Day 7

For once, I am the early riser.  Between the intensely loud trains passing at least every hour and the various animal noises that kept me alert all night, I didn't sleep very well, but I still wake up around 8:30.  I get up an make some oatmeal, pack my things, and say goodbye to my camping neighbors, making Drew's day by giving him a pack of instant coffee.

Duquesne

I hit the road around 10:30, making just a brief stop after a couple hours to scarf down what remains of the final PBH (six was the right number after all!) and make a call to the (not) hostel guy with my ETA.  I continue on and when I get close to McKeesport, the trail feeds me onto a road for cars.  I check my map to make sure I haven't gone off course, and just as I'm setting to take off again, a bandanna clad cyclist that sort of reminds me of Christopher Meloni's character from Wet Hot American Summer comes by and asks where I'm headed.  I tell him Pittsburgh and that I'm just on the last leg of my trip from DC.  Marshall knows all about the trail, having done it many times himself before it was completed.  I tell him how I was a little worried about the confusing part of the trail others had warned me about near McKeesport and he agrees that it is not obvious.  He tells me about a better way to go, but I say I kind of want to stay on the actual trail so I can legitimately say I did the whole thing.  He is obviously a better cyclist than me, but slows down to my pace and guides me basically the whole way, which is awesome.  Plus, he's from Pittsburgh and knows a ton about it, so I get a personal guided tour of the next 15 miles.  Most of the things on the tour are abandoned steel mills or parts of steel mills.  It's pretty cool.

Eventually we close in on Pittsburgh and he tells me where to go.  This end of the trail is not like the DC end at all; it basically goes through the city.
On my own again, I realize I am starving.  Marshall wasn't sure what the "bike cafe" on the trail was that someone had told me about, and suggested it could be OTB, "Over the Bars" on the south side (which I'm pretty sure now is what the guy had been talking about) but I didn't pass by it as it's not on the official trail.  I pull over at the first sandwich shop I see and get what is basically a cheesesteak sub without the steak.  It's not terribly good.  The inside of the shop is all Pittsburghed out, with sports paraphernalia and multiple signs alerting me to the fact that I am in Steelers country.  I have a feeling this is how every place around here is.

I get back on the "trail" following signs toward Point State Park, and it is really pretty as promised.  I look all over for the alleged mile 0 plaque, but it is nowhere to be found.  I give up and head to the hostel.

The other mile 0

Day 6

Yup, the tent rustling and packing up noises begin around 7am.  Knowing I won't be able to get any sleep with the noise, I roll out of my tent at 7:30 and slowly start making oatmeal.  The guy from DC tells me I can definitely make it to Pittsburgh today.  I scoff at this.  No thank you.  Plus I can't really show up early since my reservation is for Wednesday.  It turns out this guy tried to make a reservation at the place where I'm staying but couldn't get in.  Hmm...I wonder how I did?  Maybe there's less demand on a weekday?  I get ready slowly and chat for a while with one of the other bikers and by the time I get on the road it's about 10:30.  No matter, I'm not in any rush.
Around 11:30 I stop in Ohiopyle to get something, hopefully a muffin or croissant, to supplement my hearty oatmeal/date/walnut/chia breakfast which, somehow, was not enough.  I go to the general store and spot what appears to be an oversized muffin in saran wrap, but on closer inspection turns out to be an oversized whoopie pie.  Close enough. I go out onto a bench overlooking the bridge and water and enjoy my snack and the scenery.

   After finishing off what I assume to be at least five daily recommended caloric intakes worth of whoopie pie, I get back on the road and catch up to a cyclist meandering along at a leisurely pace.  I offer a friendly "hi there" as I pass him, which is taken as an invitation for a full fledged conversation and I feel compelled to slow down and converse with him.  Doug, he tells me, is from Uniontown and is a bit of a talker.  Unfortunately, I can't undertand 60% of what he says, though I can't quite tell if this is just because of his accent or also the result of a major injory he sustained at the age of 14 (apparently he was in a coma after being run over by a barbershop, or at least, that was the best I could make out after 3 attempted clarifications).  He tells me he's on disability which I guess means he doesn't work at all?  Seems crazy, but maybe that's not the case.  I am eager to push forward and diplomatically tell Doug I'm going to speed up so I can get to lunch before I starve.  A slight exaggeration given that I doubt anyone has ever starved to death within 45 minutes of eating a whoopie pie the size of their head, but at this pace it will take me forever, and I'm running out of conversation topics.

   By about 1:15 I'm in Connelsville, which I expect to be a bit bigger based on Doug's description (or at least what I understood of it).  The trail actually goes into the residential part of town, which is unusual, but I turn off and cross the bridge to get to where the map claims I will find a wealth of eating establishments.  The town seems almost deserted, but I pass by "Connelsville Canteen" which boasts its open status with several large signs.  I decide to keep it as a back up and hold out for "Arch's cafe" which I saw on the town map and which I picture to be some quaint little eatery, hopefully with outdoor seating, where I can enjoy some sort of delicious sandwich that comes with chips and a pickle.  Alas, when I get to the edge of town I find that Arch's cafe appears to be more of a sports bar advertising chicken wings as the featured entree, and that it's not necessarily open.  I give up and head back to the Canteen, which actually looks quite lovely upon entering, but apparently only serves coffee and baked goods.  Not really a canteen then, are you?  Luckily, across the street is one last option, La Canela, a mexican place where I find a cheap combo platter lunch special and am fed chips and salsa immediately upon sitting down.  Nothing is particularly good, but it's not disgusting either.  The cheese in my enchilada has a very distinct flavor which I have trouble placing at first, but then realize it tastes *exactly* like that orange "cheese" that squirts out of a can.  The waiter is super nice and offers to fill my water bottle, which he does with filtered water and ice.  What luxury!
I head back through town and discover the place I should have stopped for food; right on the trail is a little cafe/concession stand with picnic benches along the river.  Oh well!  From here I pass the KOA campsite at mile 92 and briefly consider stopping already since it is so nice out and appear to rent kayaks right at the campsite.  But I don't really want to leave 60 miles for tomorrow, so I continue on.  At mile 99 is the first of the free sites with Adirondack shelters which look really nice.  I decide to go on to at least the next one at mile 110 since it's still early, and then decide whether to stay or carry on to mile 124 so I can camp at the site in a cemetery that the DC guy told me about this morning.  Around mile 104 I become quite bored of biking and decide that sleeping in a cemetery isn't worth another 20 miles (plus, if the zombie apocalypse happens to start tonight, I will be much safer at mile 110).  I start to look forward to being alone in my secluded little campsite in my shelter and am actually a little disappointed when I show up and there is already a group camping there.  But they seem very nice, and they tell me they came in from Pittsburgh just for the night and are biking back tomorrow.  I become hopeful that this could be the camping experience more like I had imagined, bonding with my fellow campers and drinking beer around a campfire.  I tell them I'm going for a swim, which I do and then head back to clean off and change in my shelter.

   I'm hoping they'll come invite me to join them or offer me a beer or something but they don't.  I decide to be proactive and go offer some food to share.  Unfortunately I don't have much to work with, but I figure it's the gesture that counts.  I walk over with my styrofoam container of leftover hushpuppies from my Crabby Pig dinner 2 days ago.  "Can I offer you all some delicious leftover hushpuppies?" I ask as I walk up to their picnic table with them staring at me.  They politely decline and don't proceed to offer me anything, so I awkwardly leave with my hushpuppies and go sit by myself at a table feeling dejected.  I know you don't win friends with salad, but hushpuppies?  C'mon!
At least near my table there is an adorable groundhog foraging for food who peers up at me every so often to make sure I'm not trying to kill him.  Maybe he would enjoy some hushpuppies?  After writing in my journal a while I decide to start preparing a dehydrated meal.  I go fill my bucket with water from the spigot and realize that there's no explicit indication it's been treated with iodine (like there was at all the wells on the C&O).  Afraid of another hushpuppy rejection, but deciding that explosive diarrhea would be far worse, I overcome my social anxiety to go over to my neighbors and ask if they know whether the spigot water is drinkable.  One of the guys tells me he's been drinking it with no problems, and a girl who has joined them tells me they have an extra ear of corn and do I want to join them.  "Sure!" I say, quite likely a little too happy to finally be included.  I sit on a stump around their campfire, watching the 5 corn cobs roast over the fire.  They all know each other from going to college together and seem really cool.  The guys, Drew, Brian, and Nick all work in film ("Drew does those Hollywood movies" one explains.  It doesn't sound like a compliment) and Lindsey runs an art studio.  Apparently it was a somewhat spur of the moment idea to come camping, so the 3 guys biked out the previous evening at 11pm, in the pitch black.  Lindsey drove in with some more supplies (like corn!) today.  Brian tells me about some ride in Pittsburgh that just happened where everyone rides around in their underwear and he and Nick tell me about how they tried to bike the trail from Pittsburgh to DC once, in March in the freezing cold.  They didn't make it too far.  Drew's light stopped working during the ride to the campsite last night and his friends made no effort to wait for him. He got distracted by the big dipper and ran into a fence he tells me, showing the baind aid on his knee to prove it.  These people are crazy.  I like them.
They tell me about some bluegrass/banjo/hipster thing that happens every Wednesday night in Pittsburgh (which I do end up going to the next night, and it is amazing.)  They also tell me that when I get into town I should bike around Point State Park and get a photo of the mile 0 plaque.  Excellent!  This I will definitely do.   They bike off to go explore the "beach" nearby (really just mud leading into the water) and I turn in to read and go to bed.

Day 5

Is it day 5 already? I awake in my luxurious cloud of pillows around 8am and go to the lounge where I completely clean out the supply of oatmeal (there were only two packets).  The other two couples staying there come in after having gone out for breakfast (how do they wake up so early!?) and of course, like everyone on the trail but me, they are headed towards DC.  They marvel at the spectacle of a lady person traveling alone and one asks why I'm doing it.  Uh, I don't know anyone crazy enough to come with me?  But that's not really true.  I just shrug and tell her the truth.  "I just kind of wanted to."

After gathering my things, sliding the keys under the office door, remembering I still need to keys to get my bike from the locked garage, sticking my hand under the door and fishing around until I retrieve the keys, I'm off!  I make a pit stop at the bike shop in town to buy some gloves with gel padding.  My ring fingers are still a bit numb from the previous four days of riding, but soon into today's ride I can tell that the $37 for my new Bontrager gel padded gloves was a worthwhile investment.  I prepare mentally for the tortuous hill I have been warned about by so many.  A man on a bike with no luggage is just ahead of me, traveling at about my pace, and we go back and forth passing each other and he tells me he lives in Cumberland and is just out riding for the day and taking pictures. Another man walking the opposite direction stops me and tries to tell me where I should stop in a few miles to see a seam of coal in the rocks, but I don't really understand his directions and I miss out on this.  I pass my other friend on the bike who has stopped to rest and he warns me not to wander off on any side trails because there's lots of rattlesnakes.
Not just a few rattlesnakes, he emphasizes, rattlesnakes everywhere.  He also advises me not to play with them but then proceeds to tell me about how he once tried to get his nephew to poke one with a stick so he could get a cool photo.  The nephew apparently refused.  Smart kid.  I continue on, promising not to venture into rattlesnake territory (little does he know, only 1 rattlesnake is needed to deter me).  I continue to dread the appearance of a steep hill, but after a while I know it's been too long.  Is this it?  Am I on the hill?  My fears were completely unwarranted, or maybe it just doesn't seem bad because I was worried it would be so much worse.  In any event, I am glad to discover that I will not die on the mountain.

The weather, for the first time on the trip, is perfect and the scenery is breathtaking. So far, GAP beats C&O hands down.  The mile markers keep coming faster than I expect them (perhaps these are PA miles? Is that a thing?  Oh wait, I'm still in MD...) and I arrive in Frostburg, MD well before noon.  The town is up a legitimately steep hill, but they are kind enough to have put in a staircase winding up to the main street with a bike rack at the bottom.  I set my bike in the rack and just lock it to itself, figuring it would take an extra special awful person to steal an unridable bike loaded with luggage.

Bike art in Frostburg

I climb up to Main St. and discover that in Frostburg, Maryland, everything is closed on Mondays.  What is this, France?  At the end of the street I come upon Princess restaurant, which, from the menu, does not look like it has ever allowed a vegetarian to enter, until I get to the breakfast section of the menu.  Omelettes galore!  I walk in and ask if it's too late to order breakfast.  The hostess looks at me like this is a weird question and assures me that they can make eggs at any time of day.  I slide into a booth and order the special: veggie omelette with home fries and toast...for $4.75!  The first reasonably priced meal of the trip.  The waitress asks if I want cheese in the omelette.  What kind of question is this?  It's an omelette, of course I want cheese.  The waitress takes orders at the next table, which is full of 6 men, all wearing some sort of badge ID like you would see people wear in DC.  It seems like this town is small enough that she would know them all by name, but she refers to them instead by shirt color.  "I'll start with you, blue shirt guy", and when a 7th one shows up she looks completely exasperated.  "Orange shirt guy, you're with them too? We're going to have to move you to a bigger table".  My omelette arrives (sans cheese - wtf?) but is still amazingly good.  I gobble it up and wait around a good 5 minutes for the check before noticing that it has been on the table the whole time.
I head back down from Frostburg, happy to see that no one has stolen my sole means of transportation.  As soon as get back to pedaling up the barely perceptible hill, however, I feel that something is wrong with my bike.  I try to see if the front brake is sticking to the rim again and stop more than once to verify that I don't have a flat, but everything appears to be in order.  It just seems way harder to pedal all of a sudden.  Could it be the hill?  Can't be, it doesn't even look like a hill.  I decide the chain must be sticking (is that a thing chains do?) and I pull over to apply the sample pack of lube I got from some bike race and ever so cleverly thought to bring along.  This yields no results (apart from slimy fingers).  I give up and resign myself to the fact that poor me has to work extra hard because of my somehow deficient bike.  I make it across the Mason-Dixon line and then arrive at the continental divide.


 Yay!  All downhill from here!  As soon as I start rolling along I realize what an idiot I have been.  There was nothing wrong with my bike, it was just gravity.  Good, albeit perhaps obvious news.  I sail along much faster than on previous legs and decide it will be no problem to make it to Confluence tonight.  I make a brief stop in Meyersdale, PA, a cute little town with a train obsession.
I pass Husky Haven at mile 44 (the counter reset at zero in Cumberland), and it is completely empty and I'm glad I've decided to continue on.  By a little after 6 I make it to Confluence, PA and stop for dinner at Lucky Dog cafe, which is fantastic.  Then it's a short roll across the bridge to the campsite where there is a special area set aside for hikers and bikers of the trail.  This is more like what I was imagining before the trip.  There are 3 other people in the hiker/biker section, two older guys and one younger one and we all exchange trip stories.  The young guy from DC is biking home all the way from Detroit and says it only took 6 days to get here.  Still no campfires or much group bonding, but it's still nice to actually meet some other people at the campsite.  Everyone is in their tent by sundown and I retire to read before bed.  I have a feeling this crowd is going to wake up (and wake me up with their noises) far earlier than I am ready for.

Day 4

I wake up at 8:30.  Ughhh. Time to get up.  I decide to outsmart what is surely a muddy towpath by donning my gore-tex pants.  The towpath one ups me again by not being remotely muddy despite yesterday's deluge and steady rain most of the night.  So, an unnecessary panting, but a nice surprise nonetheless.
I make reasonably good time from Little Orleans and plan to stop for lunch in Old Town, MD.  There is at least one "town" listed on my map prior to this, yet I never see any turn offs.  The canal is covered in green algae and then lily pads and turtles abound.  I stop to take a photo of at least 8 turtles of varying size all lined up on a log, but as soon as I stop my bike, the turtles walk the plank one by one. Plunk! Plunk!  Plunk!  I give up on turtle photography and am barely back on my way when I see a black and green cord slithering across the path under my tires, narrowly escaping my tire.  My first snake encounter.  It catches me completely by surprise and I actually scream, which I don't think I've ever done involuntarily.  I then start laughing at myself for my reaction but also increase the amount of attention devoted to snake surveillance.
As I approach mile 166, where Old Town, MD is supposed to be found, I wonder how a town is possibly going to appear in the middle of the woods.  I get to a small intersection which must be it and see two guys, local Old Towners I assume, sitting on the canal wall.  I ask them if they know which way it is to Old Town.  "This is it," they tell me.  Hmmmm.  "Well actually I'm looking for a place to eat.  On my map it looks like there's a place called School House Kitchen?"  They laugh.  "Yeah, we tried to find that too, but....do you like ramen?"  Oh well, I decide to sit down on the opposite wall and eat another PBH (lighten the load!)  It turns out the guys are from DC as well, stayed in Cumberland last night and hiked to Old Town where someone is coming to pick them up and drive back to DC.  One works at DHS and the other studies at UMD.  I tell him I just graduated from there and ask what he studies and is he in grad school.  He looks uncomfortable and says "government and politics" and that he's "thinking about it".  It seems like I've touched a nerve, so I drop it, but after a lull in the conversation later I (stupidly) press the issue.  "So you're in grad school now deciding whether or not to continue, or you're thinking about applying to grad programs?"  Clearly uncomfortable he admits that he's an undergrad.  "Junior year," he says sheepishly.  I guess he's probably about my age which is why I assumed grad school.  "Oh that's great!" I say, probably a little too enthusiastically.  "You're almost done!"  He doesn't seem to think it's great.
After their ride shows up, I chew on some mango and then get back on the road.  As I bike along, the mountains come closer into view and I start to worry about tomorrow's impending ascent.  I continuously scan the mountain range looking for a gap.  There's supposed to be a gap, right?  As in Cumberland Gap?  That's a thing, right?  Pretty sure we sang a song about it in elementary school.

End of towpath

   I'm excited to get to the end of the towpath and hope there's some sort of official sign.  There isn't.  I go into Cumberland in search of an Italian place where I can stuff my face with pasta.  Unfortunately, it seems that in Cumberland, people don't need to eat on Sundays because everything is closed.  What is this, Switzerland? Luckily, or not, the Crabby Pig, which had been highly recommended by the Old Town pair and immediately dismissed in my mind as a terrible option for a vegetarian, continues to serve food, even on the Lord's day.  I sit outside and order a vegetarian alfredo pasta dish, and in case that isn't heavy enough to make me sick (spoiler alert!  It is.), I feel compelled to get hush puppies too because they're on the menu so I can't not order them.  The owner of a similarly bag-burdened bike parked next to mine recognizes me as a fellow traveler and comes over to ask about my trip.  He's going the other way (like 100% of other people I have met so far) and I ask if the hill I have to climb tomorrow is really steep. At first he starts to say it's ok, but then admits "yeah, it's kind of steep".  Great.
   After a brief pit stop at the wrong YMCA, I go to the right YMCA, the only campsite in Cumberland, only to find that it closes at 6pm on Sundays (I suppose I should be happy it was open at all!)  Probably I could set up my tent for free since there is no one to pay, but it is rather in the middle of town, and not necessarily a very nice part of town from the looks of it, and it seems weird to just camp there.  Plus I was looking forward to a shower and a real toilet.  I decide that I deserve to be pampered for a night and head to the Cuimberland Inn and Spa, where, after the woman gets over the shock of a female traveling alone ("I just wish someone was with you!"  You and me both, lady.), I am shown to a lovely, plush queen sized bed made out of clouds.  Soon after, the effects of the Alfredo are upon me and I thank my lucky stars that I decided to take the majority of the hush puppies to go and to stay somewhere with indoor plumbing. The thought of puking in a porta potty seems like the beginning of an infinite and self-perpetuating cycle of vom.

I go to sleep early in hopes of, for once, getting an early start tomorrow to conquer the mountain.

Day 3

I wake up to the sound of running on the towpath.  The sun isn't even up.  Crazy jogger.
I fall back asleep to be awoken next by the sound of someone violently pumping for water.  I roll over and ask kindle what time it is, expecting about 6 or 7.  It's 8:15.  What??  I groan and accept the fact that I have to get moving if I want to keep up with the schedule.  (Do I want to?  Not clear...but I've set a goal and I guess I don't want to feel like a failure.)
I go to fetch water from the well, which, of course, requires violent pumping.  Just as I've almost filled my bucket, a runner in a batman shirt stops and offers to help.  I tell him thanks, but I'm almost done, and then am confused why he doesn't leave.  Oh, he's waiting to use the pump too.  I help pump while he splashes water on his face and he takes off.
Just as I finish cooking my oatmeal, an overly exuberant runner comes down by the picnic table and exclaims how surprised he is to see me since he hadn't seen anyone at all at the campsite when he ran by at 5:30 am.  Aha, thanks for the wake up call crazy runner guy.  Overly excited, as one tends to be nearing the end of a 20 mile run, he asks lots of questions, including aren't I afraid to be traveling alone.  No, I tell him, people on the trail are generally other bikers or runners are pretty friendly.  Realizing that he has no evidence to assure me that he himself is not a psychopath, he informs me that he's not, and that I don't have to worry about him.   Funny, that's just what someone I do have to worry about would say.  "Yeah, of course," I smile.  I ask if he's training for a marathon, but no, he's training for a 50 miler.  Geez.  People are crazy.  Just before leaving he tells me about a snake he saw on the trail a little ways back eating a bird and that the bird managed to hop out of the snakes mouth a couple times before the snake swallowed it again.  He seems to think I should be very excited about this and rushing to go observe the miracle of nature for myself.  Gross.  I'm eating breakfast.
I finish eating and almost have to abandon my expertly hoisted bear bag in the tree when I get it caught on a branch, but finally succeed in recapturing it by hanging on the rope with my full body weight.  Having gone through both pair of bike shorts by now, I decide to rewear the day one pair that I had "washed", which turn out to have gotten even dirtier as a result of the "drying" process on the bike than they had been before the washing.  My shoes are also quite a bit damper than ideal, and I regret the decision not to bring a second pair.  Seriously, a multipound bundle of peanut butter sandwiches make the cut, but not a pair of dry shoes??  Ridiculous.

   I head out, bracing myself mentally for a potential snakebird encounter.  Luckily, I don't see any snakes, feasting or otherwise, and I excitedly wave when I see the batman runner coming, the first familiar face in a while!  Unfortunately, I realize that not having been dressed in bike gear when I met him at the water pump, he has no idea who I am and he ignores the crazy, partially mud covered, waving girl on the bike. Oh well. The ride is relatively pleasant for about an hour, after which is begins to rain.  Unlike the previous two days, this rain means business.  Giant drops plummet from the sky and cause me, for the first time, to consider donning not just the goretex jacket, but the pants as well.  I decide against it, and less than a minute later change my mind when the rain makes it clear he's not going anywhere.  Wishing I had brought pants that zip all the way up the side, I decide to pretend I did and just force the pants on over my shoes.  Bad idea.  After getting one leg on, I realize it was the wrong leg, but the shoe obstacle has already been overcome so I have no choice but to wear the pants backwards, so I do.  As soon as I start pedaling, I feel all the mud and grit that wiped off my shoes and into the pant legs grating against my knees.  Considering that my legs, my shorts, my everything were already sufficiently drenched prior to gore-texing up, it is not clear what purpose this rainproof layer is serving, but somehow it makes me feel better.  I'm wet and a little chilly, but at least I'm inside.  Something.  I have a moment of genius where I think of putting on my swimming goggles to help me see through the rain.  For the first half-second it works brilliantly, but then they fog up so much that I can't see anything so I move them to my forehead.
I make my way through the downpour, sloshing through the deep troughs in the towpath, getting better and more confident as I get a feel for how the tires handle in the water.  I scoff at yesterday Lauren and her timid approach to the tiniest of puddles - today Lauren would sail right through those!
Getting hungry, and coming upon the ruins of a stone archway, I pull over and hunker down under the arch for a while, and devour one of my five remaining PBHs.  Four, I think.  Four would have been the right number to bring.  I shall never be free of the peanut butter scented bag that's weighing me down.  Pretty sure I could double my pace if I weren't carrying all this peanut butter.
  Eventually the rain lets up and it feels like everything will be ok again.  I stop at the first restaurant I see in Hancock, MD, a big building with the word "RESTAURANT" painted on the side.  Excellent.  I worry that they may not let me in, given how completely drenched and covered in mud I am.  I wouldn't let me in.  The friendly hostess just smiles as I apologize for my disgustingness and assures me that being right next to the towpath they expect nothing less.  That's nice of her to say, considering I don't see anyone else in the place in anything but clean, dry clothes, but I feel welcome all the same.  Perhaps not surprisingly, "Bud and Lou's Food, Drink & Antiques" doesn't offer much in the way of vegetarian fare.  I briefly contemplate getting a salad and some fries, but I'm pretty sure that I will die, so I apologize to my crustacean friends and order a crabcake sandwich (minus the pork rinds.  Everything at Bud and Lou's comes with pork rinds.)  I go to the restroom to wash my hands and make a brief effort to wipe some mud off my legs with paper towels.  It doesn't take long to realize that there aren't enough paper towels in Bud and Lou's, possibly in all of Maryland, to rid my legs of mud and I give up, heading back to my table now with streaks of attempted mud removal running up my legs.
The food is delicious and all of a sudden it's time to get back on the bike.  Seriously?  I have to bike more?  I'm kind of over this.  Luckily I get a bit of a second wind and the last 16 miles on the path aren't too bad.  When I get to mile marker 141 I know I've missed the turnoff for my campsite.  I call for directions and then call again when the directions seem to be in direct contradiction with google maps.  The lady on the phone is very nice and assures me that it's left at the white house, over the bridge, to the right and then I'll see signs.  Sounds great.  What she fails to mention is the GIANT HILL that must be ascended after the little bridge.  When I finally arrive, huffing and puffing from walking my bike up the hill, I mention this and she smiles and admits that she "usually leaves that part out".  Smart lady.  I almost definitely would have given up and just stayed by the river had I known about the hill, despite the lack of shower facilities and the 2 days of mud and grime in which I am encased.  She expresses amazement at yet another lone female cyclist and tells me that I am the third one this week, though the others were going the other way. The campsite, Little Orleans Campsite, is $25 a night.  A bit steep, it seems to me, but I'm not about to go back down the hill, and once I find out they have not only showers but a laundry room with washers and dryers, I'm ready to pay anything.  I take my bike to the spigot and spend a good 10 minutes spraying off all my bags and the bike itself.  It's shiny and new(ish) again!  Next up is me.  I shower, and it is absolutely the best shower anyone has ever had, despite sharing the stall with a spider.  On my way back to my campsite I am stopped by a man, the husband of the woman who checked me in I think, who expresses his astonishment at the flood of unaccompanied female bikers this week and demands to know if there is some sort of convention.  Not that I am aware of.
I haul my pile of dirty, wet clothes to the laundry room and contemplate throwing my very wet shoes in for the drying cycle.  Can you put sneakers in the dryer?  Only one way to find out!  By googling "can you put sneakers in the dryer?" obviously.  Alas, my signal is too weak to obtain such data from the interwebs, so I throw caution to the wind and the sneakers in with the dryer load.  It works reasonably well, though I'm pretty sure the shoes are responsible for the fact that none of the clothes are completely dry.  I change another dollar for quarters and run the clothes by themselves.  They come out deliciously warm and dry, just like real laundry!
I make myself a dehydrated meal, and am in bed by the time the sun sets.

Day 2

Beans in the Belfry, Brunswick, MD

Harper's Ferry

My plan to wake up really really early is foiled by waking up only really early (8:30ish).  I decide it's still far earlier than normal Lauren would ever wake up, so there's time to go have a leisurely breakfast at Beans in the Belfry in town.  I discover that my efforts to dry my newly washed clothes have proved entirely fruitless and I tie a few particularly wet items to the front rack of the bike, pack up and bike up to Brunswick to stop at the cafe inside an old church where several other cyclists are already congregated.  Aha! So this is where socializing along the trail occurs; you have to stop and eat meals in town.  Despite this realization, I fail to make any life-long friends over breakfast, but enjoy myself all the same.  I also have my first encounter of the trip with unwelcome meat products.  Although I ask for an ingredient list before ordering the "southwest quiche" (tomatoes, peppers, cheese, I am told) and then receive an affirmative response to my follow-up question "So it's vegetarian?", I am met with a mouthful of quiche that seems far too sausage-like to be anything but sausage.  What is this, Senegal?  Conveying an order for orange juice in the local Brunswick dialect also proves far more difficult than anticipated ("Ohhhh, rnjuuu" the waiter finally translates for me. It is somehow a one syllable word in Brunswickian), so I decide against further efforts to obtain an actual vegetarian item and do my best to eat around the sausage.
   I head out for the day in the light drizzle, soon passing by harper's ferry, where several sad tubers try to enjoy the miserable weather.  This was exactly our predicament a year ago, though this group doesn't seem to have a guide in a canoe yelling at them to hurry up and tube faster.

Shephersburg, WV

  Around lunch time I find myself across the river from Shepherdsburg, WV, where my new doctor is from and told me i should stop by.  Unfortunately, the elevation change to get up there looks a little too daunting, and I almost pass by, but then decide to just try and turn back if it's too much.  In fact, it's not bad at all, and as I climb the switchbacks leading up to the bridge I realize I've been here before.  I ran down these switchbacks at 4am a couple years ago as I started my final leg in the American Odyssey relay.  Small world!  I also realize that the strange Bavarian looking palace where we gathered for that leg in the middle of the night is in fact the Bavarian Inn, site of my doctor's first job, and apparently a lovely place to stay, I learn from a hiker later in the day.
   I continue into Shepherdsburg, a cute little town with a university in session and plenty of activity.  I stop in Mellow Moods cafe for lunch and am very glad I did, as they have a wealth of veggie options.  I get a tempeh reuben sandwich (delicious!), but the most exciting part is the selection of potato chips.  I have never heard of dill pickle as a flavor, but it seems a reasonable potato chip flavor (unlike some bizarre potato chip concoctions of late...I'm looking at you, Lay's cappuccino) and I do love pickles, so this seems like a match made in heaven, and it is!  

Eels!

   After lunch it's back to the trail, which has some relatively muddy sections, and before long I am caked in a nice layer of towpath.  I stop for a snack at a nice waterfall and resolve to jump in the river later to clean off, but then have second thoughts upon learning about the presence of eels.

As I google "when is eel mating season" with no success, a fisherman (eel fisherman?) passes by and waves hello and seems to want to talk, which turns out to be difficult since he is apparently from Russia and speaks no English.  We exchange smiles, acknowledging the fact that it is now pouring rain, and I am covered in mud and obviously crazy.  Eventually the rain lets up as I come to one of the most beautiful parts of the trail, which I name Great Wall of Potomac.

Great Wall of Potomac

   Around mile 90 I stop to refill my water bottle and give up on the well after about 15 pumps that produce nothing.  A hiker sees me failing and comes to help, though I tell him it's broken.  He's right, it's not, you just have to pump some of the wells a good 50 times to get water.  He tells me that he's hiking from DC to Williamsport around mile 99, so he's on his last day.  I tell him I'm probably going to stop at a hiker/biker campsite a few miles up, so he says he'll see me again in a while.

I consider going a few more miles to a campsite with a shower, but after a couple days I have come to terms with my grossness, and feel that a dip in the (hopefully eelless) river will suffice.  I get to the Cumberland Valley hiker/biker site around 4:30, a little early for quitting, but I don't feel like biking anymore and now that it's a little sunny, I'm looking forward to going for a swim and setting up camp, which I do.

A while later, Vince, the hiker I met earlier, passes by and sees me lying on the picnic bench reading and tells me I look like I have it all figured out.  Yep, I'm a total camping expert by now.  As such, I decide that I will make use of my bear bag, and after dinner I stuff the bag with a small log and throw it up over a branch, hitting my target on the first try.  This is easy!  I hoist up all my food items in their pannier to prevent any unwanted overnight critter visits.

I settle into my tent for the evening and enjoy my first night of remote camping, as no one else is anywhere to be seen.

Day 1

I wake up around 9:30 in my warm comfy bed and have no desire to abandon it for a week to sit on a bike seat and live in a tent.  But, apparently I have decided to do this, so I'd better get going.  I enjoy my last purple smoothie breakfast, stuff as many peanut butter and honey sandwiches as will fit in 3 ziploc bags (6, as it turns out) and make some last minute decisions about whether certain items make the cut to come along (sorry second pair of sneakers, you have been classified as nonessential).  I gather my bags and secure everything to the bike.  I head downstairs and take a minute out front of the Griffin to get my mile 0 photo, while C.J., the front desk lady, observes the crazy girl from 804 and her latest antics.  I explain that I'm off to Pittsburgh.  "Someone coming to pick you up?" she asks.  "No, I'm biking there." She shakes her head and laughs as though this is the most ridiculous thing she has ever heard.  But she's not surprised.  "You're going to be so skinny when you get back!" she tells me.  That would be nice.  Perhaps she's still trying to make up for her outburst a few months ago where she saw my protruding belly and asked if I was pregnant.  (I was not, I had just been using my broken leg to justify a sharp uptick in milkshake consumption.  "My bones need calcium!")

Mile 0

   I take off around 11am and immediately notice the difference handling the bike loaded up with all its luggage, in that, I can't seem to handle it.  I have a brief moment of panic as I struggle to direct the bike with the handlebars and it fights back, but then I channel my motorcycle training and tell myself that if I can steer a 500+ pound machine then surely I should be ok on my bike with its extra 40ish pounds.  ("That's only a little more than two Olivers!" I exclaimed upon weighing the bags the night before.  Surely this should be no problem.)  In fact, after less than a minute I get used to it and it's no problem at all.

I take the Capital Crescent trail for the first 3 miles until it meets up with the towpath.  From here, it's all dirt for the next few days, except for when it's mud.  I expect more praise and encouragement from bystanders as I head out on my epic journey, but no one seems to notice or care.  Definitely should have brought my oversized teddy bear; if the girl with the dog in a backpack was a spectacle, then surely a bear strapped to the front of my bike would have been a conversation starter.   Alas, I am but a plain old human on a bike, so I resign myself to 7 days of solitude and pedaling.  Day 1 is rather uneventful, and this portion of the towpath is the same stretch that I covered one day last summer when I decided to bike to Harper's Ferry.  Because of this, I know not to expect much in the way of changing scenery, though Great Falls is beautiful and the highlight of the day.  Around mile 5 I turn and freak out as I notice a stowaway sitting on my left shoulder, enjoying the free ride.  He looks sort of like a praying mantis, but apparently he also flies, and he takes off as soon as I notice him.  I start to make mental notes of all the wildlife encountered, but quickly lose track after about 8 turtles and a bazillion deer.             

  I stop for lunch somewhere around mile 25 at a picnic table overlooking the Potomac and scarf down PBH number one along with an apple that I brought.  The more I eat the less I have to carry! I think, although this logic doesn't really seem to stand up to scrutiny since I still have to carry myself.  I ignore logic and inhale half a bag of dried mango and a bag of trail mix before getting back on the bike. 

  I had thought I might camp out at one of the hiker/biker campsites around mile 48, but as I approach the end of today's cycling quota, I decide that a few extra miles to get to a campsite with a legitimate shower will be well worth it.  I stay at Brunswick family campground around mile 55 and am very happy to wash off all the dirt, from myself in the shower and off my clothes in a bucket.  I hang up my newly washed clothes on my clothesline and make my first dehydrated dinner (beans and rice) and it is the most delicious thing I have ever tasted.  I then use the "lighten the load" justification to consume half of the rum cake that Diana brought me from Bermuda, read for a bit in my tent, and enjoy my first night of camping.