Blue Ridge Country

As part of a trip to Baltimore to visit my brother Eric and attend the [Impossible Number] reunion of my high school class, we stopped in central Maryland for a walk from U.S. Route 40 north and back on the Appalachian Trail. The hike is notable for several things: It's an easy, popular, wide, pretty stretch of trail, making its way up about 500 feet and then leveling out; the quarter-mile side trail to Annapolis Rocks offers a nifty viewpoint; and, most germane to our walk, there's a nice lunch spot at the Pogo Campsite.

Walter H. "Pogo" Rheinheimer Jr. was a 16-year-old member of the Mountain Club of Maryland when he drowned in the Potomac River in 1974, and the site was designated in his honor soon after his death. My "baby brother" (nearly 12 years younger than I and never getting to grow beyond his exuberant youth) hiked often, both on his own and with both of our parents.