Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Day 2. Sunday, Sept. 26th Washington DC to Brunswick, MD. 59 miles.

This day, we’ll ride on the C&O Canal Towpath following the Potomac River to the town of Brunswick.  On the way, we’ll pass the Great Falls National Park (http://www.nps.gov/grfa/).  Later we’ll ride by White’s Ferry, the only working ferry on the canal and shortly pass over the Monocacy Aqueduct, one of the most impressive structures on the entire trip.
A few words here about the C&O Canal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chesapeake_and_Ohio_Canal)
The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, abbreviated as the C&O Canal, and occasionally referred to as the "Grand Old Ditch," operated from 1831 until 1924 parallel to the Potomac River in Maryland from Cumberland, Maryland to Washington, D.C. The total length of the canal is about 184.5 miles (300 km). The elevation change, start to finish, of 605 ft (185 m) was accommodated with 74 canal locks. To enable the canal to cross relatively small streams, over 150 culverts were built. The crossing of major streams required the construction of 11 aqueducts (10 of which remain). The canal also extends through the 3118 ft (950 m) Paw Paw Tunnel. The principal cargo was coal from the Allegheny Mountains. The canal way is now maintained as a park, with a linear trail following the old towpath, the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park.


All I need is my rain gear and I'm ready
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Unloading our gear at the start



Our day started out with a drip.  As in rain. Swell!  We gathered out behind the hotel, getting our bikes set up, and our rain gear on and like ducks behind their mother – in this case, father – we set off on our first day of riding. Riding behind Arlington National Cemetery, as a group we crossed the Potomac River along the Capital Bike trail for a couple miles until we came to the Lincoln Memorial, where we all got off the bikes for a group picture.  The guy in the far lower left with the white hat on is me.  Wow, does this rain gear on over bike clothes make me look heavy, or is it just me…
And then, pointed generally northwest, we came to the C&O Canal Towpath trail and were off on our own to our first stop, about 56 miles away.  A word about me.  In sports, I am generally a loner.  Team sports were always fun, but tennis, running, biking were more so.  Because I got to do it my way. No committees to decide details. No meetings, no consensus.  Just me.  So a bike ride with a group is ok, but more generally alone is more so.  When we got to the Canal and could take off on our own, I was my happiest.  Of course, 44 riders of yet undetermined skill was still a group, but soon that would sort itself out and we would all be off on our own pace, needing only to reach our destination in time for dinner at 6:00.
The good news is that for the better part of 59 miles, the beautiful and wide Potomac River was just on our left sides and the canal, lock by lock, (30 that day) was just on our right.  Some of these sections of canal were full of water, and some not.  Today, trees line the edge of the towpath where at one time, none existed to obstruct the mules as they pulled each of the canal barges up and down the canal.  The towpath today is stunningly beautiful, most of the time a shaded pathway under a canopy of trees which offer shade from the hot summer sun, or in our case, some shelter from the light rain that fell that first morning.  The pathway itself is a combination of crushed rock and dirt, compacted by the numbers of riders, baked by the sun and hardened by the rainfall that dries the dirt pavement hard.
Along the way, each day, the staff set up rest stops to provide us with water, energy bars, fruit, crackers and candy.  It was a relief to see those guys and the rest stop offered us all an opportunity to get off the bike for a minute, replenish our water supplies and grab an energy source.
And so it went, the river on one side, the canal on the other, under a shaded bikeway, the surface made of almost smooth crushed rock and dirt.  There was always something beautiful or historical to see and the miles, as they flew by mile after mile, added up to that magic number of 59 when we each, in our own time rode into The Brunswick Family Campground (http://www.brunswickmd.gov/campground.htm)  for our first night on the trail.
A word here about our nightly routine.  It was almost always identical so I won’t mention it again except when it changed a couple of times.  We’d ride into the campground and park our bikes over by the location picked where they would be under cover for the night and where, if they needed repairs, they got them.  We’d pick up our gear, many of us would grab a beer out of the cooler, and we’d make our way to a campsite we’d pick out, put up our tent and head off for the shower.  Oh, those showers.  Never enough hot water and never enough water pressure, but God Bless what we had, for at the end of a 45-50+ mile bike day, it was heaven.  Slowly then, folks would make their way back to the area where dinner was to be served.  All meals were better than good, with a varied menu and plenty of it.  Never left the table hungry or grousing about the quality of the food. 
We’d then usually have a speaker who would talk about that day’s ride, or tomorrow’s, the historical significance of the area where we rode, the current state of the National Park or the condition of the trail.  Larry would either begin or end the evening meeting with housekeeping information, just the do’s and don’ts of trail etiquette, information from past rides or things to look out for.  A few diehards would stay up past 9:00 but by 9:30 or 10:00, everyone was sound asleep.  And so went day 2.

I'm the guy on the lower left in yellow.
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The Potomac, upriver from DC about 20 miles


This was our trail. Everyday. Beautiful.

Our campsite, Brunswick,MD. The Pavillion with tents surrounding.
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