During June 12 to 14, 2024, we took the Moving House on a short visit to the vicinity of Harpers Ferry to check out the equipment before our planned, month-long excursion in July. We camped at a commercial facility called Brunswick Family Campground on the Potomac River, a little downstream from Harpers Ferry. Happily, we did not have any maintenance problems.

The Potomac is quite shallow at this location. There were a number of children playing in the water. They were able to wade halfway across the river.

We visited Harpers Ferry during our second day, mostly seeing nature and ruins. While crossing the Potomac on the footbridge, we watched some boys fishing and saw large fish feeding on the bottom away from where the boys fished. We walked a short distance along the Appalachian Trail on the Maryland side. We inspected the ruins of a cotton mill on Virginius Island. We ate lunch at the Coffee Mill on Potomac Street.

A National Park Service sign says that “Potomac” comes from the Native American name “river of swans”. We did not see any swans. We did see a lot of geese, but also some Common Mergansers. Other birds included an Indigo buning, an American Goldfinch, Common Grackles, Great Blue Herons, and Northern Rough-winged Swallows.

A major railroad route runs about 100 yards away from the campground, and runs and runs. Trains are frequent, day and night, but they did not bother our sleep.