Knife Leaf

Canal Road runs out of Georgetown into Maryland along the C and O Canal. A trail follows this road and canal, a trail I like to call, the Canal Road. This canal trail is fairly long, the total length of which is appropriate for biking, but not really for walking, way too long. It is a pretty nice trail, which is the towpath of the old canal. Great Falls, a state park in Maryland, is more or less found at the end of the towpath, which coincidentally became a destination on the Great Goat Odyssey.

What does the canal towpath have to do with goats, you may ask. Brian and I trekked out to Great Falls and put this one on the list when we found out that the name of one of the trails in the park was named "Billy Goat Trail." This particular leg of the odyssey was full of foraging and bounding that would have made any goat proud. We had a minor setback at the beginning of our journey and almost never made it to the goat trail, spending about an hour in the middle of the woods wandering on what we thought was a poorly maintained path (which really just happened to be the middle of the woods). One wilderness school of thought revolves around the principle that when lost in the woods, if you run around the woods for awhile, you’ll eventually not be lost anymore. This is pure stupidity. Fortunately for us goat trekkers, we ran into a dog walker, followed at a safe distance so as not to give away our position, and made it out of debacle unscathed. After finding some mysterious rock carvings, we overcame our ineptitude and made it to the head of the Billy Goat Trail.

If you ever have the desire to go to Great Falls, which you should because it is a pretty good goat activity you can do with your friends, you will notice giant museum-like signs with information and zoomed-in pictures of tiny, microscopic life forms that grace the landscape of Billy Goat Trail. These organisms are protected species and the Goat Trail is their sanctuary. While I have never seen one of these creatures, I know they are awesome, especially since they have some sort of connection with the goat.

Now, why does a rock in the middle of Western Mass and a Trail in Southern Maryland share the same Goat label? Well, goats are pretty awesome, and so are the Billy Goat Trail and Goat Rock. By the same logic, this would mean that cheese cake would be goat cake, Captain Crunch would be called Captain Goat, and every Sean Penn movie ever made would have the word goat in it somewhere (Goat Times at Ridgemont High just doesn't make sense). This is ludicrous. The other possible reason is that Billy Goat Trail and Goat Rock are craggy, rocky, natural monstrosities that a goat could easily maneuver, bounding up and down effortlessly. Not sure how this relates to other goat things yet, but we shall see.