Living in Baltimore, there is ample opportunity to walk along the Inner Harbor and admire the boats, cabana bars, and decrepit scenes from The Wire. But this was a gorgeous day, one that favored mini-exploration, and so we decided to abandon the street-walking for hiking, if you could call it that. The place, as I had briefly researched beforehand, was relatively flat with minimal forestation and some attempt at trails. Enough information to convince me that I could leave my steel toe hiking boots at home and simply turn to the all-purpose Sauconys for my leisurely outdoor endeavors.
We arrived at North Point State Park, paid most of the requested $3 parking donation, then rolled on down to the shoreline where we were welcomed with a deadbolted bathroom. Fortunately, some nice rangers in the closed visitor’s center let us in. They actually didn’t have to move an inch since we just opened the back door, saw them sitting there, and politely asked. They nodded and smiled as if glad someone finally traversed the min-obstacle whose primary purpose was simply to get somebody to stop in and say “hi” to the lonely outfit.
We left the renovated visitor’s center, which was actually huge and gorgeous, not unlike most of the sights you see immediately after hearing “Move that bus!”. But thankfully, no Ty was present to ruin the peace or jerk any tears. Instead, the center is lightly surrounded by oaks and pines, with some well-cleared, some paved, paths leading to an earthen/concrete-chunk pier. In between, little facts are presented on small plagues, revealing how the area used to house an amusement park, back in the 50’s. There was even a train that formerly ran along the banks, for local commuters, and a renovated station now housed about a hundred picnic tables. Enough for the Duggar Family, I suppose.
We made our way along the pier, nodding to friendly passer-bys and their dogs, questioned then confirmed that we really could see the Bay Bridge off in the distance, then returned to mainland for more hiking. The trails were not clearly or consistently marked, like most state park expeditions, and any available maps were either posted on a bulletin board or online only. But they weren’t much help, anyway, since the trails looked to have been drawn by a 3rd grader in the 1920’s. (Note to aspiring Cub Scouts, pseudo design engineers, or wannabe cartographers: an excellent volunteer project would be remapping a state park (including trails), basically picking up where Google lets off).
So naturally, with the lack of a good map and any prior experience, we found ourselves trekking a long a dirt path, which eventually turned to discarded bricks and stones along the shore, remnants of the area’s historic past. The gray brick coastline did not look as welcoming as a neat and yellow alternative, so we cut back into some brush to see if perhaps we missed a turn-off somewhere. We scavenged for not more than 3 minutes before deciding that no, there was no apparent continuation of the trail we were just on, so best to turn back and start down another path. But in that 3 minutes, something strange happened.
Out of nowhere, I began to feel a stubborn stone in the middle of my shoe. The kind where you shake your foot around and get it out of the pressure point areas, at least until you can wiggle it out through the sides. It was a big, annoying sucker, and not really shifting around in my shoe. I continued to take a few steps through the brush, but it wouldn’t go away. I wondered “How did something so annoyingly large just magically work its way between my foot and insole in an instant?”. I don’t regularly trek around on coastal properties but I have worn these dependable brand of sneakers for over 2 years (yes, I can’t believe that long), without a similar sensation from streets, beaches, or even Celtic cobblestone. All I could see was some small brush and branches scattered around the uneven ground but nothing capable of teleporting to the middle of my insole.
Then I picked my foot up, inspected the underside, and found that what was inside my shoe was not the whole story.
Part of an old crab leg, the bulk of which I could see framing a structurally perfect tripod, was firmly locked into the rubber undersides of my Sauconys by a piercing jagged extension. The force and effectiveness of which continued footsteps did not dislodge or even damage it. The stubborn and unbreakable bone wouldn’t even budge as I first attempted to yank it out. Only after some determined application of muscle and ultimately failure, again as it was, of my worn-out rubber treads was I able to extract the hiking hazard. A perfect specimen of a crab leg with the jagged arm conveniently poised to penetrate any swift and downward impediment. Like an all-purpose sneaker. One hell of a pebble, I thought.
Eventually I parted ways the natural ornament but out of admiration for this miracle (they don’t all have to be beams of light from the sky, do they?), I decided to secure the claw for the remainder of the day safely in my coat pocket, pausing on occasion to wonder how the hell everything transpired the way it did. Was it just a strange case of axial alignment and the underwhelming superiority of a small, highly-adapted species? Or was it something larger? The stars aligning, perhaps, with a sunny weekend day in January, lack of trail markings, and an average choice in exploration footwear all combining to make this event possible?
Based on my girlfriend’s lesser degree of fascination for the whole event, and complete displeasure with viewing the claw, I concluded that it was best to just lump the day’s surprise into the “shit happens” category. I wanted to hold onto the claw forever, like a prized trophy, but who bends down and scoops up a pile of shit they just stepped into for posterity? Nope, incidentally stepping onto a crab claw is not that far off from plowing through a pile of shit, so best just to chalk it up to a bad case of “crabby alignment” and move forward with a greater purpose.
But still, it was one hell of a claw and might have made for a great story…
