Adventures in West Virginia and western Maryland – Frostburg, its historic district and its college – Governor Ivey’s call for Alabamians to get vaccinated – Resistance to the vaccines – A new challenge to Roe vs. Wade – Evening statistics
I went on a brief trip to hike in West Virginia and in western Maryland, but the hikes were a disappointment.
On Wednesday (7/21) I went to Spruce Knob. The hike around the knob itself is only a ½-mile circuit, paved, and quite flat. The path was placed there only because the knob is the highest point in the state. There are several views from this path, as well as from a watchtower that rises above the tallest trees. But these were all obscured and dimmed by the smoke from the wildfires in the Western states, which covered everything in sight with a greyish pall.
However, I wasn’t expecting much from this hike. I was anticipating something more rewarding from another hike that starts from the Spruce Knob parking area, a loop that goes to Seneca Rocks and back. It turned out to be an obstacle course: the first trail was full of boulder fields, the second (an old logging road) had numerous and extensive mud puddles strewn with slippery rocks, and a third was so overgrown that grasses and overhanging branches were continually blocking the way. In the end I got so frustrated that I cut off about 2 miles from the hike; even so, it was 14½ miles and it felt as if it were much, much longer. It wasn’t as if I was seeing very much in return for all of this exertion. There are a few views of the mountains from the Horton Trail (the one that has so much overgrowth); but, as with the hike around the knob, they were all blurred by the haze from the wildfire smoke. The vegetation is a bit unusual for the area, since it is higher than much of the other parts of West Virginia and Maryland. It consists mainly of spruce forest and it is probably more typical of parts of Canada than the mid-Atlantic states. But outside of that, there was little to remark upon. Since the hike began at Spruce Knob, it naturally went down for much of the first half of the hike. Upon the return, there was 1700 feet of elevation gain to recover, much of which was in the first mile of the ascent. All in all, the hike was a lot of trouble for something that didn’t amount to very much.
That evening I checked into a motel at which I had booked reservations in advance. Its exterior was unprepossessing, and I had a brief moment of dread as to whether I would experience a repetition of the memorably repellent motel at Wind Gap. But my fears were groundless. I checked in without difficulty. There were no odd characters lounging about in front. The room was spacious, clean, and comfortable. It even had kitchen facilities, which meant that I could make breakfast for myself and thereby get an early start in the morning. Curiously, the proprietor insisted on showing the room to me first to see if it met my approval – the first time that has ever happened to me at any hotel I’ve checked into.
The following day I explored the Big Savage Hiking Trail. This was the main object of the trip, for I was supposed to use a measuring wheel for a revision of a description of this trail in a book of hikes in western Maryland. The measuring wheel slowed me down considerably, of course, but I had anticipated as much. What I did not anticipate was the level of difficulty in adhering to the trail. It is greatly overgrown throughout and at times the only indicator of where to go forward was a blaze on a tree some yards distant. The trail was quite well-blazed in the beginning; even so, there were many places where I went astray and had to retrace my steps. All went reasonably well until I crossed under a power line about 2¾ miles into the hike. On the other side of the power line, the undergrowth became much denser and the blazes less regularly spaced. And finally, at one point, I could go no further – there were no blazes to be seen and no path was at all discernible. It was simply a sea of ferns and grasses interspersed with rocks. Even finding the blaze that I had last left behind me was quite a struggle. It was no longer necessary to use the measuring wheel going back, and thus my progress on the return was much more rapid. But I spent nearly 7 hours to complete a round trip of less than 9 miles.
The description on the signboard at the trailhead begins with the phrase “This popular hike . . .” but I did not see a single other person on the trail and no one else was parked in the parking area. It could have been quite a pleasant hike if the trail were in better condition. It is fairly rugged, with rock piles in several areas and numerous small ups and downs, but the forest area is scenic, and there are tantalizing gleams of a view of the valley below now and then. As it is, I doubt whether it is manageable at all without a GPS.
When I returned I went to the college town of Frostburg, which was a couple of miles from the motel at which I was staying. It is a pleasing place, with a few blocks of historic district. The most striking features are St. Michael’s church and the Gunter Hotel. St. Michael’s church is much more elaborate and imposing than the Episcopal church a few blocks away. It was built in the latter part of the 19th century, and its congregation consisted chiefly of Irish Catholics who had emigrated to the area to work in the coal mining industry. The Gunter Hotel is one of those splendid turn-of-the-century hotels that is filled with original artwork to decorate its halls, including some stained-glass windows, and a grand central staircase along which one can walk from one floor to the next with ease – unlike the system in modern hotels, which places the staircases in forlorn darkened corners of the building to reinforce the impression that walking up and down stairs instead of taking the elevator is rather an indecent and indelicate affair.
The college campus occupies a beautiful setting with vistas of mountain ranges to the south, but it is not beautiful in itself. It has benches scattered here and there for sitting out of doors, but no parklike enclosures, and the architecture of the majority of the buildings is serviceable rather than stylish, although not especially uncomely. To my surprise, there was scarcely a single person to be seen. It was mid-summer, to be sure, and most of the classes are in abeyance, but I would have assumed that at least some courses would be offered during the summer, and in any case the majority of the students reside close to the campus. But for whatever the reason, going through the campus was like going through a ghost town.
So much for my doings during this three-day interval; what of national developments at large?
Arkansas used to be the state with the smallest percentage of fully vaccinated residents, but now that sorry title has descended to Alabama, with only 33.9% of all residents having received the vaccines. Governor Kay Ivey has made a plea for the unvaccinated to take the vaccines – unlike the majority of Republican leaders, who either have refrained from doing so or have actively encouraged their followers to decline them. Average daily cases in Alabama are nearly double what they were a week ago, and more than four times higher than they were two weeks ago.
It is unlikely that Governor Ivey’s exhortations will have much effect. According to a recent poll among the unvaccinated, 45% say that they definitely will not take the vaccine and an additional 35% probably will not. It is true that this poll was conducted before Republican leaders such as Ivey have decided to urge followers to abandon their hostility towards the vaccine. But the main reason for their opposition seems to be a determination to deny Biden any credit for combatting the pandemic, since Biden has displaced their beloved idol Donald Trump. Trump may be officially out of power, but his malign influence is as potent as ever, like the sting of a dead wasp.
And Alabama’s neighbor, Mississippi, is also in the news. It has imposed a ban on all abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy in an attempt to challenge the Roe vs. Wade decision. The case is expected to reach the Supreme Court during the autumn. A similar attempt was made by Louisiana a year ago, which was blocked by a bare 5-4 majority, with Chief Justice John Roberts casting the deciding vote alongside the court’s four liberal justices. But the composition of the Court has changed since that time. Now that Supreme Court consists of six conservative judges and three liberal ones, and it seems unlikely that other conservative judges will follow Judge Roberts’ example.
Statistics for July 21st as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 192,772,397; # of deaths worldwide: 4,141,705; # of cases U.S.: 35,135,098; # of deaths; U.S.: 625,790.
Statistics for July 22nd as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 193,351,571; # of deaths worldwide: 4,150,569; # of cases U.S.: 35,204,521; # of deaths; U.S.: 626,157.
Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 193,884,439; # of deaths worldwide: 4,157,953; # of cases U.S.: 35,279,835; # of deaths; U.S.: 626,622. Over the past three days we have had more than 50,000 new cases (today the case count was well over 60,000) and several hundred deaths. The fourth wave is accelerating.