My wife Theresa and I got a chance to go on a weekend trip with my youngest grandson Nathen over the weekend. He's 10 years old, soon to be 11.

On several occasions over the past few years, Theresa and I have visited Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. It's probably the smallest town with the biggest history in the whole country. There is a lot of significance to this little village stuck in the cleft where the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers converge. It's an incredible place to visit.

Both Thomas Jefferson and George Washington visited the town in its early years. The latter surveyed the area to determine its usefulness for transport canals and suggested it as the site for the nation's first armory and weapons arsenal. Meriwether Lewis outfitted his crew at Harpers Ferry before embarking on his cross-country trek with William Clark.

The town later became a hub of firearms manufacturing and an important location for both the largest canal company and the largest railroad company of the time--C&O Canal and B&O Railroad, respectively. These two companies were early transportation rivals, but railroads won in the end as superior and well-funded technology often does.

_{John Brown in 1859, the year of the Harpers Ferry raid (License: Public Domain]:
Wikipedia}

Perhaps the event for which Harpers Ferry is most well known for is the John Brown raid, what has often been referred to as the start of the Civil War. Some say he was a madman; others call him a hero. He was certainly passionate about his cause, the abolition of slavery.

Here's an interesting bit of trivia: It was the U.S. Marines that captured Brown and ended the raid, but that effort was led by Lieutenant Colonel Robert E. Lee, who was to later become the famous General Lee of the Confederate Army, and his aide-de-camp Lieutenant J.E.B. Stuart, who served under Lee during the Civil War.

Harpers Ferry would also be a critical geographic area for the civil war and changed hands as many as eight times from 1861 to 1865.

My wife and I wanted to take Nathen to Harpers Ferry because he is a huge history buff and, being a 10-year-old boy, loves adventure. His favorite form of entertainment, other than playing Fortnite with his older brother, is watching documentaries. Our trip was more than fun. It went down like this.

Harpers Ferry, West Virginia

Nathen, Theresa, and I left our home in Gettysburg, Pa. around 8 a.m. on Saturday and arrived in Harpers Ferry around 10 a.m. We parked at the visitors center, which is about a mile from town proper and rode the shuttle bus into town, which Nathen thought was the bomb. Then we walked the town.

Harpers Ferry isn't that big. You can swallow it all in one day, but we had other plans that day so we made it a two-day affair.

Naturally, we visited several museums, one of which was the John Brown Museum, but Nathen was taken in by the Provost Marshall's office immediately. That might have been because there was a man dressed as a provost marshall giving a little history lesson of Harpers Ferry. When we left, Nathen said, "I'm going to think up some questions to ask him before I leave." And he did. Before we left that day, we went back to the Provost Marshall's office so Nathen could ask his questions.

Another thing we did that Nathen enjoyed was walk across the Potomac along the B&O railroad track into Maryland. Below is what the bridge looks like from the Maryland side.

Public domain, Wikipedia.

I was too busy enjoying myself to take pictures, which is why I'm using public domain images.

When we got to Maryland, we took a walk along the Appalachain Trail and scoped out one of the canals that made up the C&O Canal, and a lockhouse that is no longer operational. Nathen got a kick out of learning how the canal system was used to transport food and supplies at that time.

When we were done in Harpers Ferry on Saturday, we went tubing, but we revisited Harpers Ferry again the next day to see some of the other sights, such as Jefferson's Rock. This was the rock that Thomas Jefferson stood on in 1783 to get a view of both of the rivers before they joined together. I'd been trying to get up there to see it for years, but I could never get anyone to go up there with me. Nathen went.

To get to the rock, you had to climb some very steep steps from the streets of Harpers Ferry up the mountain. It's about two tenths of a mile, but it is one steep climb. When I got there, I stood on one of the highest points and took a couple of photos of each river with my phone. My phone camera has nothing more than a 4x zoom, so I need an upgrade. After taking the pictures, I closed the camera and stuck the phone in my shirt pocket. Wouldn't you know it, before we got back down to the street where my wife was waiting, my pocket had opened the camera again and deleted my pictures. Otherwise, I'd be sharing those with you right now.

At any rate, Harpers Ferry was a lot of fun, and seeing it with Nathen made it even better.

My First Experience Tubing On the Shendandoah

River Riders is the name of the company that provided the tubes for the water adventure Nathen and I would share together. My wife didn't go.

_{Image from
Unsplash}

Keep in mind here that I am not much for water sports. I never have been. I've been skiing once (I sucked at it), I've been on a boat a few times, I'm not into fishing (though Nathen and his step-dad love it), and swimming is something I do as a social activity but not my first choice for recreation. It just isn't me. But I did not want to deprive Nathen of the opportunity to try something new and enjoy something that I knew he would love. So he and I went tubing.

Some parts of the Shenandoah are pretty rough and River Riders provides adventurists with white water rafting opportunities, but since it was Nathen's first tubing experience (and mine), I thought it wise to opt for the flat water experience. It was definitely an experience.

The current was slow. It was nice and relaxing. No dangers. We went around a single bend and traveled maybe half a mile in about an hour. Pretty slow. We still ended up getting wet.

At one point, I looked back and Nathen was sitting up on his tube. Picture this huge inflatable donut and a 120-pound redhead sitting on one side of it with no weight on the opposite side. I said, "Nathen, don't fall in. I'm not in the mood for playing lifeguard today." I then turned around to see what was ahead of me.

Before I spun back around to check on Nathen again, I heard a woman, another tuber, who had entered the water the same time we did say "oops." I looked back and, sure enough, Nathen was in the water. I sighed. "Nate," I said, "I told you not to fall in." He laughed.

He was trying to figure out how he was going to get back on his tube. First, he pulled it up over his head and tried to get up through the hole. Anyone who has ever tried that (and I did when I was 10 years old) knows it is harder than it looks. I told him to try to jump on the tube onto his belly then roll over. He tried it and couldn't do it. So I manuevered myself over to his tube to help him out. This is where things got interesting.

Nate's tube and my own were touching. I grabbed the plastic handle on Nathen's tube to keep it from separating from me. We were only about 20 feet from the bank. I assumed, wrongly, that Nathen was standing on the floor of the river. I thought this because he wasn't bobbing as one might expect had he been floating. Of course, there was hardly any current, so there you go.

If I was going to be of assistance to Nathen, I thought, then I was going to have to get in the water. So I jumped in expecting my feet to land on the river floor. They didn't, and I was head under.

Now, before we left the River Riders premises, I made sure the straps of Nathen's life jacket were pulled tight enough that his life preserver was snug but not too tight. I did the same with mine. So I was relatively sure that our life preservers were up to the task. When I jumped into the river, I suddenly found myself bobbing up and down, my life jacket pushed up over my face, my sunglasses catawampus over my nose, and the hat that had been on my head completely forgotten. Water was splashing all up in my face and into my mouth, and I had effectively become a 180-pound bobber with no fishing line attached. I was in shock.

I am not a strong swimmer. I swim well enough to save my life if I have to, and if I'm not fighting a man eating life preserver. I threw my head back so I could get a glimpse of the sky and re-orient myself to the state of living bewilderment I had just tossed myself into. Then I began to kick my feet under the water to propel myself toward the bank. I could hear the woman tuber somewhere in the vague vicinity asking with true concern in her dry voice, "Can you stand up? Can you stand up?"

Yeah, lady, that's why I'm bouncing like a wine cork set free from its natural habitat wishing I had read the small print with a little more scrutiny.

Finally, I decided to set myself upright and see if I could stand. Oh, yes, I could feel the river floor beneath my feet. And Nathen continued his serene float about three feet to my two o'clock. Way to go, Nathen, you make it look easy.

"Okay, Nate," I said, "bring your tube over here to the bank and I'll help you get in."

The two of us pushed ourselves up to the bank of the Shenandoah and Nathen perched himself up on his tube again. I did the same on mine. And we happily floated the next hundred yards or so to the take out point and rode the bus back to River Riders headquarters, changed into dry clothes, then hooked up with my wife and headed for dinner. Later, in the hotel room, Theresa was relaying the story I had told her to her daughter Leah, and when Nathen heard her say that he was standing flatfooted on the river floor, he immediately corrected her. "Uh uh, I was floating," he said.

No shit, I thought. I saved his life and he didn't even the decency to lie so I wouldn't look like an idiot. Thanks little buddy.

Zip-Lining Like Superman

Before heading to Harpers Ferry on Sunday, Nathen and I wanted to go zip-lining, so we headed to River Riders once again for our daily adventure fix.

I'm much more comfortable in the air than the water. If I die an untimely death, I'd rather go splat than splash. It's messier, but there's no asphyxiation involved. Call me weird.

I love to fly. When I enlisted in the U.S. Army in the 1980s, I went to Airborne school and spent three years with the First Special Forces Group exiting iron birds at 800 feet. I loved every minute of it, except the one time when the air under my chute collapsed and I nearly ended up flat as a pancake. But that's a story for another day.

Nathen was looking forward to riding the zip-line. River Riders boasts of the longest zip-line within three states. It's a quarter-mile ride. And it was a blast.

I had done it once before. Years ago, right after mustering out of active duty, my sisters and I took a family trip with my parents to Tennessee. My baby sister, Tonya, and I rode a hang gliding simulator that was at least a quarter-mile long, maybe longer. It was one of the most fun things I've ever done. I was looking forward to doing this with Nathen.

We walked up the mountain, got our gear, which consisted of a helmet, a harness, and the metal attachment that connects the harness to the zip-line. Nathen was hooked up first and had to wait while the young lady took a couple of minutes to rig my harness. That routine included a step ladder and somebody fooling around behind my back where I couldn't see them. You can't know for sure what they're doing back there.

When it came time, Nathen and I found ourselves suspended by our backs to a cable with our faces pointed toward the ground about 500 feet below. "How are you doing, Nate?" I asked.

"Good," he said with a grin. "It sure is a long way down." I chuckled. It sure was.

Within seconds, Nathen took off like a rocket. I soon followed. The entire ride lasted about 15 seconds, but it was an awesome 15 seconds. When I got to the platform that was our ending, Nathen hung on his line over a wooden floor about 100 feet above the ground. I flew right by and ended up over the ground again with this huge stopper staring me in the face. It looked like a punching bag boxers use in training, except it was wrapped around the cable I was attached to. The young lady working that station pulled me back to the platform where Nathen hung suspended like a redheaded bird with no wings. Our ride was over.

Again, Nathen hung suspended from his back while the young lady removed my gear and disconnected me from the cable. Later, on our way home, I asked Nathen, which parts of this trip would you do again?

His response: "Zip-lining (his favorite part), tubing, hiking, and sleeping on a queen size bed."

Antietam and Cunningham Falls

Since it was about noon when we finished with Harpers Ferry, we decided to stop off at Antietam on the way home. We were going to tour the battlefield, but when we got there, we decided to pay a visit to the observation deck inside the visitors center. A tour guide was describing the battle, so we stuck around to listen. It was a long presentation, but worth it. I could see Nathen enjoying it. But it got too late to see anything more as we had promised his mother to have him home that evening.

On the way home, we stopped off at Cunningham Falls, which is about 20 minutes from our home in Gettysburg but across the state line in Maryland. It's a state park. When we tried to drive in, the guards ushered us out saying the park was at full capacity and that we should come back in about an hour.

Across the highway is a national park, so we decided to hop over there and discovered that they had a hiking trail that went to the falls. The trail was a half a mile longer, one way, than the one in the state park. We decided to hike the trail.

Nathen had this walking stick that he had picked up in Harpers Ferry. He carried it everywhere during our two-day excursion. That walking stick got all kinds of attention from other hikers on the Cunningham Falls trail. Nathen was the star attraction.

It took an hour and 20 minutes to hike the trail to the falls. We enjoyed the scenery then hiked our way back to the car, which took only 50 minutes. That was because we had to hike mostly uphill on the way in and mostly downhill on the way back. Theresa and I listened to our puppies barking all the next day.

I'm glad we got to take this trip with Nathen. It was fun and he got a new walking stick out of it. Below is a picture of him at Cunningham Falls with his walking stick. The picture was taken by my wife.