Park Quest: My personal grail
"What is your quest?"
"I seek the grail."
It's a famous bit of dialog from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
This will be the next-to-last day of my own quest, the one I've been calling Park Quest 24/7. At this point, I seek to finish. Alive.
Today, I'll have to complete four parks to stay on pace, starting with Patapsco Valley State Park.
That I've managed to visit 17 of the 24 sites on the Maryland Park Service's annual Park Quest challenge amazes me. That I have done it in five consecutive days during the worst heat wave in years is beyond my comprehension.
My Park Quest passport is limp and dog eared. My brain is welded to the brain pan. My body is tired of sleeping on terra firma, emphasis on firma.
I am, after all, 56 years old.
"We're about the same age and I can't imagine doing it in this heat," said Steve Lopez, interpreter at South Mountain Battlefield on Day Two. "Good for you."
Time to pack up, have coffee and hope for my second, or third wind.
Talk to you soon.
