C&O

This past Friday was a very special day. Some other ProRangers and myself were able to meet some very important National Park employees, including John Jarvis. There is an entire post by Sarah Rutter that discusses the details of this wonderful day.

I had a few hours of work remaining after this meeting and Clawson and I patroled the C&O Canal by bike. We were on the lookout for the usual problems that occur along the canal. We were on the lookout for civilians fishing without the proper license, civilians with dogs off leash, and with it being a Friday afternoon, people with alcohol and/or narcotics. For some reason, the C&O Canal was a bit lifeless that day. There were just hardly any visitors along the canal, so Clawson and I had a relatively easy afternoon.

On Saturday, I was stationed at Lock 34, located near Harpers Ferry National Park. Lock 34 is a destination where different tubing companies drop off tubers to float down the Potomac. Since these companies are using both the C&O Canal and Harpers Ferry to make a profit, the National Park service charges these companies a small fee for every tuber that comes through. This is a big problem area when it comes to alcohol. A person is legally allowed to have and consume alcohol in the Potomac River, however, a person is not allowed to be consuming alcohol on either side of the Potomac due to that land being National Park property. Our job was to properly inform the tubing civilians of these laws while also being on the lookout for civilians consuming alcohol. If we would of found anyone doing such a thing, we would of fined that person a ticket of $75 and made that individual dump all of their alcohol. On that day we found no one breaking any laws, only civilians enjoying the hot day by floating down the Potomac on a tube.