We left our campsite at Pine Grove Furnace State Park sort of early this morning so that we could get to our campsite at Greenbrier State Park in MD fairly early to drop the teardrop before heading to Harper’s Ferry. We were able to get to Greenbrier by 11:00 or so and were at Harper’s Ferry by 12:00. The town of Harper’s Ferry is a really neat place, but if you’re ever hoping to visit the national park there are some things that we learned that might be useful to you. For one, there’s no reason to go to the actual visitor’s center for the park. The parking is limited in the town, but if you’re willing to wait a few minutes for a spot to open up, there is available parking. Basically, the only reason you would need to go to the visitor’s center is to easily and quickly park your car, get on a transit bus that takes you from the visitor’s center to the downtown area of Harper’s Ferry. If you do it this way, you’re gonna have to pay the park fee, just for a 5-minute bus ride. If you’re wondering about how you might get your national parks stamp without going to the visitor’s center, there is a great bookshop that has a handful of stamps for the national parks book, including the one for Harper’s Ferry. This little bookshop also has a ton of neat gifts and souvenirs to buy related to both Harper’s Ferry and the AT.
We spent quite a bit of time walking the streets of the town, looking at the national park sites for the park and walking through some of the shops. The town is also very dog-friendly, so we were even able to stop for lunch and keep Gus and Lilly with us on a patio. They were even given their own water bowl and treats. After a quick lunch, we did a little more exploring of the town, learning about the history of the town during the Civil War from a Park Ranger.
We also made sure to go ahead a build in a little bit of extra time to get our “chores” down since we are just about one-week in. We went into the next town over, Charles Town, WV, to do laundry and resupply on our groceries for the second half of the trip, before heading back to our campground. This part of our trips is always so interesting to me. Being at local laundromats is such a dive headfirst into the local culture. We always meet the true locals who are going about their daily lives, doing their laundry like normal. Today I met a man from the area who chatted with me almost the entire time the laundry was going about our trip and all of the different parks and areas we should visit if we get to come back to this area. A woman chatted with us like we were old friends. She shared with us about how she had recently had an appointment at the back and how her husband was supposed to meet here there. She said that her husband had shown up in dirty overalls with one of the buttons missing and the strap dangling over his shoulder and muddy boots. She told us that she walked right past him like she didn’t know him and told him later that she surely would not let anyone believe that she knew him when he was dressed like that. I have no idea why she shared this story with us, surely it came to mind because she was doing laundry. But really it just felt like we were old friends chatting and she just thought it had been the funniest thing. Anyways, the “chores” days are never the highlights of the trips, but they are the times when we probably connect the most with the local people in the areas we visit. We’re excited to keep traveling and continuing to meet people from all over the U.S.
**We were also encouraged by a friend to try sweet bologna. Being lovers of a fried bologna sandwich, we had to get some when we ran across it in the store today while we were restocking our groceries. It’s actually really good. Nothing like the bologna we’re used to, but reminds us of summer sausage with the consistency of bologna.
Life in the right lane,
Rachel
DMG Exploration 