Ever have that feeling you have to get out in the middle of the week even though you don’t really have the energy to do it…

That was today.  I got home from work at 4:30 pm.  Fed the pack, then hemmed and hawed over whether it was worth it to drive in rush hour traffic to go hiking.  I finally decided I had to go.  I could not sit on my butt in this house all night!

And you might ask, “well, why don’t you just walk around the neighborhood or go uptown?”  And why don’t I do that?  For starters I don’t get the solace I need walking around town.  There are too many people, too much noise and concrete hurts my feet.  I need the woods.

So I leashed up Sidekick Pauli and away we went, not with the feeling of adventure we usually have, but with an ache to be put right again by a walk in the woods.  I was stressed out, antsy, like an animal that has been caged for far too long.  I needed a fix.

My head was racing…where to hike, where to hike?  It’s rush hour…it will take too long to get down to Little Bennett…what about that Monocacy Battlefield walk I read about?  Where was it again…  I turned down a road I thought might lead to the Battlefield but never found it.  Instead I found myself down on Rt. 28 headed for Montgomery County.  It was then I settled on the C&O Canal at the Monocacy Aqueduct.  I don’t like the word “settle”  but that is an apt description.  At this point I did not care I just needed to be out of the car, away from traffic, and on a trail with the wind blowing and the sun shining!

The Monocacy Aqueduct is beautiful.  I believe it was built in 1830, pretty incredible!  Sidekick Pauli and I set off down the canal with a sigh of relief…seriously, we literally both sighed at the same time!  The Monocacy River feeds into the Potomac River at this point. Down River is the Dickerson Power Plant.

We walked north on the Canal.  I knew we did not have time for a long hike but it was excellent to be out for even a short time.  We met a group of Girl Scouts camping…love those pink tents!!!  The girls were super nice and I stopped to chat for a few minutes.  Oh! It felt great to see these kids out camping and hiking!

Butterflies flitted around us and the sun slowly slipped into the trees as we made our way up the canal. It was very peaceful.  I could hear motor boats out on the Potomac through the trees.  Sidekick Pauli was not particularly pleased with the noises of the boats.  Her tail went down and she started pulling me with an annoying amount of force for which there was no cure.  Sidekick Pauli, like me, prefers the deep woods, where it is so quiet you can hear yourself breathing and your heart beating.  Besides the boat noise it was a good midweek hike and staved off my craziness until tomorrow night’s hike up Sugarloaf Mountain!