End of step one

After 2 months it was time to step on the scale and see the results of my simple diet. For those just tuning in, I devised a diet based on cutting calories and tried to lose 15 pounds in two months (starting at 225). I also added extremely moderate exercise that included walking about two miles a day and a morning exercise routine that can be charitably described as a warm up.

What was the result? A slightly better than expected 208. That is 17 pounds in 2 months with no radical change in behaviour. Anyone that has been on a diet or two knows the progress went. The first ten pounds came off quick. The next five took about the same amount of time. Then nothing for a week and then the last two in the final week.

The lesson is that simple calorie counting can be a great way to start a diet and can be effective if you have just a few pounds to lose. I was surprised how quickly my body adapted to the change. The added exercise was not much but it did stimulate my metabolism. I actually felt like exercising more. By the last couple weeks, I started feeling hungry all the time. This tells me I'm going to need to change my eating habits if I'm going to continue losing weight.

What is next? I still want to lose 13 pounds more and my fat percentage is much higher than I like. I'm going to need to increase exercise and calorie intake. I'm still working on how I'm going to do that. I set Halloween as my new goal. Once I see 195, I'll start working on that fat percentage.

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C&O Canal worth the investment - and interest

Tim Rowland tried to generate interest in the C&O Canal in his column this week.

It is good to see people trying to promote interest in the canal and the mostly forgotten life style that it created. I'm not sure if the expanded bicycle trail will help make people aware of the history of the canal but they will get more people on the towpath. One thing that would definitely help is better marked access points to the trail. There are many parts of the trail that are hard to reach on a day ride.

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Progress after 8 weeks

After only seven weeks, I stepped on the scale and saw 210 pounds. As usual, the first ten pounds came off quickly and easily. The next five were a bit slower but didn't require much effort. And just as usual, I've stalled out and have not lost anything since.

I'd like to lose 15 more pounds and do it by the end of October. This is going to be difficult if I can't increase my activity level. So far I have cut most of the easy calories by cutting out sugary drinks and snacks in between meals. I'm happy with the light exercise I've been doing. I should be able to increase this over the next few months. At the rate I'm going, it will still be the end of the year before I'm at the level I was years ago.

Staying ambulatory through the end of the year may be a problem. My right foot has another bone growth starting. Unlike all of the earlier ones, this one is forming on the bottom of the foot. I have no idea what it is going to take to deal with it. Right now it is a race to get in the best shape I can before I have to take a break and deal with the foot.

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Washington County, Md. Atlas

Large scale atlas with street level detail, showing ZIP Codes, block numbers, schools, hospitals, points of interest, shopping centers, airports, parks and more.


I know what you are thinking, "Get a GPS already." While a GPS is a great tool for getting specific direction, I hate trying to look over a map on the screen. Sometimes I just want to leaf through a paper map and see my entire route or find my own alternative.

The ADC maps are first rate and serve the function of looking for alternative routes well. While it doesn't show all of the river access points, it is pretty good with the gravel roads I keep finding myself driving.

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Fishing the upper Potomac River

Ken Penrod gives away his favorite fishing spots on the upper Potomac


Think of this book as The C&O Canal Companion from the river's perspective. Ken Penrod knows about more than just fishing. If you plan on spending time on the Upper Potomac River, you need this book. If you plan on fishing the river, commit it to memory.

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The C&O Canal Companion

A mile-by-mile tour of the C& O Canal, the 184-mile Potomac River waterway that stretches from Washington, D.C., to the Appalachian Mountains -- including hotels, bed-and-breakfasts, bicycle shops, river outfitters, parks, and campsites.



The big selling point here is a mile by mile list of what you will find along the canal. Points of interest are noted in the text and in small maps of the area. While the maps show good detail and the text doesn't miss many landmarks, access to the path and facilities available are conspicuous by their absence.

This is still my book of choice for a quick overview of a portion of the canal. It is well researched and extremely comprehensive. This is the one book to have for a general idea of what you will see while on the towpath.

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Avoiding injury

The root of my physical problems is my flat feet. They have caused me problems my entire life. The pain starts in my feet. You start to compensate by changing your walk. That causes your ankles to hurt. Then you knees, then your hips, and then your back. After years, a few minutes of standing becomes excruciating.

I haven't been able to get much exercise since my last foot operation. I just about recovered from it when I pulled something shovelling snow. It took two years to get over it and I still have pain on days when I over exert myself. Looking back at it objectively, I shouldn't have
been shovelling snow just yet.

Once the doctors eliminated any serious problems as a source of my pain, the diagnosis was an inflamed nerve. I managed to get over my injury by remaining sedentary. Now that the pain is mostly gone, I've been easing back into activity. In my younger days, I wouldn't call this exercise. It wouldn't even call it a warm up.

Every week I plan to add another exercise. I'm starting with stretches and calisthenics. The plan is to be back to lifting weights by Thanksgiving. I hope this will prevent a new injury. I guess we'll find out.

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The Plan

So how do I plan to get back in shape? Well an aggressive diet and exercise program is out of the question. I haven't stuck to a diet in forty years and I am too afraid of an injury for vigorous exercise. No, the plan is to take it slow.

Primarily, I want to eliminate as many calories as I can without impacting meals. For me, this means sugary drinks. I start my day with an average of five cups of coffee with cream and sugar. Going cold turkey on coffee is not happening, but cutting down to two cups is reasonable and saves 600 calories a day.

Next is my juice habit. When writing code in the afternoon, I like to have some juice. I was going through a bottle of V8 Fusion every two days. Cutting back to one reasonably sized glass a day, reduced consumption to two bottles a week. It also saved 240 calories a day.

Lastly, I would usually have two glasses of iced tea with dinner. I cut this back to one and saved another 140 calories.

That is a huge 980 calorie savings that equals .28 pounds a day (figure 3500 calories is a pound). That should result in a loss of close to two pounds a week. All of this liquid was replaced with cold filtered water from the refrigerator. I know there is a line of reasoning that drinking cold water burns calories as you drink it because you body has to warm it up. The problem is the actual calories burned are too few to make a difference.


Now there are nine weeks in June and July. At two pounds a week, I should be able to drop 18 pounds by the end of July. Then again, there was a holiday and a big car club get together and a couple other events that might slow me down so I set a goal of 15 pounds by the end of July. That means I should drop from 225 to 210 before August.

I will tell you that I did start at the beginning of June and I have stuck to the plan. Next post, I'll explain how I'm going to start exercising again while avoiding injury.

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Starting Over

It has been over two years since I suspended Adventures with Buck. My reasons were based on my health and state of mind. In the intervening time, I have dealt with my own pain and my father's final battle with cancer. I can't say that it has been easy. In fact, my life has been a struggle since the spring of 2006 when my Dad called and told me he had lung cancer. I was dealing with my chronic bad feet at the time. Suddenly my issues with mobility and pain were not so compelling.

Getting back on track was made possible through the support of my family and friends. My wife has been great. As most of you reading this are animal lovers, you know that Buck was there for me as only mans best friend can be. Complicating things was a new addition to our home. Last August, Buck was joined by a young Beagle named Beatrice. She will be joining us on our adventures.

Now I'm finally ready to make a comeback. This time around, I'll be focusing on what I'm doing to get back in shape before we start tackling any more hikes. In the last two years I've gained 25 pounds and have been fairly sedentary. Now that I know my pain is not caused by any serious health issues and I have managed to get it under control, it is time to get back to my fighting weight before we go exploring. I hope you will check back often to check my progress and keep me motivated.

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The Paw Paw Tunnel

Flashlight, hiking boots, or both.

Start Mile: 154.8
End Mile: 156.4
Time: 3 hours
When: Afternoon

Directions: From Berkeley Springs, take WV 9 west to Paw Paw. Make sure to stop and enoy the view at the overlook along the way. Before you get to Paw Paw, 9 will oin 29. Rt 9 turns into rt 51 at Paw Paw. There is a boat lanch on the WV side of the river. There is a parking area for the C&O Canal Park on the right once you cross into Maryland.



We decided to go for a hike on Memorial Day afternoon. It had been over ten years since we had been to Paw Paw so we decided to go to the Paw Paw Tunnel.


There is a path down to the river at the parking area for canoes.


The superintendent's house still stands across the field from the parking area.


The Western Maryland Railroad crosses the Potomac once again where the path from the parking area meets the Towpath.


There is a camping area before the tunnel where Buck played in the water by this pump.


At this point, the canal is much higher than the river.


The south side of the tunnel is impressive.


The tunnel does not seem that long when you enter it but it is three fifths of a mile long. You will not be able to see without a flashlight.


The north side of the tunnel has a boardwalk alongside the canal.


Just what are you looking at?


Those are iron bars drilled into the shale to stabilize the excavated wall leading to the tunnel.



There are springs along the path before the Tunnel Hill Trail.


The Tunnel Hill Trail is two miles of hiking over the mountain. I was hurting pretty bad at this point so we headed back to the truck.

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East of Hancock

Starting to explore the Hancock area

Start Mile: 121
End Mile: 122.9
Time: 1 hour 40 minutes
When: Afternoon

Directions: Take Interstate 70 to Hancock, MD. Make a right toward Hancock onto 144. Make an immeadiate right into the maintenance drive for the C&O Canal.



I finally had a day that I felt like getting out. I wanted to go someplace that we have not been before. While I've stopped at the Park and Dine in Hancock before, I've never explored the town. I thought it would be fun to start at the eastern part of town and work our way west.



To get to the parking area, you need to cross the Western Maryland Rail-Trail. There is always a lot of bike traffic there so I don't know if we will be able to explore it some time.


Between the parking lot and the towpath sits this once impressive house. Does the Park Service own this?


Lock 52 sits just to the west of the entry to towpath. We will try that direction next trip.



The Potomac was high and fast. It is hard to tell just how fast the river was from this picture.


Buck likes to sample the various plants on our walks. He was particularly interested in the Blue Bells. Unlike the various grasses, all he did was sniff the flowers.


At Lock 51 there is what's left of a lock house. It is interesting to see how these were built. It is also interesting to see how something so substantial could deteriorate in such a relatively short time. Notice how the towpath actually has a hill at the lock.





Not far from the lock is a culvert. Canals are not like streets, when the canal crossed a small stream it had to be eleveted allowing water to flow under it. This is important for water management.




Not much further is another culvert. This one has a provision for adjusting the water in the canal called a waste weir.




Blue Bells do well in shady areas and tend to thrive in forests. This part of the canal has tons of them.



People leave pennies on certain mile markers for luck. I bet this drives the forest service nuts.



Buck found this turtle. I waited a while for him to recover from being licked by the dog and come out of his shell.



There is another culvert not far from the mile marker. Notice that all of the surface water in Maryland farm country enters the Potomac at these culverts to be picked up down stream by water systems for suburban MD and WV.




Buck found another turtle that was watching people pass on the tow path.



Buck hams it up by marker 121.



This is the west side of Little Pool. You can see that Interstate 70 is not far.

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Conococheague Aqueduct

Starting over in Williamsport

Start Mile: 99.5
End Mile: 101
Time: 50 minutes
When: Morning


Directions: Where route 11 crosses the Potomac is Williamsport. Right off of 11 is a visitor's center with plenty of parking.




This was my first trip to the river after my foot surgery. My wife and I wanted to get out of the house as the weather finally improved. We decided to go to Williamsport and see how high the water had risen after the week's storms.



The water at the basin didn’t seem that high, but the Potomac had come up enough to cover some of the ground around the soccer fields. We walked across the top of the aqueduct so we could see across the river.





Conococheague Creek had risen a bit too. There was quite a bit of debris flowing into the Potomac. This is a good spot to fish from shore. The side of the aqueduct was broken out in 1920 by a canal boat. The repairs were temporary as the side is missing now.



This is also the place where the Confederates retreated across the Potomac after the battle of Gettysburg.

As we headed west on the tow path, we could see that the water in the canal was still frozen. This section of the canal is over grown.



Mile marker 101 is not far from the parking lot. Buck had to be convinced to sit for a picture. He wanted to mark the mile post as well as every tree.



The power lines are near Jordan Junction. We turned around here. With the trees so think around the canal, the power line right of way provides a good view of the West Virginia side of the river.




Williamsport is a step back in time. Route 11 runs though the center of town on its way to West Virginia from Hagerstown. Once you are south of the interchange with I81, there are interesting older houses on both sides. Night life is nonexistent so come early and enjoy a small town day.

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Some years are better than others...

...or, I got foot surgery for Christmas



Some things are not meant to be. Me exploring the C&O Canal last year was one of them.

I started having problems early in the year but I thought I could deal with the pain. I was born with flat feet so foot pain is nothing new. I had to have corrective surgery in October 2002 to eliminate bone build up on the top of my right foot. It was back with a vengeance.

The first attempt to deal with the problem was simply a new set of orthodics. Because insurance would not cover them, my doctor tried an air cast that was covered. This was a waste of time for the insurance company. I bought new orthodics after two weeks. This provided temporary relief.

A month later my foot pain stared getting worse. It started altering the way I walked which caused pain in my ankles, knees, and hips. My doctor recommended a radical rebuild of my foot. I started getting other opinions.

At this point I could barely make it up the stairs. No problem because I avoided them as I couldn't get back down. I found a new doctor that wanted to try less invasive measures before permanently altering my foot. I didn't need to be talked into it.

First, I started on a new anti-inflammatory. That helped a bit but I still had foot pain. I needed to have the bones in my foot ground down again. On December 1st I had the operation. The recovery is going well and I should be fully ambulatory soon.

Buck is tired of the excuses and wants to get back to the river. I hope to start our adventures again in February.

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