First thing in the morning I started working on recreating the emails that had been lost on the Palm. It was a cool process going through and trying to remember what happened on each day but I.d rather not have had to do it.
We grabbed some breakfast at restaurant around the corner and then got the bikes out. I.d asked my dad to bring his camera so we could get a couple of good pictures of us with the bikes in front of some monuments.
Zipping around D.C. on an empty bike was a real blast
Up early, pushed our bikes back out of the rocks and found the detour signs we'd missed the night before.
Rode out the trail and into DC where we rode around some of the monuments and got a couple of pictures.
Found my dad's hotel and met up with him during a break in one of his conferences.
Got stuff to box up the bikes and take them apart
Went to dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant then walked around Georgetown.
Up early trying to get into DC that night.
Lost my Palm some place between mile 83 and 77 on the trail, we spent 3 hours looking for it.
Met the webmaster of the bike patrol
Fog in the morning, looking at the sun it looked almost like the moon rising
Brad's tire going out, switching it out in front of the Paw Paw Tunnel.
Paw Paw Tunnel was cool ??? feet long and dark. It felt like my flashlight batteries were going out towards the middle. The light at the end of the tunnel was ruining my night vision so I couldn't see by my flashlight. At least there was a handrail, the cyclist we'd met in Yellowstone made it sound like there wasn't one.
Met two BikeE riders on the bike path coming out of Hancock, MD
We stopped for food at the groceries store and as we were leaving got to talking to a guy. He told us about riding with his daughter, who was sitting in the car, on the C&O Path. Ding, it literally rang a bell, I'd heard about the Tow Path from a cyclist the day before we got into Yellowstone and from another cyclist in Yellowstone. Both had said it was the best way into DC. It'd add 80 miles to our mileage but what better way to finish the trip. We decided to go ahead and do it but first we need to get the mail taken care of. Brad had told a couple of people to send him stuff in Middleburg, VA but we'd put a different Zip code on there. After talking with the people at the post office he got a change of address form sent out that hopefully would get the mail sent to DC where we could meet it.
Rode north to Cumberland, MD
Got on trail, talked to people a BikeE owner, and a guy who was into ultra lights convinced that Charles is going to have to go in on one with me.
Left Motel
Entered Maryland
Saw Saddle Pass
Camped in field near tree farm
Woke up in field with rain coming through the mosquito netting in the top of the tent.
Waiting out the rain in the gas station with Peggy Sue
Got a motel room at the ????? Motor Lodge in Grafton, WV.
Cooked up eggs, pancakes and ate a bunch of junk food.
Talked to everyone on the phone (martin, my mom and dad, Dan) Watched part of the Big Chill, The Godfather, and The Joy Luck Club then the Simpson's and Malcolm In The Middle.
The park groundskeeper woke me up New Martinsville, WV, he seemed like he wanted to talk about where we were from but it was really awkward trying to have a conversation with him. All our stuff was soaked from the night before; we tried to dry some stuff out but didn't really want to spend the time.
We rode out of town on SR 20; it was infested with coal trucks. The roads were a good surface but didn't have much in the way of a shoulder. If you had to find a nice thing about the coal trucks it'd be that they hold up just about all the traffic going up the hill behind them. Then you got to enjoy the When you hear one of them coming you get off and five other cars would pass you but you wouldn't see another car
Stopping to talk to the guy at the propane shipping plant.
Breakfast bought for us by a nice old man who wouldn.t let me take his picture, and kept saying "I gotta hand it to you" and "I take my hat off too you" "Breakfast is paid for" Super cute waitress
As we were sitting on the side of the road having a sandwich in celebration of mile 45 for the day a pickup truck slows past us and then goes into reverse. It stopped and out stepped a skinny little cowboy guy with a bunch of gray stubble, blue jeans, mesh backed ball cap, and a short sleeved button up shirt. Out of his mouth came a string of profanities that ended in "bikes" Brad and I looked up at each other from our peanut butter sandwiches not sure what to make of this. I'd love to relate some of the dialog but most of it involved enough profanity to make me uncomfortable. He talked about himself a bunch and in between asked us the standards questions. My initial suspicions about him being a bit drunk were confirmed when he motioned for me to hold on in the middle of telling us how nice everyone was in West Virginia. He returned from his truck with a beer. I though he might be planning to give us, nope he opened it and started drinking it. Our hopes of getting rid of him quickly were diminishing. He grabbed a handful of our pretzels that looked like they.d go nicely with his beer and settled in for the long haul. Our only hope was to pack up from underneath him. The only problem with that plan was then we'd have a drunken West Virginian swerving past us a little bit farther down the road. He asked us what we did for showers, and I made the mistake of mentioning that the last one I'd had was in Indiana. He immediately told us that we should stop by his brand new 5 bedroom house that he'd just got done telling us about in extreme detail. He gave us directions on how to get there all we had to do was come up with a reason we couldn't stop there.
He told us there wasn't anything "funny" about him causing a bunch of nervous laughter and foot staring
We rode off hoping that.d when he passed us it'd be the last we ever saw of him. Unfortunately he was waiting for us at the turn. I rode up and told him that we didn't have time to go by his house. He got a bit upset, insisting that this was the fastest road to Clarksburg, WV. I told him that I'd go talk to Brad and see what he though just trying to get rid of him.
In Clarksburg, WV I went into a gas station to get directions to a campground. They didn't know where one was but they had a box of 12 ice cream sandwiches on sale for $2.20. We sat out front giving as many away as we could while asking for directions to a campsite. Again no luck
Got out of town and were too chicken ask people if we could camp on their land so we just pushed into the grass in a field
Rode 15 miles into the "big" town and found a Laundromat, Sat there doing laundry while we waited for the storm to stop.
Rode out and into West Virginia in the rain
Ate dinner at pizza place. Met a guy who was born in Fallon, NV (60 miles from Reno, NV?)
Camped under awning in the city park thinking it.d be the driest place in the park. It wasn't, we got soaked. But the kids kept coming over to play basketball and tennis and turning on the lights so they could see and waking us up.
Bad storm that night, camped on the side of the road. Listened to it poor rain and watched the lightning
Departed the Floor's residence
Into Ohio
Got an email from my dad saying that he had a free ticket that we could use to fly home on.
Talked to stoner kids while waiting for brad
Camped behind furniture store Delphos
Shower and swim then stayed in the Floor's back yard after they made us dinner
Getting "lost" on the farm roads
Seeing kids removing silk from cork like I'd read about in the newspaper the day before.
All the days seem to blend together SEE FOLDER 3 ON THE RECORDER.
Fell asleep along the side of the road, wasting three hours, it was the heat or something
McDonalds for milkshakes. Picked up newspaper
Camped in the state park
South on Western Ave(?)
Stopped at drug store and Circuit City. While Brad was sitting on the sidewalk a guy in a truck stopped and asked if he wanted some money then flipped him a quarter.
Farther south finally getting out of the city
No Welcome To Indiana sign
Camped in the middle of a dirt farm road
07/27/2001
Into city to get car
Delilia's Bar
07/28/2001
Meeting up with Chris
07/29/2001
Waking up at Chris' apartment
Out to Heather's house
07/30/2001
Great America
Dinner at the Vietnamese restaurant
Green Mill for drinks. Good beer, bad jazz singer. Didn't take credit cards except American Express.
07/31/2001
Haircut clean up bikes
Bars that night?
08/01/2001
Heather left, then Erin, then we packed up and rolled into town to stay with another set of friends, Tim and Maggie. They were just moving to town and they had some other Reno people, John and Carrie, that'd driven out with them staying there. It was cramped but we got all our stuff into their apartment.
Stopped in at the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio and looked into the gift shop. Everything was really cool but super expensive, a tie with some of his designs on it was $30.
Brad to See RadioHead, I went to see movies. I saw the entire Final Fantasy movie, most of Score, and enough of The Fast and the Furious to know that the rest was worth missing.
08/02/2001
At 06:00 I woke up to the sounds of rain falling and thunder crashing, went back to sleep. At 08:00 heard on the radio that parts of the city were flooded. Decided not to leave until the next day.
I went to the store with John and bought a bunch of food to make breakfast. When we got back he made up a bunch of German pancakes and I tried another round of hash browns and eggs. His pancakes were great but my skillet skillz are still not quite l33t.
We helped Tim and Maggie unpack the boxes they'd brought out. Brad, Tim, John and Carrie went to the hardware store to get blinds and other stuff. Maggie and I moved stuff around and talked. I.d gone to middle and high school with her but didn't really know her very well.
Maggie is an organized and hardworking person, she finished high school in two years and then went to France for school. She went to UNR and graduated with a dual major and was going to ??? for a masters program in Chicago mostly on scholarships.
That night we met their neighbors. I think they were the only other two white people living in the predominately Puerto Rican neighborhood.