Second Battle of Manassas

Had I known how this day was going to go, I would have stayed in bed.  *sigh*  Yes, it was pretty bad.  I will have to say, if it wasn't for a hiking trail ap on my phone, we might still be wandering aimlessly in the woods.  This trail IS.NOT.MARKED.WELL.AT.ALL!!!  You would think I would have heeded all the warnings I read online, but NO!

We arrived shortly after the park opened.  After speaking with the ranger, we feel confident!  I mean, he said the trail is marked with clue blazes.  Um...yeah right!

The trail starts across the street.  So, we crossed a busy road to get there and then walk about 1 mile or at least it seemed that way, to get to the trail head.  It had such a promising start, too!  We were following the "Tour" signs which ended at a parking lot.  And there's no blazes...GREAT!

We look right.  There's a sign, but not a trail one.  We look left and there's what appears to be a trail and a sign.  Go left?  Of course the sign is pointed the wrong way and if you follow the arrows, you're heading down a grassy hill to some monuments and not on the path.  I open my trusty ap to make sure we're going the right way.  So, we trek on...to the left.

Now, on the way to the parking lot, we passed a couple.  Remember this for later...So we're trekking and come to a fork.  Now, the sign says it's a horse trail.  There are NO blazes to be seen.  This trail is marked orange.  So, we continue on.  Well, we should have tuned there.  The couple that were ahead of us on the trail are passing us going the opposite direction.  This prompts me to check our progress on my ap.  Yeah...we're not making any.  *sigh*  Back where the horse trail was marked?  Yeah, we should have turned.

And, not only are we off the trail, but my feet decided to start acting up. GREAT! *sigh* Adjusting of the insoles round one. And I seriously don't get it, as we haven't been walking all that long. So, I fix my insoles and we adjust our path to actually be ON the trail. Now I'm beginning to to understand why so many people were complaining about the blazes or lack there of.

We walk and we stop.  We walk and we stop.  We walk and well you get the picture.  By this time, I'm getting really pissed off as this was SUPPOSED to be a walk in the park compared to what we have been doing.  *sigh*  My feet suck.

At one point, there's a new loop off shoot of the main trail.  it takes you through some very strange landscapes.  There's these large piles of wood.  It's as if a tree died and just slowly deteriorated where it stood.  These huge circles of wood were everywhere.  It was truly alien.  I couldn't figure out what would have caused it.

It almost was an out and back loop.  You jut off and then almost do a u-turn and come back but just in a a different trail.  Meh.  It added a mile.  You come out to a monument of some description.  (Pictured here).  As you can tell, I'm not really a history buff...  I didn't read what it was for.  I was trying to figure out where the trail goes.  There's a parking lot in one direction and what LOOKS like train in another direction.  After some surveying of the land, we headed away from the parking lot towards the woods.  Apparently, this was the correct way.

This was called the rock skirmish or something like that.  Apparently, they ran out of ammo and threw rocks.  LOL  This part is a nice stroll in the woods...if my feet weren't killing me.  *sigh*  We  came out of the woods near another parking lot.  NOW which way do we go?  There's what appears to be three trails from here.  We chose the center one.  I opened by ap to make sure.  YUP!

This part of the trail is part of the bridle trail. It follows along farm land or what looked like it was farm land. This trail dumps you out at the highway. We crossed and started walking, but wait! This doesn't make sense. This is a private residence... Back track again.  We were supposed to turn right and cross the OTHER highway.  Still no blazes to tell us UNTIL we crossed the busy road.

We pass some horses, cross a creek, stop several times for my feet and come to the Stone House. It's the trademark of the park. Cross the highway again. By this time, not only my feet hurt, but now my knees and hip are sore as shit. I can see the visitor's center, but holy crap it's so far away! I SO want this hike to be DONE! It was supposed to be easy! WTF??

We climb a hill and I keep over and lay in the grass for a while.  Everything hurts...EVERYTHING!  I feel like the visitor's center is miles away and I'll never make it.  But, I trudge on...as always.

I hurt.  I'm tired.  I'm hungry, thirsty, sweaty, but FINALLY made it to the car.  What should have been an easy trek killed me!  Is it every going to get better?