8 hrs, 14 kmsI'm feeling a bit confused. On one hand, I'd like to get back to trail hiking, and exploring the country the way normal people do. On the other hand, there are all these towns that keeping pulling me like magnets. In the end, towns win... I'm going to zigzag some more today, heading west to Williamsport then down along the highway to Martinsburg, West Virginia.

Unbeknownst to me, this is going to be an extraordinary day .

It starts out ordinary enough, wandering through the sprawling suburbs of Hagerstown. On street I come across is "Gay Street", so I'm mildly intrigued as to whether there's anything "Gay" about it... Nope... it's actually very straight... and no rainbow colors anywhere...

The intersections are intriguing though: "Gay/Clinton" followed by "Gay/Lincoln"... and I think, what if this were some sort of Da Vinci Code sort of thing revealing dark, hidden secrets?

On a slightly more serious note, actually America quite possibly did have a gay president once. He was James Buchanan (right before Lincoln), never married and had some preeetty supicious friendships... Never came out of the closet. But then again, if it's hard for politicians to come out of the closet in 2014, you can imagine what it was like in 1860!

Anyways... I reach the end of Gay Street, and find a beat up old warehouse like building turned church . I really wasn't feeling like checking out any more churches... but I am intrigued by the concept of an ugly warehouse-turned-church, so I decide to check it "Hub City Vineyard" out.

Inside, a very welcome sight: not just coffee--but a breakfast bar with muffins, fruit, cinnamon rolls etc that you grab and take with you inside! I'm starting to like this place...

Inside, quite a different feel than any church I can remember. the lights are dim, there candles hanging about, and stars on the flat screens... the band is playing a sort of gentle but intense trancelike music. The place is packed and people seem to be really into the whole atmosphere--kind of a Christian-New Age fusion vibe to it.

I sit in a comfortable sofa like chair in the back and enjoy the atmosphere. The thought strikes me... this is a sort of atmosphere that people of many faiths could enjoy... Hindu... Buddhist ... Sufi Muslim--even a non-religious person who just wants to disconnect from the grind of the material world for a few moments... Just sort of connect with that whatever/whoever is out there kind of thing. And seeing folks coming in with their cup of coffee and muffin dressed very casually, makes me think, not a bad way to spend a Sunday morning...

However when the pastor comes to give his sermon which is something about how the Bible has the answer to all our problems, I do quickly lose interest ... Yeah, I guess someone who doesn't believe in the Bible would probably get tired of hearing these sorts of sermons over and over.

But I would like to ask a couple of questions to someone about this place, so I head out to the lobby to see who I can find. I meet a older tattooed fellow, a former drug addict who is now preparing to be a pastor himself.

"So why is this church held in an old warehouse?"

"We could afford a nicer building--but if we did, we wouldn't have much left over for other stuff--like giving back to the community"

I like that ... on to the next question...

"You say that everyone should feel welcome in your church. I noticed that your church is right at the end of Gay Street... so would a gay couple feel at ease in your church?"

He starts out with an overused cliche "hate the sin and love the sinner"

I press a little farther "And what if he doesn't feel that what he's doing is a sin?"

"Well, actually, we have several gay people in our congragation--some have left that lifestyle, some haven't. We know about it but it's not our place to judge them. We all have sins in our lives... there's no difference between that and, say, having anger problems"

Hmmm... Gay people attending a church where being gay is considered a sin... Interesting. Maybe this place place is a sort of "bridge" that the connects the two seemingly irreconciliable extremes in this divided country: the conservative right (which is fiercely anti-gay) and the liberal left (which is fiercely pro-gay) . Maybe it is possible for people to have different ideas, beliefs and lifestyles, but still feel at ease with each other...

We continue talking for a bit. He tells me about his troubled past and how is faith in Christ helped him overcome his addiction. I tell him that I've met people who have overcome addiction and found peace and purpose in other religions and practices as well...

People our coming out now, so our little debate is cut short--definitely an enjoyable and memorable encounter... I chat with a couple of other people who want to know what I'm carrying a guitar for... They're quite happy when I tell them that I write about things I discover as I travel around the world... and that I don't have single cynical comment to make about their church...

One fellow with a massive beard, t shirt and what looks like a kilt (could be shorts, though) says he'd always wanted to do the Appalachian trail ...

"I'm sort of following the Appalachian trail, but I get bored just seeing trees and rocks... visiting towns--and places like this--are much more interesting!"

A Southern Town in MarylandI'd better get moving. I've still got a lot of miles to cover. It's not long before I reach the town of Williamsport. At the entrance there's a historical marker stating that George Washington had diner at this farmhouse while considering making this the country's capital... So I guess Williamsport could've been a very important city!Past the farmhouse, there's a part where I pass a couple of young folks chilling out. "What kind of guitar is that?" I assume is an attempt to start a conversation. So I pause and offer one of them the guitar to play something."What kind of music do you listen to?""AC/DC... Van Halen..." Wow. Those bands were in their prime before this guy was even born! I guess not everyone in America thinks newer is better .I offer to play a couple songs and decide to try "Free from your Mind Prison" on a young audience for the first time... and the response is very positive... I might just make this a theme song for sharing with the new generation that I meet on my travels from now on. Free your minds, children... question what you were told to believe Free from your mind prison... do not be afraid to thinkA wandering minstrel starting a global revolution among the new generation? Maybe not... But a fun thought...I decide this might be a good chance to get some feedback on how people feel about their history--particularly the Civil War."I guess there's a lot of history here. What do they teach you in school about the Civil War?""Hardly anything. I didn't know much about the history of this town--until I read one of the historical markers. They really should teach us more about our history--people fought and died for freedom"I'm assuming he means the freedom of the slaves. But no."I'm a southern boy..." he clarifies, "if there were another Civil War, I'd be fighting for the South --against the North""I imagine a lot of people in the South feel that way" I comment"A lot of people here in Williamsport feel that way"I continue on my way, quite intrigued about what I've just heard . This was not what I was expecting to hear from a couple of high school age kids.I continue on down Williamsport's rustic little Main Street. Feels more like a little frontier town, rather than the town that could've been America's capital... still a cozy, homey feel to it--despite one of the building on the main intersection being burned down.Then the street drops steeply as we approach the Potomac, the famous river that runs right through Washington DC. It was right here where the Civil War could've ended. After the South was defeated in Gettysburg, they headed back south, to Williamsport where normally you can ford the shallow waters here. But the river was flooded and they couldn't pass. Lincoln wanted his army to pursue the Southern army and fight them while they were cornered, but his general chose not to, allowing Lee and his army to escape when the waters receded.Next to the river is a mini-museum and I go inside and to get some more imformation on the area. There aren't a lot of visitors, so the state park workers are eager to chat . I tell them what the high school kid told me about being a "Southern boy"The park worker explained. "West Virginia across the river didn't feel much affinity with the South--as the land there is hilly so farms were small and there was o need for slaves. In this part of Maryland the land is flat so there were large slave holding plantations. Maryland went to the North because the North didn't want to lose control of the railway linking the the Atlantic to Pittsburgh where a lot of supplies came from--this was their lifeline. But many of the people here sided with the South""So how is this presented in public school education?" I ask"It depends on the state--I grew up in Texas where the Civil War is taught as the 'War of Northern Aggression'... In Virginia I went to Stonewall Jackson high school (a Southern general) so obviously we learned about it from the Southern point of view"Here eyes gets moist as she speaks. It seems clear that this whole topic still brings up a lot of emotions, 150 years later and that the version of the war I was taught as a kid is not the version many fellow Americans are taught growing up .America's Great Engineering FailureSuddenly the theme of my days adventure abruptly changes once again. Next topic: America's Great Engineering Failure. Now everybody knows about America's great successes in innovation, technology and engineering... from the telephone, to the airplane to the Empire State Building. But what about it's great failures? Well, a few feet away, I'm going to discover one of them.George Washington was obsessed with making the Potomac, a river with waterfalls and rapids, navegable, so to be a crucial link connecting the Atlantic to the inland frontier. Soon after his presidency a project of massive proportion was begun: to carve a canal right along side the river, with scores of locks to raise and lower the canal boats... and in many places cutting right into the side of the mountain. The problem of running a canal along side a river? Well, there are thousands of streams running into the river! Solution? Build culverts and aqueducts so that the canal flows over those streams! And remember, this was all a hundred years befor modern machinery!John Adams, America's second president proudly said that this project would be compared to the pyramids of Egypt in its grandeur .So what was the problem?Well, one word: locomotive. Yep, the trains were coming and would render this project obsolete before it was finished. Turns out that transporting stuff by train is a lot more efficient than in canal boats going 4 miles an hour. The project of making it all the way across the Appalachian mountains was never achieved. Now the canal is in ruins, although the locks and aqueducts and tunnel are still visible reminders of the ambitions of the early Americans. Now there's a hiking/biking trail follow the entire length of the former canal.Incidentally, right here is the remains of the aqueduct that crosses Conococheague Creek, the stream that runs through Chambersburg, where this whole adventure started. Worthy of a video clip.Nearby I'm suddenly struck by an iconic image: a highway bridge crossing over a railway that it rendered obsolete... which in turn crosses the canal that it rendered obsolete. Sort of symbolic of this country. We launch out grand projects, trying to be faster, bigger, more efficient... invest a huge amount of effort and money into them... then abandon them when we come up with something faster and more efficient... This is what's both beautiful and ugly about America at the same time.