May 30, 1993

TELEVISION INTERVIEW

This was my second day on the historic Chesapeake and Ohio towpath and I was happy to get away from traffic for a while. Last night was a really noisy one at the campground in Tuscarora. Before leaving town, I had stopped at a small church that had an early service. The congregation was pretty small. Nothing happened at the church afterwards.

The towpath was in pretty good condition and the road surface was pea gravel. For the most part, I had the path to myself. About ten miles from Tuscarora, I did meet up with a small group of boy scouts who were also cycling the tow path.

I didn't really want to go very far for the day. I sort of wanted to get away from all of the crowds that would be in the Washington, D.C. area. I'll tackle that tomorrow. About sixteen miles from Washington, D.C. I came across the Swains Lock campground which did have road accessibility. There was just two couples there and there was plenty of room for my tent. The one thing that bothered me was how trashed the campground was. There was litter and broken glass everywhere but no trashcans. I took some time going around and picking up the glass and trash and putting it into a pile so that when a park worker comes by they can clean it up.

About ten minutes after I had finished cleaning up the campground, this news van from the local Fox Tv station in Washington, D.C. showed up. The reporter said that they were looking for stories on how people were enjoying the holiday weekend. He interviewed on camera the other people at the campground. When it came my turn, the reporter was surprised at what I was doing and my turn lasted for about fifteen minutes. I wasn't sure whether or when they would use any footage. As a place of contact, I gave them the address of my old church in Spokane, WA.