Day 31 - Monday April 11th, 2005
Lucketts MD to Frederick MD
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| Day 31 - Monday April 11th, 2005 Lucketts MD to Frederick MD |
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We walked out of Virginia across the massive Potomac river and into Maryland. The morning was crisp and mist hung on the river, all around are beautiful trees and rocks. This country is at once stunningly beautiful and starkly ugly, even though the Potomac seems alive and well you can tell it is an illusion. We are masters of polluting the life blood of the mother, turning her once mighty arteries into sullied drains, how foolish we are indeed.
We have a long days walk into Frederick, where we are staying at the 'Friends' (Quaker) meeting house for two days. We walk through some pretty country along lonely back roads that seem to go on forever. The day is clear and sunny, but the wind is cold and penetrating. I can't wait for the day to finish, to lay down get some sleep and warmth. It is late in the afternoon by the time we reach the outskirts of Frederick and we are running late for our meeting with the locals. Sometimes the walking is slow and painful, time and the road seem to stretch on forever... this for me was one of those days. We finally reach the Baseball Stadium, where we are greeted by about 30 locals. They are very excited to see us and we are excited to meet with so many people, who have come to walk into town with us. We have a circle and introduce ourselves and then head of for the last two miles. There was lots of traffic comming into the stadium, but we soon hit pavement and onto the Main street of Frederick. It is an old town with lots of shops and people, there seems to be an extraordinary amount of people wearing 'Tie dyed' T-shirts. This doesn't seem like an alternative town, but we soon realise they are 'dead heads' and there is Rat Dog concert on in the town that night. Walking on there are more shops and Banks, on one of the Banks I see a Radiation Shelter sign. I have never seen one of these signs before and I am surprised. If there was a Nuclear explosion, I doubt whether there would be enough time for anyone to get into the shelter. Since then I have been noticing many more fall out shelter signs every where, I guess they are a hangover from the cold war. We finally reach our destination, the Friends meeting house and we settle in with our hosts and begin eating dinner and waiting to be visited by Jennifer Dougherty, the city Mayor. The Mayor arived and we greeted and talked with her, she was a great person and it was a real treat to meet her. She had come to visit us and to sign on to the Mayors For Peace collective that the Mayor of Hiroshima had set up. The organisation is a collective of Mayors from all over the world with the aim of ridding the world of nuclear weapons by the year 2020. Jennifer signed the paperwork in front of the whole group and gave a rousing speech... she was the first Mayor on our journey to sign on the spot and it was a momentous occasion for us all. We all settled in to our new home for the next two days and many of the walkers were hosted out by the kind people of Frederick. Nat |
Day 32 Nuclear Time-Line Post Cards |
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