Technical Difficulties

I seem to be having technical difficulties with my iPhone not wanting to log on to wifi network.  So......  if you don't see anything here for a while, that why.  But I continue to write the entries and will post them if and when I resolve the problem.

What a Day!

Where to begin?  It was all good, so feel free to skip the words.....  It was just a busy day with lots of variety and a few route challenges.

The first 30 miles was on bike path.  Sounds idyllic, no?  It was great for a while - riding from Alexandria to Washington DC with all the bike commuters whizzing by us on their way to their jobs running the country.  We went right by the end of the runway of Ronald Regan National Airport.

Along the Potomac River with the Capitol dome and the Washington Monument in view.  

Over the Arlington Memorial Bridge to the Lincoln Memorial

Then the route challenges escalated a bit as we took first the Capital Crescent Trail 

into Maryland 

then onto an unpaved section - the Georgetown Branch Trail - that led to our first SAG stop.  It seems that many people missed this stop entirely, but somehow found their way onto future trails in any case (smartphones earned their keep today!)

We then got onto the Rock Creek Trail

and followed that for another twelve miles or so.  Saw the Mormon Temple where my good friends Sheila and Mark were wed. 

The trail was a challenge.  In addition to being hard to navigate in places, it was rough (tree roots growing through), windy and hilly, as well as wet and muddy in places.  You really had to keep your head down to watch where you were going.  Not much chance to look around or even check the cue sheet or GPS.  It was pretty much all heavily treed - lots of greenery!  I felt like I was doing a cross-country mountain bike route or perhaps cyclo-cross.  In addition, the mileage was off by several miles since early in the route, so we were never sure exactly where we were.  This is WT's inaugural running of this trip, so hopefully there will be some revamping of cue sheets before next year.  

We found both the van & trailer and the SAG at about 30 miles.  That's the last I saw either of them for the rest of the day. I think some people got quite far behind negotiating the bike path section, so the SAG was waiting for them to come through.  

We headed onto some quiet roads at this point and some big hills.  Really pretty and quiet roads.  Through Needwook Lake Park

Past an old log cabin built by freed slaves in the 1800s.  

This trip has really brought into perspective for me the history of slavery, the fight for freedom and the subsequent struggles for acceptance and equality.  It has also become obvious that for the majority of African Americans, at least in the south, that struggle is far from over.  

I don't think we were very far from civilization for much of our ride today.  There were a number of horse farms and lots of big houses set among the rolling hills.

Past the Brighton Dam

And then I apparently put my camera away for the last 35 miles.  Too busy climbing hills apparently.  

Spent the last couple of miles coming through a residential subdivision.  Reminded me of our Kingston house built in the mid-60's.  Every other house was the same style.  

Lovely hotel tonight - Hampton Inn.  Pizza and margaritas for dinner as well as carrot cake and cheesecake flown in from Chicago  (thanks Kirby!).  We also swapped out guides tonight.  Patty is returning home to Moab and Michelle is joining us from Boulder CO.  I have really enjoyed Patty's leadership style.  She's done a great job with all the hiccups along the way.

Stats for the day:

127 km from Alexandria VA to Owings Mills MD.  5275 feet of climbing.  Great temps - 12C to 27C.  Lots of cue sheet challenges.  

The 4th H

Yesterday we had the first 3 "H"s - hot, humid, hilly.  Today we lost the humid and most of the hot, increased the hills and gained the 4th "H" - headwind.  Ugh!  

The route to our first SAG stop @ 20 miles was mostly on secondary county roads, but we had that dreaded combination of traffic and no shoulders most of the way.  No pictures, and not much recollection of the terrain because I was simply focussed on holding a steady line and avoiding any potholes and cracks in the road.  Lots of ups and downs and windy roads again today.  Oh - and construction too, just to make life more interesting.

We did pass through a quieter and prettier area for a bit after that.  It reminded me of some of the countryside outside of Ottawa.  Rural or undeveloped yet within spittin' distance of the nation's capital.  I think it was in this stretch that some of the apparently undeveloped land was marked as US Reserve land or US Military land.  

After 40 miles we were on to a busier state road, but with better shoulders.  Definitely more civilization about.  We passed through a cute little town (think Merrickville) called Occoquan before crossing a pedestrian bridge and then climbing up to a bike path beside a very busy state highway.  

Just after exiting the state road and finding our 60-mile SAG stop, we had the extraordinary olfactory experience of cycling beside a huge landfill site - several mountain-sized piles of garbage.  Trucks constantly coming and going and bulldozers appearing as mere specks atop the piles.  

Then it was on to the busy US1 highway. The cue sheet for the next turnoff was out by a few miles.  The locals at the Walgreens store were of no use with directions.  After riding through more construction (sorry drivers, but I'm just taking this lane; you can wait behind me!)  I finally found the turnoff to Fort Belvoir - a US Army base.  

After producing drivers license and passport at the entry point, they saw fit to let me in.  And what a lovely respite it was.  Apparently home to  over 7,000 people and employing over 51,000, it had a lovely bike lane, little traffic and lots of green space (it was a plantation in a former life).

Shortly after that we came to Mount Vernon.  It was still early and I was ready for some time off the bike, so I did a tour. "George Washington acquired Mount Vernon in 1754 and spent the next 45 years of his life expanding his home to reflect his status as a Virginia gentleman."  The grounds include his mansion (which has an incredible view out over the Potomac River), outbuildings, extensive gardens, a farm, Washington's tomb (George, Martha and other family members), a slave memorial and burial ground, a distillery & gristmill, and of course a really well-done museum/education centre. Oh - and did I mention thousands of boisterous school children.  Time to go......

Once back on the bike it was about another 10 miles to our destination in Alexandria.  Most of it was on the Mount Vernon bike path beside the Potomac River.  Such a nice change from the traffic and noise earlier in the day, although the cue sheet could use some revamping.  

Just as we were coming into Alexandria we passed under I-495 which at that point was a bridge going over the river.  They've really done a great job of making the area into a little park with lots of recreational opportunities.  

There's also an interesting display of a WWII wooden rudder retrieved from the river.  

Alexandria has a nice "old town" section and a vibrant waterfront area.

We were on our own for dinner.  A few of us were craving carcass so we headed off to a steakhouse.  It was great!

Thursday was a "rest day" for us.  It also happened to be a cold, rainy day so I probably didn't do as much as I otherwise would have.  I walked back to the old town, took the trolley up King St, browsed the shops, did some olive oil tasting, read my book in a coffee shop (oh - and there might have been a cookie and some hot chocolate involved), caught the Metro into DC, headed over to the Capitol and walked down the Mall. I didn't go in any of the buildings or museums.  The biggest reason was that you couldn't take in food, drink or liquid.  Of course, I travel with food & water as well as sunscreen - none of which I was willing to part with.  So - I just walked around until I had to pee.  Since all the restrooms (note that I usually still say "washroom" and people look at me with a blank stare) are in the buildings, which means you have to line up with hoards of schoolkids and tourists and then get rejected because you have food & liquid in your pack, I headed back to the Metro to look for facilities there.  Again, no luck.  A security guard had to unlock a maintenance area for me and lead me to a customer restroom which looked like a broom closet.  Really??  Safety reasons, they say.  I considered just finding a tree, but judging by the number of US Capitol Police patrolling the grounds, I'm thinking they wouldn't have taken too kindly to that.  

Enough ranting!  A good day yesterday despite the traffic, and a good wandering day today despite the rain.  Hopefully the sun will be back with us tomorrow.

Stats for yesterday:

139 km from Fredericksburg VA to Alexandria VA.  Nice comfortable temps from 14C to 27C.  An irritating headwind, but enough turns to make it an occasional thing.  4500 feet of climbing.  

Hot History

OK, they're not at all related - but more history today and it was hot again.  I started the day with a flat tire, so that ensured that I was tail-end Charlie for a while.  Couldn't find anything in the tire so here's hoping it doesn't recur.  

The first 10-ish miles was negotiating our way out of Richmond.  There are some nice looking historic areas, but we stayed in a pretty seedy area and saw quite a few areas going in yesterday and out today that were pretty run down. Once out of town we were on nice country roads.  There didn't seem to be quite as much agriculture as the past few days. More undeveloped lands and forests, some horse farms and some rural residential. We are more inland now, so more rolling hills, especially down to little bridges over small creeks and rivers and then (sometimes steeply) back up the other side. At about 17 miles we came to the cute little town of Ashland. They had some ornaments out that we bikers seem to be attracted to. 

They had a nice little area set up outside the public library. One of the monuments proclaims Ashland to be the Center of the Universe. Well - I guess ya gotta dream big. 

And on yesterday's theme of "biggest", "best", "fastest", etc. I had to take a picture of the sign below because it took two lines to make their point.  

We were greeted by horses at roadside

and saw some nicely fenced farms that I'm sure had horses hiding out somewhere.  

Some pretty country roads with some "terrain features"

and some farms that had been there a lonnnnnng time.

It has been a few days now since we've seen any palm trees, so we must be making some northern progress.  It had also been a few days since we had seen any logging trucks, but there were a few out there today.  I'm assuming the fields below had been logged.  In any case, they were a mess.......

Just a short way off the route was the Stonewall Jackson Shrine.  With a  title like that how could I resist?  Apparently he had been injured, had a limb amputated, was brought here to recover but died of pneumonia instead (or something like that).  

As we came into Fredericksburg, we rode about 3 miles on beautifully treed Lee Dr - the site of more Civil War battles and close to Robert E Lee's headquarters.  I took a detour in Fredericksburg to visit the Fredericksburg Battlefield grounds and visitor centre and the Fredericksburg National Cemetery.  There are over 15,000 Union soldiers buried there and only about 3,000 were ever identified.  

I've never really had much interest in American history, but when you're riding right by and standing right on the fields of battle I somehow become much more curious.  I probably have the numbers wrong, but there were something like 8,000 casualties in Fredericksburg over 3 days - yikes!  Total deaths in the Civil War (which lasted from 1861 until 1865) - 700,000.  Holy cow!  Once again, they've done a great job of preserving and presenting the story.  

Here's a house, belonging to regular citizens at the time, that still has the bullet  holes in the walls.

 A few more miscellaneous shots from the battle grounds.......

Stats for the day:

120 km from Richmond VA to Fredericksburg VA.  Hot & humid.  Temps from 20C to 34C.  Amped up the climbing today.  3100 feet of uphill including more than a few climbs of double-digit grade.