Day 16: Land of Meyers

The Fool woke up stiff and groggy after semi-sleeping through another 25-degree night. He hopped back onto the rail-trail just as a young lady was power walking by. The lady seemed a bit shaken by this sudden companion who happened to be walking at the same speed, only a few paces behind her. Clearly this frightened her enough to finally switch into a speedy jaunt and put some distance between her and the Fool. She did this until she could reach the safety of the next crossroad.

About an hour later, the Fool was off the trail and found himself at the dead end of a road near a local refinery/factory/some-sort-of-industrial-building. The fool was confused since his map indicated that there was a thru-road that crossed the river, passed a racetrack and hooked back up with the rail trail. He stopped a local workman in his bulldozer/car and asked how to get to the racetrack. The man sullenly shook his head and pointed back the direction where the fool came. He said just 2 words: "route 3." The man drove away and the fool consulted his map. Route 3 was at least 5-6 miles away and would then take him another 5-6 miles out of his way before hooking back up with the racetrack. Desperate, the Fool flagged down another worker in his pickup truck. The kindly man told WF that the roads that led to the river were all owned by the Meyers who didn't take to kindly to trespassers. He also added a tidbit that the Meyers owned many guns and all were eagle-eyed. But the workman didn't seem to dissuade the fool too much. He actually encouraged him to give it a shot, but said to just "keep moving."

Even though the man told him about the disgruntled Meyers and the fact that the bridge was out, the Fool finally decided to go for it. He rambled through the woods for an hour, trying to stay out of sight of any of the Meyers' homes. When he reached the river, the WF discovered it was indeed bridgeless, but fairly broken up. So he took off his shoes and waded through one section, put his shoes back on and walked across a narrow log to get over the 2nd half of the river -- all this while listening to distant gun fire being rattled off at some firing range.

Making it back onto the rail trail by the racetrack, unshot by Meyers and undampened by the river, the sky then proceeded to rain 14 inches of water onto his head and body.

Cold and soaking wet, the Fool decided to check into another hotel. He ate McDonalds and watched "American Idol" at the creepy Red Roof Inn, about 6-7 miles outside of DC.