NYC or Bust

We rode out of Philadelphia well rested and excited to get back on the open road. Out of Philly our ride was intermixed with bike lanes, bike paths, tow paths, and rail trails. We joined a funeral procession for the first few miles, and we learned that funeral processionals don't have to stop for red lights. So we enjoyed the escort and mourned the loss with the long line of motorists.

We got into New Jersey in the mid-afternoon and rode a disjointed, ill maintained tow path out of NJ's capitol city, Trenton. We stuck with the trail, hoping it would improve as we approached the affluent city of Princeton, and our presupposition was entirely  correct. The tow path became a gorgeous dirt path that took us through woods and waterways.

 We made it to Princeton around 5pm. We cycled through what looked like freshmen orientation and gawked at the old brick and stone buildings of the old university. We found a a local espresso cafe, Small World Coffee. The baristas asked about our trip and heavy bicycles. When we asked them for any advise on camping in the area, they encouraged us to bike to the old Princeton Battlefield, a Revolutionary War site, which is now a state park. We thanked them for the tip. And when we went to pay for our lemonade and iced coffee, they sent us out, emploring us not to pay. We gave a good tip and thanked them for their kindness.

They were about to close up shop, so when we felt a thunderstorm a'brewin, we made our way further downtown to find some shelter. We didn't find it in time. After a  good drenchin' we eventually found some dinner at a local pub. One thing we learned in Princeton, is that things ain't cheap unless your baristas are footin the bill, and I don't imagine tuition to be much different.

Filled up, we cycled down the hill towards The Battlefield. It was misty as the sun set, making the field look a fitting, beautiful, somber place. We cycled down the path to the part where the field meets the woods, and where the slight hill and curvature of the field hid us from anyone's view.

The mist fooled me into thinking that we should sleep with our sleeping bags that night, something we have only needed to do once since Denver--it's been so hot. Bad call. We slept horribly, but in the laziness of sleep we didn't unzip the sleeping bags and rearrange our sleeping quarters. In an effort to get out of the field before the morning runners and rangers would find us, we were out by 6:30. We made our way back to the coffee house for breakfast. A  bagel, a bowl of granola, and two cups of coffee later, we were on the road--this time, headed for New York City.

We only had 45 miles to go to catch our ferry boat to Manhattan, but we didn't want to miss it. The north eastern tip of New Jersey is covered in a labyrinth of bicycle paths. We connected a few and cycled toward Sandy Hook , the large sand spit that juts out of  New Jersey and stares at Manhattan and Coney Island. On one of our road stints we were "pulled over" by a cop--he simply wanted to know how far we had come. 

It stormed midday, so we took cover at a nearby gas station. We sat on crates outside the quick mart, making peanut butter and jelly bagel sandwiches, huddled under the skimpy overhang. We quickly learned that the Indian woman running the show didn't like us there. We persevered and, instead, got to know the older Indian gas station attendant who, too, had to weather the storm outside. Turns out,  New Jersey is like Oregon, and you can not pump your own gas. So we stood in the rain with this man. He told us about the beauty of India, and we told him how we hope to bike there too. He came to America, he said, to be with his family here, but has been back to India a few times. He was kind.

The storm decided it wasn't finished and didn't want to be, so we decided it was time to get wet and keep on pedaling.

The chill of the rain felt refreshing, and the rest of the day's ride was on an old rail trail. With no worry of cars in the rain, we pressed on carelessly.  We splashed through so many puddle that when we approached a formidably large one  we hesitated for only a moment and charged right down the middle of the monster. Half way in we were submerged to our knees and the water nearly swallowed our  panniers. We hopped off our steads, laughing at the colossal puddle. We turned around and pushed our bikes out the way we came and found our way off the bike path. We got back on the path at the next block, and made our way to the ferry terminal--feet sloshing and squishing the whole time.

 We confirmed our ferry time and went on a mission to find the beach. The rain finally stopped and the sun came out just as we greeted the great Atlantic Ocean. We had looked forward to this moment for weeks, dreaming of it as we dripped sweat in Kansas. And due of the earlier rainstorm, we had the beach to ourselves. We set up a little beach side resort, ate a snack, listened to music, and swam in the waves.

We only had an hour, and we pushed our time at the beach to the very last moment, almost sabotaging ourselves into having to catch a later ferry. Despite our tardiness, we were far more prompt than the ferry boat captain, and we made it just fine.

 

 The boat ride was blissful, and full of excitement. I had never been to this world class city. So to pull up by boat, to float pass lady liberty, and to watch Manhattan get bigger and bigger in the foreground, made her seem entirely regal.

I had dreamed for many years or visiting this city; I didn't know I would see her by the view of my bicycle, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Philadelphia

This post revolves mostly around hosts. Brant has been a warm showers member for four years and we have hosted many cyclists. We've never had a bad experience, and we usually meet wonderful people who know how nice it is to get a warm shower and a bed while on the road, and who also have a common love for cycling and seeing the world at a slower pace. 

We had organized a warm showers host for our time in Philadelphia, which was dictated by how long it would take Bilenky Cycle Works to repair Brant's kickstand plate, something that has been broken since Kansas. Alexis, one of the hosts we contacted, wrote us back encouraging us to stay with her. Once in the city, we phoned her to see what her plans were for the day and when we could meet up at her house. A voicemail later, we realized we were staying with one disorganized, stressed out cookie.



We pedaled to her house, located in a slightly sketchy neighborhood. The house was in total disarray. She had warned us earlier that day that things were a bit of a mess, but we all were not ready for the actual thing. She had five cats, and the house was their domain, and no one else's. A cat house. The kitchen hadn't been cleaned for months, maybe more. We sat with Alexis for a few minutes, hearing about her travels, and her upcoming move to Maine for grad school. Minutes in, she declared that she wished she could get to know us, but really needed some alone time and left to find it in the streets. We were left key-less in the house; with nowhere to go without a key, we decided that the only thing to do was to clean the place. It was a selfish endeavor, really. We wanted to cook dinner, and in order to do that, we had to clean the kitchen. Two hours later, the floors were cream colored instead of beige, the counters were a vibrant yellow instead of brown, the floors were mopped, and the pile of dishes in the sink vanished. The random clod of dirt and grass in the middle of the living room was swept, and the house began to feel a little more homey.

We cooked up some burrito fixings in preparation for the homemade salsa Jason gave us earlier that morning.

Alexis came home in the middle of our meal and we told her to make herself a burrito and join us; she did. Her boyfriend Seth came home, and he did the same. 

We all were waiting for some comment, "Who cleaned the kitchen?" or "It looks nice in here," or anything. Nothing. Not a word. Which was very interesting because the kitchen makeover made a night and day sort of difference.

We ate our meal together, and you could see George, Brant, and I all thinking, "No way do they not notice?!"

That night, I couldn't sleep, trying to devise a way to get us out of this uncomfortable situation.  It wasn't that they were horrible, they weren't, we just felt in the way, a little unwelcome, and awkward. I sent late night emails on my phone to a few nice sounding warm showers hosts, explaining our situation with the bike etc. We woke the next morning with many positive responses.
Caitlin Martin, a host who had biked across the country last summer with her partner, Kevin, invited us to stay with them. They were even available in the morning to have us drop our stuff off, so that Brant could pedal a bag-less bike to Bilenky and take public transit back to downtown.

The ride to Bilenky Cycle Works was a cultural experience. I have read books that talk about the poverty of Philadelphia, but biking through the miles of abandoned buildings and dilapidated housing that comprises most of the neighborhoods just outside of downtown Philly, we were able to feel the sprawl of poverty that I have only felt traveling outside of the United States. Philadelphia bares the mark of old industry. Huge industrial complexes with broken windows no longer hum the sound of employment and industry, and instead there's a tangible sorrow. Along our ride, however, we saw the marks of communities reclaiming and taking ownership over their streets--murals adorn many abandoned buildings, telling cultural stories, and many vacant lots are verdant community gardens. These were happy sights.

After the four long miles wiggling through the parts of Philadelphia that affluent white kids usually don't venture through, we arrived to the Bilenky Cycle Works hideaway. This famed bike fabricator lies in the back corner of a dead end street in a thriving industrial neighborhood in North Philly, a part of Philly that resembles a bustling Lima, Peru. It's grundgey, yet colorful, and full of handymen, smog shops, automobile repair shops, tire shops, and working junk yards, among other necessary industries.

Bilenky said they could repair Brant's frame and have it back to him in two days. So we spent a few hours sitting outside the shop; Brant disassembled his bike for repair while George and I mooched off the shop's wifi.   Afterwards, we hopped on a metro train and headed back into Center City to find some food. George's high school friend Gonzalo recommended that we venture in to the Reading Terminal Market.

We stepped off the train downtown with two bicycles and three people. We thought that there was a Philadelphia bike share program, but turns out all of the "stations" we found online on a Philly bike share map were only "proposed" stations. At first we walked our bikes, so as to stay together, but that got annoying, so with a little thought and lots of silliness we devised our own "bike share" program, and Brant hopped on my little bicycle and I surfed the rear rack! It took only a bit of balance. We laughed riding about the city; and we made many cars and pedestrians giggle.

We ate at the bustling Reading Terminal Market which was full of food vendors selling everything from falafel to thai curry to milk shakes to Philly style cheese steaks. I ate curry and the boys got in line at what seemed to be the most popular spot and ate pulled pork sandwiches with excellent provolone cheese. Afterwards we were guided to the Fourth Street Cookie Stand and we all shared two perfect chocolate chip, walnut cookies. 

After nourishing ourselves back to appropriate blood sugar levels, we hopped back on the two bikes and rode to the LOVE statue and to the train station where George would leave from the following day. We secured a bike box for George and confirmed that he could take it on the bus.


George dropped off his stuff with his friend Gonzalo, who was very busy with school, but we visited for awhile before Gonzalo had to go back to class. We ventured back over the river near the art museum and picked up some dinner fixings at the most diverse Whole Foods Market I've ever seen. In California, and most anywhere, this grocery store is colloquially referred to as "Whole Paycheck" and is often disdained for being a  haven for uptight yuppies. However, when you have just pedaled through Kansas and other food deserts, finding non-GMO produce and some organic oats becomes sort of novel and exciting, so Whole Foods has become less of a monster, mostly to Brant. I don't often shop at Whole Foods back at home because we have a fantastic little co-op and great farmers markets, but I have never disliked Whole Foods, and maybe that's because I am a food snob. Nevertheless, this Whole Foods was a different kind, it was always packed, always busy, and full of shoppers from a variety of ages and socio-economic backgrounds. Everybody was getting good food in the city.

We stocked up on taco stuff and went back to Kevin and Caitlin's to cook dinner and to get know our hosts.

Caitlin brought back some Philly microbrew for us to try; we cooked; hung out on their great balcony, talked, and ate a good feast. Caitlin and Kevin gave us details and stories of their cross country trip and it didn't take long for us to realize that we were going to be good friends. Caitlin reminded me of my close circle of lady friends at home, adventurous, intelligent women who get stuff done. She works part time at a local architecture firm and for the City of Philadelphia Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy promoting public art. Awesome. And Kevin works for an inner-city Head Start charter pre-school that incorporates garden curriculum. They both have long days at work, but exude a passion for what they do.

George wished he could stay longer, loving the company as much as we did. Brant showed him how to pack his bike in a box and loaned him some tools to do so. So we hugged and said our sad goodbyes to our last official travel companion.

The next day, Brant and I took it easy, writing emails, finishing up blog posts, and hanging out with my new favorite kitty, Meowchi. We took a walk around Kevin and Caitlin's beautiful old neighborhood, made preparations for dinner, walked to the market, and had a generally relaxing day. We ate an awesome dinner with our hosts and stayed up late talking.

The next day, Brant contacted Bilenky to find that the bike repair was finished. So we mosied to the train station and made our way to the shop. Brant spent another few hours putting his bike back together, getting to know the "coupler" guy and Isis. Isis made us feel right at home in the shop, and Brant kept saying how Garret would have a huge crush on this woman who made a living crafting beauitful steel lugs.

We biked home through the same neighborhoods and made plans to go see the new Wes Anderson film, "Moonrise Kingdom," at the local indie movie theatre. We made it to the movie just in time, and enjoyed being on a date in Philadelphia. The theatre was near the oldest neighborhood in Philadelphia, Elfreth's Alley. Benjamin Franklin could have walked out of one of the row houses that lined this cobble stoned street. It was great.

We spent our last evening with Caitlin and Kevin, and we prepared our bikes to leave the following morning. We enjoyed our hosts so much and were so thankful to have had a space to stay while Brant's bike was in the shop,  to have found good friends along the way was an unexpected bonus. I think we'll keep in touch with Kevin and Caitlin for many years to come. 

We made a bagel and egg breakfast with Caitlin, said our goodbyes to Meowchi, and headed  north out of the city towards Princeton, New Jersey.

It marked the beginning of Brant and I's new chapter of riding--just the two of us.

A new chapter: DC to Philly

With the country crossed, our group began to prepare for Reid's departure.  We hosed off our bikes and bags, reapplied lube to our chains and Reid began to tear apart his panniers throwing away accumulated trash, returning mine and Lauren's belongings and generally getting them "plane ready."  The morning after our arrival we called around for a bike box and collected it in our first car ride in about a month. As we had done with Dave and Hannah before, we deconstructed Reid's bicycle to be boxed for flight, continuing the attrition of our cross country crew.

That evening we went out for tapas at a downtown DC restaurant called Oyamel.  Here we met up with two of Reid's work friends and Lauren's good friend Michelle.  The table was quickly filled with made to order guacamole and chips, margaritas, and individually served tacos, including ones filled with fried grasshoppers.  Everyone departed, Reid's friends returning to George's mother's house to whisk Reid and his belongings to the airport.  Good byes were short, and then suddenly Reid had disappeared in a large silver SUV.

For Reid and I, it had been a 6 and 1/2 week journey, starting in the deserts of Nevada, where we once went 170 miles without seeing a town, to the DC metro area.  The contrast of this country is drastic: from the climate to the people to the terrain.  It is an adventure that we will always share and never forget.  Reid--good luck in you Masters in Public Health at Davis, it has been great riding with you, we miss you all the time.

Through all of the heartache of loosing a third rider, Lauren and I would gain another, our good friend George.  This would be his first bike ride over thirty miles, for which he was very excited.  The days following were spent acquiring the necessary gear and food, and preparing George's bike for the Journey to Philadelphia.

In between preparations, Lauren and George took me climbing for the first time down by the Potomac, Great Falls. We made many beautiful meals with George's extremely hospitable and loving mom, Susan.

And we enjoyed the free Smithsonian museums.

The morning that we left, we navigated our way down to the Potomac River to connect with the Capital Crescent bike trail, yet another rail trail.  Riding alongside rush hour traffic, we got routed onto a bridge that put us on a one way street packed with cars and no exits or shoulders.  Our mood became frantic as we passed under the trestle that safely carried cyclists over the expressway to the path along the water.  We took the nearest available side road exit straight up the valley embankment to find the path that we were longing for.

The path wound us slowly north on pavement and gravel some 30 miles north of the city.  From our experience, bike paths are the best entrances and exits to cities, helping you avoid the chaotic surface streets packed with urgent honking commuters trapped in their steel boxes.

After our lunch, we navigated the many, now country, roads to the only official camping that we could find just to the east of Baltimore.  After traveling about 60 miles we were bothered to find that the road to the campground from its entrance was through a deep gully, which meant we had to ride down and up both in and out of camp.  The campground had nice flat tent spots, clean bathrooms and showers, both of which were welcomed.  Our only concern was the noticeably fearless and trained squirrels forcing us to hang our food out of paws reach.

No separated trails were scheduled for our next day of riding, so again we were relegated to the beautiful, but undulating country roads all the way to Philadelphia.  Then suddenly and unexpectedly we encountered yet another rail trail, this one heading due north 40 miles to York, PA.  We made it to  the border town of New Freedom, PA by dusk, and called the local authorities for a place to camp.  They told us that there wasn't a place to camp, but there was a campground just down the way.  Laughing at the incongruity of the statement, we decide to get a beer at the local bar before heading for bed.

When we arrived at the aforementioned campground we soon discovered that it wasn't a campground at all, but a Christian camp and retreat center.  A young man on a bike approached us, as we entered and tried to help us out by calling the higher ups, whom didn't answer.  He pointed at where people normally set up tents and camp. Unable to provide us with a certain answer, Lauren eventually convinced him that it was okay.  Tents popped up and we showered in their surprisingly dirty facilities before the man from earlier came by to inform us that we had been officially welcomed and that no compensation was necessary.

We continued to follow the trail out of New Freedom, to York. Once in York, we stopped for some chai and made PB&J outside of a great open market in an old warehouse. We avoided a rainstorm in a gas station, and then made our way towards Lancaster.

That evening, while trying to reach the private campground outside of Lancaster, we stopped to buy a single beer.  Pennsylvania has some interesting alcohol laws, which include no booze in supermarkets or convenience stores, no beer in wine and liquor stores, and only 24 or more packs available at beer stores.  This was obviously too much for us to carry.

As we pulled back onto the street, a man leaned out of his open car window and shouted "AMERICA!" presumably seeing Lauren's waving American flag.  He stopped us and asked where we had come from and where we were going and then offered that we camp on his open lot for free.  We were obliged and followed him a half mile or so down the road to his creekside lot.  He said that we could burn all the firewood we wanted, told us to bath in the creek and then promised that he would return that evening with some beer to share.

So, for the first time the entire trip, we built a fire.  Well...George built a fire with a lot of lighter fluid and a great flash.  We ate and basked in the fire to our sedation, when our campground host returned on an ATV of sorts with his son, two dogs, and a cooler full of beer.  Chatter and drinking continued for awhile before they re-mounted their engined steed and pulled off into the night.  The fire began to flicker and we all headed for bed.

The next morning, we fueled up on good ole fashioned oatmeal, and then made our way through  the Amish town of Intercourse towards Phoenixville, PA, and the trail head of the rail trail that would take us to Philadelphia the following day.

We went through what we would call, "Amish Land." And it was awesome. The buggy lane is the biggest and best bike lane, EVER. We stopped and fueled up at a lemonade stand, run by some young Amish entrepreneurs with bowl cuts, and they cut us deep at $3 a glass.

We wound our way up and down hills and through incredible countryside full of old colonial homes and red barns. Our day was coming to a close when we pulled into the quaint and tiny town of Kimberton.  I ran into the little post office to see if it was still open on Saturday so that we could stamp and mail some of the postcards we had written. It wasn't open, but a postman taking away the afternoon post saw us, gave us free stamps, and whisked our little notes away. Right then, we should have known that the evening was full of magic and good fortune.

We thought we'd go out to eat somewhere in Phoenixville,  and then find some place to sleep for the night near the trail head to Philadelphia at the Valley Forge National Park. We rolled down the hill \ from the post office, and before we got two blocks, there out of the woods popped a beautiful natural foods market. Oh man. So we stopped to see if they had our favorite instant bean mix, they didn't, but they had many other delectable snacks. Lauren and I finished shopping and walked outside to find George talking to a young couple.

The pair was extremely interested in our bicycles, and expressed a huge interest in bicycle touring. After we all introduced ourselves, and became acquainted with Jason and Caitlin, we asked if they know of anywhere in the area that would be good for camping. There response was, "Well...our house!"

So we took them up on the lovely offer, and they gave us there address and we navigated our way back to their house in downtown Pheonixville. We arrived at their house, and Caitlin insisted that we sleep inside in the guest bedroom, she offered us towels, a shower, and a tour of their fantastic little place. They bought it a few years earlier, had redone the wood floors, and created such a welcoming, cute home.

Caitlin works for the local Waldorf school and Jason works for the local farm across the street. Their kitchen was piled high in plump multicolored tomatoes, the walls hung with garlic, it was lovely.

We cleaned up, and walked with our new friends, downtown to their favorite restaurant, The Iron Hill Brewery. So we shared gourmet pizza and salads, and sipped beautiful beer. On the way home, Caitlin guided us to local ice cream, and then we all huddled into the attic T.V. room with the biggest couch ever, and watched the Olympics.

After a good nights rest, and only 30 miles to ride to Philly, we took the morning slow. We made pancakes from scratch, and Jason created mouthwatering salsa from his farm veges for fried eggs. We sipped coffee and talked, and it was perfect.

We suited up and set out for Philadelphia, thanking Jason and Caitlin profusely for their kindness.

The  Schuylkill river path guided us for thirty miles from suburbia to downtown Philadelphia. We ate lunch next to the great steps of the Art Museum, adjacent to the Rocky statue. Chewing peanut butter and jelly, we watched tourists wait in line to flex their muscles  with Rocky for a camera. George soaked in the fact that he had just finished his first bike tour.

C&O Canal tow path to the Capital!

Once we had restocked in Cumberland at the Farmers market and the largest grocery store that we had been to to date, we waved goodbye to the Great Allegany Passage and said hello to the C&O Canal tow path.  We had received several warnings about the tow path.  One from an injured vet named John while camping in Terra Haute about the snakes and hobos, one in West Virginia from Harry about the unkempt trail surface and heavily iodine flavored water, and another earlier that day from a relatively ill equipped bike traveler (whom we dubbed Tony the Tither) about how terrible and pot holey it was.  After a quick perusal of the map, we discovered that the trail had free camping about every 10 miles and we set on our way.

The entrance was grand, passing by an old canal barge on a long sweeping bike and pedestrian bridge.  This infrastructure quickly gave way to an unrelentingly muddy and root traversed path.  Within minutes our bikes were entirely covered in a fine clayey mud.
 

The contrast between the two connecting paths, the C&O being a national park, could not have been anymore distinct.  We now spent much of our energy, saved from hills and dealing with traffic, pushing through mud, dodging rocks and roots.  As the miles slowly wore on and the fun of riding in the mud wore off, we began to question if riding the trail was actually any better than riding on the highways. Several hours later, after taking a beating on the trail, Lauren getting a flat tire, and drinking the hand pumped iodine-laden water  (which we decided tasted and looked of blood), we left the trail for a six mile bit of paved respite.  Within 1 minute of being on the narrow highway in full sun, something that we hadn't experienced in days, we began sweating profusely out of every pore in our bodies.  We ground up the steep hills with high speed traffic passing just a foot to our left, causing us all to simultaneously and independently decide that the trail had to be better than this.

When we crossed over our beautiful muddy passage again we made a slight detour to "Wild and Wonderful" West Virginia for some good old fashioned convenience store ice water and air conditioning.  We ended up staying until we actually became too cold to be comfortable and we continued on.

The first obstacle upon returning to the trail was the Paw Paw tunnel, a 3,118 foot long tunnel.  Unlike the well lit, wide path of the GAP's Big Savage tTunnel that we encountered the day before, though of similar length, the Paw Paw tunnel has only a small bumpy path adjacent to the canal, with absolutely no light.  We were grateful for our powerful generator lights that guided us past the many dips and bumps in the path.

We still had many miles to go, and the going was slow. We arrived to our intended campground around nightfall with an impending thunderstorm on the horizon. Two men had already set up camp at this free camp spot and we immediately introduced ourselves and began setting up our tents and weatherproofing our lives.

Within the first minute of conversation with Shane and Thomas, Lauren confessed to feeling entirely uncomfortable with camping here. It was one of those moments where you feel entirely trapped in a situation--it's getting dark, it's about to thunder and lightning all around us, we're hungry, and the next possible camp option is ten miles up the trail. So stay we did, and it was INTERESTING, to say the least.

Where to begin with this story has been hanging over us for almost two weeks now, so here it goes:

Shane--his tent is a lean to, he rides a crappy recumbent with a BOB trailer on the muddiest trail full of potholes.

Thomas--his tent is holey and from Walmart, he doesn't ride the childs bike that his stuff is ducktaped to, he pushes it.

Both met eachother hours earlier and now are in the middle of sharing two fifths of cheap rum.

They were obsessed with our avocados (later, in the middle of the night, they ate them after stabbing open a can of beans).

It begins pouring. Lauren won't come out of the tent, not even to pee. Mud everywhere. Shane and Thomas ranting about white supremacy.  Lauren wanting to barf at their conversation. Drunken Yelling. Animal noises all night. Thomas screaming about wanting to spill someones guts. Thomas knifing himself out of his tent. Knocking on ours (this actually was reasurring that he wasn't going to knife into our tent).

Reid and I thinking about how we would defend ourselves and Lauren. Reid's only weapon being his bike pump, which he held to his chest while wearing his helmet to bed (his only flashlight straps to his helmet). This is my favorite image of the whole night: Reid, lying on his sleeping mat, holding a bicycle pump, wearing his helmet...not funny at two in the morning, but priceless at 2pm the next day when all is well.

It was a horrible, sleepless evening. We will never put ourselves in such an uncomfortable situation again, even if it is thunderstorming.

So, that was our first night spent on the C&O. The next morning, Thomas had finally come back from his schizophrenic drunken state, and was back to being a bum with some mental troubles. He stood over his mangled tent with broken poles wondering what had happened, and all we could do was shake our heads thinking, "NO WAY does this guy not no that he sawed himself out of his tent?"

He asked Reid, "Did it rain?"

Did it rain? It POURED ALL NIGHT. 

At this point, we realized how far gone he must have been the night before, having no memory of his rage and violent behavior.

We booked it out of that campground for the sanity of civilization, and someone else to cook us breakfast. Sitting around a local Rockport diner, we processed our sleepless night, laughing, but confessing how scared we all were.

The days ride began much later due to the previous night's activities, but it was a great ride and fabulous day. We jumped off rocks into the Potomac, we went on a fabulous detour through Maryland countryside cutting 7 miles out of our route, and that evening, we camped with some sane bike tourists.

We woke the next morning giddy with the overwhelming sensation of an approaching finish line. With only 62 miles to Washington D.C., the whole  day felt surreal. We ate oatmeal and rode fast, not because we had to hurry, but because we had energy. It felt great.

With every mile closer to D.C. the trail became more populated. We stopped at the Great Falls on the Potomac with only 14 miles to go. For being so close to a giant metropolitan area, this natural wonder of rock gorges and waterfalls entirely impressed us.

And fourteen miles later, the trail popped us out into Georgetown, D.C. along the waterfront. It's a shocking way to enter a city--279 miles of trail, no cars, no city noise, and then BOOM, there you are, next to the Lincoln Memorial.

We played in the water feature on the waterfront, sipped smoothies, and made PB&J sandwiches on the lawn. After lounging for a couple hours, soaking in our accomplishment, we rode over to the memorials and took ceremonious photographs next to the monuments that represent the country we just pedaled across.

We stayed amidst the crowds till 8, before catching the metro to Lauren's dear old friend George's house (it's actually his lovely mom's house, Susan) in McLean, VA. We made dinner all together, relished in the air conditioning, and found rest.