'm still pleased.
I've posted pictures to Flickr.  It's definitely an experience I won't forget.