Today was a long day. I woke up at 7am and went on a day trip to Harpers Ferry National Park organized by the grad student association at Hopkins.
The park is located near the meeting borders of Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia, around one hour and a half driving distance from Baltimore, at the confluence of the Potomac and the Shenandoah rivers. After our arrival at the visitor center, we took a shuttle to the small town center, which consisted basically of a few picturesque buildings and a nice looking church.
We went for a short walk following one of the several hiking trails in the area and we enjoyed the beauty of the landscapes and the scenery, which was greatly enhanced by the terrific weather.
After having some lunch, we went on a whitewater rafting trip. We were split into groups of 5-6 people and each group went on a red boat like the one on the picture below, accompanied by a professional guide. We all wore life jackets and helmets, as a safety measure, even though the rapids – apparently ranging from class I to class II and III – did not seem particularly dangerous to me. We did a 5 mile raft along the Potomac and we went past the spot at which it merges with the Shenandoah. We stopped halfway through for a raft-float where we stepped out of our boat and let ourselves be carried a couple of hundreds of meters downriver by the flow. The people from Buttstubes, the rafting company, were very friendly and helpful at all times, and we truly had a lot of fun in the river.
While in the water, I remembered that the word ‘Shenandoah’ was also the title of a song that I had heard a couple of weeks earlier as sung by Bruce Springsteen in his penultimate album, ‘The Seeger Sessions’. A quick search in wikipedia confirmed that it is indeed a very well-known American folk song, very distinctive of the state of Virginia, which actually seemed to make a lot of sense. Oh, Shenandoah, you rollin’ river, we’re bound away… I long to hear you.
"Almost heaven, West Virginia...Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River..." That's my favorite John Denver song. It perfectly described the beauty of these sights, right? Shenandoah River is a sight to behold, rafting there is the best thing in the world.