Sunday, May 31: Well, no thrashing sessions today, at least not on so-called “Railtrails”. And man, my upper body was just lit up this morning from all the bike portaging yesterday on that Moonville trail. Maybe it’s just that I’m getting old, or maybe it was a lot of bloody lifting. Whatever the case, my neck, traps & lats are feeling a bit sluggish right now. 

Got going at 8:30 AM right out of Lake Hope State Park. Now I could have done another 4 miles on the Moonville, but checking out my gazetteer last night I counted another three Xing’s of Hewett Creek. Honestly, just didn’t have it in me so I berminated  my way down Rt 278 south to Zaleski- and man, THAT was a wise choice because I could motor along at like 10 mph on this beautiful sandy berm. And you’ve got to realize that 10mph to me is like the Autobahn after the last couple of days riding. Made Judy happy to because she could always keep me in sight. So made Zaleski in no time. Then did berm on Rt 677 south to Red Diamond. Now the old RR line actually starts back up outside of Zaleski and continues all the way to the southwest where it joins up with a CSX main line just south of Chillicothe. Problem is that from Zaleski to Red Dimond, the line is kind of off-limits due to this Powder Plant being smack dab right on top of the RR. So it’s fenced off for some 3-4 miles in each direction. Don’t know what they do there…but they’re pretty big on security, so I wasn’t about to even get myself inside of that mess. , and this thing is massive. No choice but to berm ride, and again, the riding was pretty smooth, so we made great time to the town of Dundas. From Dundas the - we’ll call it a feeder line - power plant rail parallels a collection for roads. So I had the choice riding Rt 93, or riding down the middle of that single old RR. And I bounced back and forth based on how the berm/rail riding difficulty level was. 

Again, Judy was pretty happy to be able to kind of stay in close contact. She’d go 2-3 miles down the road and just wait, then we’d confer on whether I’d ride rail or berm, and then proceed down the line. At the town of Hamden we took a break with about 20 miles in the bag - a massive day for me at that point! From there we got on this little county road called Lesmil, and the berm was just total crap, which in berminator lingo means THERE WAS NONE! So I was on the RR riding down the middle with the road and the RR line almost touching one another in places so Judy and I could still keep an eye on one another - until the first wrench in the cog for the day - when all of a sudden there was a “Dead End” sign on Lesmil. Now I could keep rolling on RR, but Judy was in a quandary, and honestly…so was I. I’d used gazetteers and google Earth to do a lot of my mapping for this trip and both of these had Lesmil being a thru road all the way to Rt 327. BUT when I pulled out my gps it come up as a dead end. And on the other side, my gps says the same damned thing - dead end. Amazing! 

So I had to add lib a bit to get this thing done to Rt 327. Now Judy wanted no part in my add libbing with her getting on roads I hadn’t previously researched. I mean hell, I’ve screwed up routes that I HAD researched so I totally got her uneasiness. Loaded my bike in the van, pulled out my gps again and began zooming in on a van route to get us past the dead end thing and get us to Rt 327. Wasn’t too hard with Judy driving and me navigating with a gps. Made it to the other side with no problem. So I decided to berm ride from that end point back to our start point so that Judy would be ok. And actually it was much better than what I’d just ridden on the RR so it worked out ok. Minor problem, major fix. And we were back in business in the town of Byer. 

From Byer west Rt 327 goes dead parallel with this same old feeder line, so again I had a choice of two evils - berm or RR. Berm won out with some great sections where I could bump up the mph to 10 and 11 on occasion. Took this to the little hamlet of Ray. From Ray, again, the RR paralleled another west trending road - West Junction Rd. BUT, big issue here was that once you pick your poison, you’re committed, because the parallel really isn’t that close, and there are no roads to connect the two. I chose the berm of West Jnc Rd just to kind of keep Judy and I together, because she wouldn’t be able to see me at all once I’m on the RR line. 

Bad choice…VERY bad choice. The berm on West Jcn was just abysmal. Some of it was a fine, loose gravel that sloped down at 45-50 degrees, which just made both my wheels wash to the right down into deep ditches. Couple of time I just had to ride a section of asphalt just so I wouldn’t plant my ass face down in a five foot deep ditch. I’m all about the ethics of this trip, but I’m not going to get stupid about it. So I had several of these episodes. The good sections of berm on this tiny county road were about 6-8 inches wide where you’re teetering on this thin little line. Go right just a smidgen and you’re ass over tea kettle in the ditch. By now I’ve become very proficient at holding a good line and looking down the road. Those big fat 2.4 tires also help out. 

By the time I made the town of West Junction to meet Judy I was pretty flamed from the berm ride over the prior 5 miles. Now to get to our next meeting point, I had to go full RR line and Judy had to go full little 1.5 lane backroads, and she wasn’t too keen on doing these on her own, so what I did was another reverse segment where I co-piloted her to what was to be my end point, and then got out and rode the RR line back to where I ended up in West Junction. Worked perfectly as Jude could get back to West Junction having already driven from there. And I could ride RR because there was on other option. Only down point is that we’re using double the amount of gas and it’s taking more time…BUT if she’s happy I’m happy. So we’re good. 

By the end of this section my ass was feeling like I had a bad case of diaper rash, what with all the jarring from riding down the middle of RR half the day. I mean I even told Judy that I was going to have to get some baby powder for my sore red ass! So again, we drove back to where I started that RR segment for the final segment of the day, from Richmond Dale to just across the Scioto River, some 11 miles south of Chillicothe. Did that all on berm and we were done. 

Feel like I at least got in some distance today, I’m guessing like 40-43 miles - huge day since we got going again last Thursday. Tomorrow is kind of technical in that I need to get past Chillicothe via no asphalt if at all possible. Got two choices here: First is to just paddle down the Scioto River to where I ended up today; OR to do 6-7 miles on a “somewhat active RR line” that has this bomber dbl track on the left side - very alluring! Bad part about option two is that I just have not been able to find a put-out point if I ride the RR and paddle half. All the put-outs are on private property. So I’m going to do a bit more research tonight and make a decision then. Until tomorrow….Late

Friday, May 29: Just absolutely dead tired today. My intent was to gallantly try to stay on schedule today, but with some routing gaffs on my part, and Judy and I again, AGAIN having trouble getting a couple of our support stops together, I ended up about 13-15 miles short of our goal - Lake Hope State park - and 13-15 miles at 6-8mph is an additional 2 hrs of riding I have to tack on to the next day. I guess this is going to be the theme of American Dirt: unable to complete the daily schedule and having directional issues. 

Got going around 9 AM today, and did the reverse ride technique such that I could navigate Judy to the start, and then ride back to where I left off yesterday. Now this the a section of the Athens-Belpre Railtrail. And I’ll tell you what….you think that Harrison County Railtrail in Wva was bad, wow, this thing is worse that anything I think could ever be conceived for the mt bike portion of an adventure race. It was just pure degradation! To start with, the weather down here is hot and humid, so as soon as you enter the woods it’s like stepping into a rain forest, and I had to wear these bushwhacking pants to boot…with low top hiking shoes instead of my cycling shoes…wearing a small backpack…and sporting a duel suspension mt bike that weighs about 27 lbs. 

The first half mile was pretty reasonable, which lulled me into this false sense of security. That, until I hit this bridge abutment where the bridge was out, and below me, down about 40 feet was a Skunk Creek which looked to be about 4-5 feet deep in the middle. So I kind of left the bike up high while I did recon below hoping to either find a shallower Xing area, or find some trees that fell across the creek. Well, the shallow thing was a no-go, but down the creek about 30 yards to my left were two downed trees that completely Xed the stream. So I went back up to the top, drug my bike down to the creek - with much strain and drain - and then traversed over to the trees. Put the bike down in the creek, with the water coming up to about my seat, then I straddled one of the trees and did this very slow shuffle of my feet on the tree as I lifted the bike along, using it as a kind of counterbalance against my going in the drink. 

Got across ok, then had to drag the bike back up the embankment to the top, which was WAY harder than doing the stream Xing! Was able to ride some, then walk some, then ride some, then walk some. But it was much faster than just doing a hike-a-bike with the big bike pack on, that’s for sure. I hit 4 abutments where the bridges were out, and had to do that same routine of thrashing down to the creek, ford the creek, then thrash back up to the top. Got same stupid video of me doing this crap, and just showed it to Judy tonight. Not surprisingly she thinks this is just ridiculous. But anyway, made it back to yesterday’s parking area, at the east end of the trail in about 1 hr. That section was about 4-5 miles in length, but if just felt like 15-20 miles of effort! 

Ok, so then we went back to where I’d just started, and I began this 9-10 mile gravel road section up Frost Rd going west along the Hocking River towards Athens, and paralleling more of the Athens-Belpre Railtrail. Now I could have continued to ride the rail trail, but honestly, hell, I could just cruise on the gravel road that was only 50 feet away. The rail trail was just a continuation of the same bungle in the jungle stuff I’d just spent an hr thrashing through. Now this road was mostly gravel, but there were spots that turned to pavement, they were rough, and the gravel berms on both sides pretty much negated me even having to worry about them. Judy just kind of went up the road a few miles at a time until I told her to just go up ahead to the little hamlet of Stewart - I WAS GOOD! Yea, famous last words. 

Somehow I did this bonehead move and continued north on Rt 329 instead of going south on 329, and damn, I do my homework each night on the next day’s ride, and I’d darn well gone over this move. But nope, I went the wrong freaking way…like 5 miles of berminator riding out of the way. Judy had called me and I told her I was on 329, and almost there…and I just kept riding and riding, passing these little hamlets I hadn’t been familiar with while doing the homework. Finally, I saw this kid riding his bike going north as I was, and I asked him how far up to Stewart? He looked at me like I was a total freak, “Stewart’s 10 miles back that away,” he told me. “If you’re riding that bike it’s going to take you all day,” he added! Felt like I’d been hit with a hammer in the head. so I tried to call Judy, but had zero bars - no service. So I turned around and just rode on the pavement about about 18mph, occasionally stopping to check to see if I had service. Finally did about 4 miles back down the road. Got ahold of Judy and asked her to drive up me way to get me. 

When she arrived I was just smoked from the berm riding and then smoked from the TT effort to get my ass back down the road. I sheepishly told her how I just totally screwed up. And, then added “I’m applying that 5+ miles of berminating I just did to the north, to the southern end of 329 to Guysville.” And she was VERY good with that idea. She made me a turkey sandwich which I chased down with a coke and a ton of water, and then we drove back to where I made my mistake, and then continued south to Guysville, at the junction with Rt 50/32 to Athens. From there I did the berminator thing 9 miles all the way to Athens, one of the longer berm sections of the trip thus far. At that point the old RR grade is just obliterated by the construction of Rt 50/32, dbl lane highway on both sides. So my only choices were to berminate or paddle up the Hocking into Athens. Berm riding was the easy choice since it’s way faster. And actually I was able to do anywhere from 6-11 mph on that section of road all the way to the junction with the Hocking-Adena Bikeway in southern Athens. 

So along the way, and I’m just sweating my butt off on this nasty humid afternoon, riding in the grass berm along the highway trying to really keep the speed up and the rhythm consistent, and Judy calls me to tell me she cannot find any bike and hike trailhead I’d told her to meet me at, and that she got off of exit 17 in downtown Athens. And like the &%&^$^# that I am, I kind of snapped at her telling her how hard it is to stop and answer the phone when I’m dripping with sweat and working my tail off. Told her rather tersely to just hang there and I’d call her when I got into town. When I did get to the trailhead I’d told her about (and in her defense it was NOT on Rt 50, but on State St., because 50 turns into a kind of interstate and goes around town, I tried to call her 5-6x, but she had no service. Actually tossed the phone to the ground I was so miffed. Yea, made it a “soft” toss rather than a hard slam so as to not end up in even more of a pickle. 

So I rode back a bike on the grassy berm further north to try to meet up with her at Richland Rd, which is where exit 17 goes. Now this bikeway is really all paved, but it’s easy to ride on the grass berm all the way through Athens, but right now they tore up the asphalt on a bout a 3-mile section and left it as a gravel base, which worked perfect for me. Got all the way to Richland Rd, right next to the U football stadium, and lo and behold I see Judy driving by right as I got to Richland. Well, to make a long story short she found out that she had no service and went to begin looking for me, then realized that the last thing she told me was exit 17 in downtown Athens, so she was driving back to park. We hooked up at the stadium. Man, I was just parched, pissed, nearly cracked from the riding and grinding all day, and completely drenched in sweat. 

Divine timing for sure, because the whole way up that stretch I was  worried I would not be able to contact her if I couldn’t find her on Richland. Ok, by this time we’re at like 2 PM, in the heat of the day. So new strategy: let’s do a reverse segment where I navigate her down to the end of the next section and then I ride it back to Athens to where we were at at the football stadium. It’s been working pretty well lately, let’s try it again. We drive to Mansfield to where this abandoned RR line from Athens goes. And I look at it on the west to east section, and it’s a bloody jungle. It’s quite possibly a hike-a-bike to be sure. Just didn’t have it in me to do that 7 mile section on top of what I’d already done. Rode back to the other side of Mansfield (takes about 10 pedal strokes to go from the east side of town to the west side!!!) to look at the east to west section and it looked good with really solid ATC track. Ok, how about plan #3: drive back and finish the whole Athens section from the start of the abandoned RR line…AND secure a motel for the night because we were both just at wit’s end at that point. Done - Super 8 Athens. So I was going to deliberate on how I wanted to approach that jungle section tonight, kind of sleep on it as to whether it was a berminator   session or a thrash and push session, or a hike-a-bike session. 

Got dropped off and rode the initial abandoned RR grade back into Athens to it’s junction with the Hocking-Adena Railtrail, and then rode that back to the stadium to meet up with Judy. Did Subway on the way back to the motel and now we’re just relaxing in the AC after a 30 minutes shower each. We’re both just slammed tired right now. Tomorrow I’ll have to pick my poison as to how to approach that 7-mile section. From Mansfield it looks like it may be easier to get to Lake Hope State Park. We’ll see. Until tomorrow.

Tuesday, 5-19: Stayed the night camping at North Bend State Park, and man was it humid for the early evening. We crashed in the van (Judy is claustrophobic and will rip my tents to shreds, so the van is our abode!) and had to keep the rear doors open for the breeze. Well that worked well until later at night when the squeeters came out. We both had multiple bites and ended up having to close the doors and open the rear vent windows - BUT the damage was done: we’d let in God knows how many of the little varmints and they plagued us the rest of the night. In the morning we were comparing the number and placement of bites. 

Got rolling at 7:45 AM out of the park, and right back out to the trail where I finished yesterday. Today I wanted to get to the Ohio River by noon so we could drive back home. Luckily, the rest of the trail, from North Bend State Park, all the way to Happy Valley, is on cinder. No more of the grassy dbl track that’s soft and tough to maintain speed on. So I could really motor. And today, man the legs are actually starting to feel strong again. On the uphill sections leading into a tunnel, and some of these were a good 2-3 miles long, I was able to just punch out a nice tempo pace. The tweaked left knee was decent, not great, but decent in that bigger tempo gear.  The humidity was still high today, and once inside a couple of the longer tunnels, there is this fog from all the air droplets just hanging suspended inside the cool rock walls. Even with a headlamp, it’s like driving a car through a heavy fog - you can only see about 2-4 feet in front of you. Pretty cool, but kind of dangerous if there’s some fallen rock or big chuckhole deep inside the tunnel. 

My first 10 miles was pretty tough cuz nearly half of that was a long, gradual climb up to the day’s first tunnel, then it was a great low angle descent down for several miles. X’ed this one creek on small wooden bridges like 9x - Goose Creek. Remember the name. Seemed to be an end to the oil and gas goings ons out here, from North Bend State Park west. Pretty darned mellow the rest of the way. This section, North Bend State Park west looks MUCH more ridden than the prior 45 miles of the eastern section. But still, over the course of 2 days I saw exactly 3 riders - 2 thru riders and one solo, what looked to be day rider. That’s it. This trail is just heaven! If you crave solitude, North Bend is the ticket! And this western section I did today, not too much mudder stuff. Just a little bit of mud around the entrance/exits of the tunnels and that’s about it. 

Past one cool little town stuck in a timewarp - Cairo. They have this distinctive charm, like you just rode into the 30s, 40s or 50s. Then you ride out and you’re right back in the middle of the Wva wilds. About 3-4 miles from the western terminus of the trail you’re riding along the Little Kanawha River. This is your signal that the end is near. But for me, my end was the Ohio River. Met up with Judy at the western terminus trailhead about 30 min ahead of schedule. Slammed some great lukewarm coffee that I had left over from this morning (this Sumatra stuff that Judy brewed at camp), and ate half an orange, then just had to get this last 5 mile section out of the way so we could leave by noon. 

Now this section is a grunt, (this one’s for you Marsita:) a crapfest, and a bit of an illegality. So the actual RR track is still intact as if you continue to ride west past the trail’s terminus. Looks like the ATC crowd uses this on occasion. So it continues as dbl track along the old RR tracks, and then it peters out into single track, kind of like a tunnel of foliage that you have to ride through. Then it just ends and there’s nothing but the RR track with all this plant and tree growth in the middle. So I rode this for another mile until it went behind some recently built commercial businesses. So I berminated it around them and got back on the old RR right in back of this business, where this chick was out back having a smoke, I waved and jumped back into the woods on the old  RR and kept riding. She did this dbl take watching me disappear into the woods. Well, finally had to dismount and just push the bike down the RR to clear all the brush out in front of me. I was kind of like bulldozing it. Then came to Rt 47, where it has this beauteous cinder berm. Got on that and paralleled the RR track, which were like 40 feet away to my left, but nearly hidden by the jungle of overgrowth. So I knew I was good until 47 veered to the right and the old RR would actually start up again and go into downtown Parkersburg on the left (this from prior recon).

And did just that, got on the RR line as it emerged  from the jungle and then just rode down the middle into the city. But within spitting distance of the outskirts of Parkersburg I get this wake up call - some CSX guys doing track repair up ahead of me about 400 yrds, and I’m riding down the middle of the tracks on a freaking bright orange 29er! Ok, plan B: get off near this little park, ride in the grass around the CSX guys and then get back on to their rear. It worked and they never knew me. And really I only needed to be on these things for such a short tine. Just enough to gain river access. Then I went to my left and bushwhacked down along the Little Kanawha. This was a your typical meat grinder of a hike-a-bike. Well, actually in my case it was a drag-a-bike. Down here along the creek were these abandoned “hobo” cities. I mean shredded tents and shantyvile box shelters and campgrounds. Hell, this one even had like a prayer alter and such. It was pretty intense. There is a feeble trail down there along the river, but really it’s just a complete debacle of a hike. More of a game trail really. Had to drag, push, carry, ferry, and do everything but RIDE the bike through about 1.5 miles of this crap. Just go down the the Cuyahoga River with your bike and hike along the banks of the river out in a wooded area. It’s marshy, muddy, choked with garbage and flood refuse. And I’m doing this in my Sidi mt biking shoes dragging a 25 lb bike behind me. My poor shoes look like they belong alongside all the other shit down there stuck in trees and imbedded in the mud. 

But I made it past all the commercial factory stuff up above the river that literally forms a blockade for getting down to the point along the Ohio, and I followed this hobo path back up to the RR right about where the Little Kanawha empties into the Ohio River. Rode down the middle of the RR tracks to the entrance to Parkersburg’s Point park, which is right on the Ohio, across from Belpre, Oh and the Rt 50 bridge. Did it: all off asphalt and concrete right through the middle of downtown Parkersburg! And so I made the Ohio line from Lewes, DE all off road. Freaking really happy, and that last 2-mile grunt made it all that sweeter.

Judy wasn’t there, as I got a call from her about 10 min after I arrived on the point. She’d driven across the bridge to Belpre, so she drove back. Met her there about 15 min later and we were done for this first leg of American Dirt.  This one week rest is definitely needed for both of us: for Judy to destress from all the crazy negotiating of my F’ed up routes, and dirt and gravel roads, and waiting for me to arrive, and no cell service, and getting stuck, and worrying, and the utter frustration at times. Man, I owe her big-time. She’s awesome and I love her like nobody’s business! For me, man I’m wipped out physically and mentally right now. My left knee was pretty good today…until that ass backwards freaking bushwhack in cycling shoes with a duel suspension 29er mt bike that I pretty much drug through the bush for what seemed like an eternity. 

So we’re shutting down the blog from May 20 thru May 27. I’ll fire the blog back up on May 28 when we start back on the Ohio River at Point Park in downtown Parkersburg for my canoe across the Ohio to Belpre, Oh to begin the 2-month journey to Coos Bay, Oregon. Thanks to everyone for your emails and phone calls of encouragement. Thanks also to those of you who have given us support through the donations etc on the American Dirt website and otherwise. You’ve all been so good to us. All the best to each and every one of you, and talk to you soon……Pete

Sunday, May 17: You know, I thought that my day of dealing with the segment out of Smithfield, Pa, doing that gnarly section across and through Grassy Creek for an hour, I thought that would be the show stopper. But nope, today was just the grinder of grinders - 2 segments back to back. I’ll have bad dreams of this one just as I do of my hike down Piscataway Creek back in MD. 

The day started with an ominous note - rain all night and a light drizzle in the morning, and a total sock-in really for the whole area. Local forecast was for rain, rain, and more rain. Nothing but rain. We got on the road early, and what with the weather, my being about 5 days behind schedule, and the amount of time I’d have to paddle on West Fork Creek, I’d decided last night to brave the monster and ride this section, or at least half of this section and then paddle the other half. The section I’m talking about is Shinnston to Clarksburg. I did it back in 2012 for my AM DT attempt and it was just off the charts horrible. It’s the same old RR line - no rails or ties, just ballast - that makes up the Mon River trail north of Shinnston. And it’s the same abandoned RR line that makes up the North Bend Rail Trail. BUT, that’s about it. Between the start of the North Bend Trail in Wolf Summit, Wva, and the end of the Mon River trail in Shinnston, Wva is a dizzying mess of shit that is just…well let me call it the Tough Mudder! Yea, I’d just love to see Ken and Barbie Cross-Fit with bib numbers on their chiseled bodies do this freaking abomination. I guarantee that there’d be zero smiles at the end of this 20-mile swampathon! 

In places it’s just pure agony. But I’ll get into that later. Anyway, this is my bridge to link those trails and get me all the way to the Ohio border. And it exists, but it’s a total enigma in spots. So same strategy as yesterday: Drive with Judy to the start point and ride to yesterday’s end point in Shinnston. Glad we did it this way because the start to the “Harrison County Rail Trail” is just as invisible as the start of the West Fork Creek Trailhead. Now just a word about the Harrison County Rail Trail…..WHAT????? They’ve no business even calling this anything but what it is - a freaking quagmire - because it’s one of the all time worst “trails” I’ve ever ridden. How in God’s name this is designated as trail is amazing. But to have it listed in the County’s website as a recreational trail is beyond me. 

So finding the trailhead is like a Easter Egg Hunt. It’s just that hard to find, at the end of a little street in this dumpy neighborhood on the south side of Clarksburg. There isn’t even a trailhead or a sign. There’s just the start of a trail. So I had to navigate to get us there, and then I’d ride to Shinnston where Judy waited for me yesterday. So that was a good idea. But we also scouted out a place where I could put in the canoe after I rode half the monster. But every single bridge crossing across West Fork Creek was just horrible. I’d have to bushwhack through all kinds of crap to get that canoe in, and these were WAY worse than yesterday’s put-in. So in total resignation, I decided that I’d have to either paddle the whole thing, or ride the whole thing. Ride it was the only logical answer with the terrible weather and a super long paddle - about 12-14 river miles. 

By the time we got back to the trailhead the rain had picked up to a steady state. Just knew that this was going to be bad. But it would save me about 2-3 hrs if I rode it rather than paddled it. So off I went into the abyss. Within 5 minutes, what with the rain and the puddles on the trail and the small streams running down the trail, I was thoroughly soaked. Legs were mud covered and my shoes felt like winter goulashes filled with water. This trail, well, it’s really ATC track that’s as rough and rutted as you can get. And then there’s garbage dumped on the sides of the trail, like these mutton heads just lugged their garbage down there on their machines and threw the stuff off willy-nilly. It’s a total dump. 

Now when you’re soaked and mud covered, you have a different mindset: you just plow through everything, without a care cuz you’re already a mess. And that was me in the first 5 minutes. Now I kid you not, I have some video of walking my bike through what looks like a river. It’s not, it’s a puddle 2.5 feet deep that spans the whole width of the trail and goes on down the trail for 25 yards! I rode through a couple of smaller ones, but this one, yikes, it was so muddy on the bottom that my wheels just quit moving. I had to dismount and just wade through with the bike. There was about a mile of that crap. Then I came to a fenced off area, which I’ve found out is due to a hazardous waste dump in the area, but hell the fencing is pulled back and the trail goes right on through - and so did I! I hope I don’t glow this evening. 

Now the County website lists an trailhead ending, but that’s total BS. There is no ending trailhead. You’re choice at the fence is to go back through the quagmire to the start or continue onward. Rode along this fence line for another mile and then went around the other side of the fence line - along a path, and I met Judy at the van. I motioned her forward and got going on another section for rot gut crap. But on this section there is a bridge out over a feeder stream and then ATC track goes WAY around to the east, and I got fouled up in the tangle of tracks. Cost me about 30 min. Go back on track and had to: climb over tons of deadfall, X more knee deep puddles, take branches, limbs, thorns and briars to the arms, legs, face, and negotiate softball sized beds of ballast that sucked the tires left and right but never straight. 

Then, this thing comes to within 2 miles of Shinnston, and it’s gated off and fenced in. So I had to climb this 50 foot high embankment, dragging the bike to get the hell out of there, and I see the van, and I feel good that’s it’s almost over. BUT as I got close to the van I notice that it’s in a ditch. I mean IN the ditch. And there’s Judy, and she looks totally bummed. And I say, “WTF” very loudly, where just across the street is a Baptist Church, with 5-6 people of the porch watching and listening to me. Judy had backed up to park and almost dumped it, and I do mean almost tipped it over in a ditch. One wheel was nearly hanging off into the ditch. And there I am, so mud covered I looked like Al Jolson. I had bits of leaves, black coal cinder, twigs, and mud in my hair, and a rooster tail of mud from my ass all the way up to my neck. And there I am standing in the rain yelling WTF!

I tried to move it very gingerly, but no way. So I walked up to this little Frack trailer park and asked a young lady if she knew anyone who could pull us out. She had to think I was the monster from the black lagoon. But she went in and her husband came out agreeing to help. Super nice guy. We chained my frame to his trailer hitch and he had no problem pulling us out with his F-250. We offered money but the guy wanted no part of it. So one we went, with Judy agreeing to a “no backing the van” clause. Now I rode berm on Rt 19 two miles back to Shinnston, this because the old abandoned line is totally obliterated by a nuclear power plant. I found this out 3 years ago with I tried to ride totally through. And at the fences of this place, you DO NOT go around. So I knew I’d be doing those last 2 miles of berm. It was actually pretty easy, with just a few tight sections. 

Got in the van and stripped down, using this old sheet that I use for putting on the roof of the van while loading my canoe, to wipe down with. Put on fresh kit, socks and had a couple sandwiches - which tasted gritty from you mud clogged hands. Then it was back to Clarksburg to where the exact little dumpy trailhead that I started at this morning to start the next section. From there I’d ride south to Wolf Summit and the start of the North Bend trail. I just wanted to get there, get on the bike and do it. Again, it was still raining, but this time probably took about 10 minutes to be soaked. Rode some berm out of this dingy little neighborhood, Xed Rt 50, got on an active RR line for 200 yrds, and then took the abandoned RR line south. The main line went west, and I continued on the “ghost” bed of the old RR line, which is still used by ATV guys. First couple miles is fairly dry - just miles of super thick RR ballast that’s like riding on marbles. Then the fun starts. 

The foliage gets so thick, so low that I literally had to dismount and just duck, chest down to knee level, and drag the bike behind me. Riding it is impossible. How the ATV guys get though this is a mystery to me. Now the rain was still steady, and plowing through this foliage was like walking under a waterfall for a mile. I mean my daypack with gear - all in a dry bag - actually filled up with water. Felt like I’d added 15 lbs to the pack. Since I did this back in 2012, things have changed: now a Frack village had been put in right on the old RR line. These are like villages for the transient Fracking guys who come from all parts of the US to work in the gas/oil industry. They live in 5th wheels and trailers in these gravel lots that are carved out overnight for them. So I had to ride this small country road’s gravel berm for a half mile - which was WAY better than the trail - before finding the track again. 

The remainder of the track was like a small stream flowing with the past 24 hrs worth of rain. God was I ever happy to see the van at Wolf Summit for the end of that thing. But before stopping I went up into this little neighborhood to see if someone would let me hose my bike down. Found an elderly gentleman who was kind enough to invite me into the yard to use their hose. He and his wife were quite amused at me and my mud and foliage caked bike. Felt awesome to hose that puppy down. Even hosed off my legs and shoes just for good measure. By the time I went back to the van the rain had stopped and the sun came out. By this time it was 1:30 PM. I was bloody done for the day. And I felt that a motel was in order for both of us. Hard effort - short day - hot shower! 

Tomorrow I hope to do most of the North Bend Trail, this so we can return home on Tuesday to get ready for our trip to Nashville. My goal for this portion of American Dirt was to make the Ohio Line before we had to come back. I think we’re almost there!

Friday, May 15: Now I know I’ve started a few blogs with the “Welcome to the Jungle” open. But nonetheless I’ll start it this way again. It was truly a jungle out there for the first half of the day. So Judy dropped me off at yesterday’s end point and I was dressed for the occasion - with my jungle Jim pants, long sleeve shirt, hiking shoes, and backpack - to ride a bike! Yea, that first section where the RR line ends is just a jungle. So our gameplan was to have Judy stay in close proximity in case I had to make a switch to bikepacking rather than riding. So I just had her go one road Xing at a time as I rode on this mess. First half mile was like riding blind through an abandoned farm field with chuckholes and small sapplings all over the place. I played dodgem the whole time. 

Made it through that section, met Judy and motioned her on to the next abomination, this time I had to push the bike up the old RR grade to the ballast and then ride this total crapfest for another mile or sod. From a old concrete bridge above the road below I motioned her to continue on to the next point. But about a quarter mile up I ran into this complete blockade of woods on the old grade. Even the ATC guys avoided this section. I mean it was just a complete jungle of 20-30 year old trees and brush, so tightly packed together I’d have needed a machete to get through the mess. So I went to plan B - ride berm for a couple miles on these old country roads to the next section. Now I recommend this, wrote it down, memorized it, the whole shot, but be damned if I didn’t make a wrong turn! Got my gps out and sure enough, I’d just berm ridden about 2 miles all for naught. Established the right road combinations and went the right way. Had a few little climbs along the way - on berm at 3 mph - and I was just soaked in sweat what with the long pants, long sleeve shirt, and hiking shoes while riding a bike. I must have looked like a homeless guy riding around totally oblivious to the world. 

But I met up with Judy at our designated meeting point, this little cafe that’s looking pretty OOB, and that called Rails To Trails. But hell, it’s listed on Google maps. So I peeled off the soaking clothing I had on, and changed into my cycling kit…BUT I still kept on knickers, and a long sleeve polypro top, this because I knew what was in store for me on this crazy mouse section of ATC track on the abandoned RR grade. Did this thing back in 013, and I knew that I’d have to have a freaking suit of armor on to withstand all the shit that was coming at me on this one. So I asked Judy to meet me in Point Marion and just wait there. I’d be on my own for this little outing. 

Got going and right off the bat I was weaving around these massive mud puddles and trying not to get my freaking head taken off by low hanging branches - no wonder these ATC guys were full motocross helmets! Jesus, I needed a damn welders mask and body armor on to withstand all the low hanging branches, rose bushes, prickers, and blunt end limbs that came my way. But that was the tame stuff. Just down the trail is this section where the RR trestles were removed, and I’m talking like 5-6 trestles removed over this little creek. So what I found in my recon in 013 is that the ATC guys go down and either ride across the creek and then back up to the old grade, or ride IN the creek between the old bridge abutments and then go back up AT the abutment. I knew from past experience that when the main track goes down to the creek….THAT’S the right track. Take a softer side track on the high side and you come to the top of an old abutment and you’re SOOL. 

And hell, I even remembered the sections of downs and ups, which made me feel good. But still, I had to really stay aware of the track because the downs, some of them are at like a 45-50-degree angle. I mean there’re VERY steep, and some of the ups are just the same. So you pick your battle carefully. And then at the bottom you really have to ride right across the creek or you’re like an old lady walking on marbles for 20 yards, what with the slimy, goose-shit slippery rocks on the bottom of the creek bed. Cycling shoes and that slimy crap just don’t mix. Well, on that new 29er, I have to say my 26er was way more stable riding across and through the stream beds (used a 26er on recon in 013). Maybe that’s because I’m so much higher on the 29er. But most of the time I did make it across. Now I did get soaking wet feet from the splashing. And a couple times I just about lost it on the slimy rocks, like BIG rocks, these long chunks of shale about the size of a coffee table!

Ok, now the gnarly stuff for the day: Biffed it on a descent. On these descents you have a choice - either be totally committed or ride down chicken-shit style. I’d do the low angle descents to the creek totally committed, but do the chicken-shit thing on the steep ones. So on this one, it started out low angle and then just pitched really steep. So I feathered the brakes, and my mind was like “dude abort this mission NOW”, so I tried to stop to dismount but the rear end was just pulling off the ground and I was stutter stepping with one leg so as not to do an endo, and finally dumped it on my left side - my sore freaking left knee side! The mission was indeed aborted and I was ok, save for my right wrist that help to brace the landing. 

From then onward I was Mr. Chicken-shit, and walked the descents. Now the second gnarly, well that one was a creek Xing, one of about 10-12 Xings. But this one, God, it went about 3 feet deep into the stream. I mean it was like going from 10 mph to 1 mph, doing this slow motion thing of pedaling IN the water - aqua-biking. I had to pull out and walked the bike the remaining 1/4 of the way across. Tell you what…I damn near had it if not for the mud on the bottom of this Xing. Then there was another section that I had to ride down the middle of the stream for about 50-75 yrds - cuz that’s where the ATC guys went. No tracks on the sides of the creek. 

So I made it through this stream section and got down to the Cheat River. Then there’s yet another abandoned RR line that the ATC guys have tracked out which goes east-west along the river. This was great, as I rode right along the Cheat, just above a road on some really good ballast. These guys have some of these sections just carved 2-3 feet down into the ballast, with the ballast pretty cemented down to good dbl track. But for the last 2 miles of this section, one of my favorites over the years of recon work, that they’re putting in this massive pipe system. So it’s been torn up from digging and such. It was a total pain in the ass with all the construction work that has been going on here. Makes me wonder if this last few miles will be gone in the near future. 

Go to Point Marion in pretty good time. I was a soaking, sodden mess. I dropped my soaked clothing over the windshield of the van to dry as I sat in the van and fueled up for the next section. So I’d just crapped out a second set of clothing in less than 4 hrs! Put on fresh socks, a fresh top and got it rolling for the next section - The end of the Sheepskin Trail, and onto the Mon River trail. So if you’re wondering what the hell I’m doing, I’m actually connecting the Sheepskin trail in Dunbar, PA, to the Mon River Trail in WVA - it’s the very same RR line. Now this is supposed to be a thru rail trail in the future, but I’ll tell you what - NOT in my lifetime, that’s for sure. 

Rode about 3 blocks of berm in Point Marion, a pathetically morbid little place, and hopped on the southern end of the Sheepskin trail, a bumpy ride on raw RR ballast. That goes straight into the Mon River Trail as you enter WVA. The name comes from the Monongahela River - Mon River - which you ride along.  First 6 miles are nice crushed limestone, then it turns to pavement for 6 miles as it passes by Morgantown. Had to do berm, and it’s just hilarious as I’m riding berm and these people look at me like “what the hell, get on the pavement you idiot!. Some of the berm section as just about 2 feet wide, and that’ s exactly why I had Steve cut me down some shorty bars, just for sections like this. That way I won’t get the bars caught on fencing or branches. Worked great. Now it was hard, don’t get me wrong, but that’s where this big 29er with 2.4 tires just shines. I can hold onto a cambered line and just stay with it. My 26er was very unsteady on these cambered berm sections when I did recon. 

Met Judy in downtown Morgantown, fueled up again, and was off for the final section of the day - 18 miles of crushed limestone on the Mon River Trail to Fairmont and Prickett’s Fort SP. Beautiful scenery and easy riding all the way. I think I did about 13 mph for the stretch. Hit Prickett’s Fort and had to do a little berm section cuz the trail went back to pavement for the last half mile. Now the next section is this paddle from Prickett’s Fort SP to the start of the West Creek Trail in downtown Fairmont. So with the luck we’ve had in our coordinating directions I decided to go there with Judy to show her how to get there. Well, the road I’d chosen was private property, so I asked a person at the business there how to get to the trailhead. His directions were vague, but we followed them and ended up in this freaking little nowhere’s ville that’s barely even marked. Thank God I did this with Judy cuz we’d have had another episode - and that’s on me not her. 

So what I’m going to do tomorrow is paddle the West Creek at the start of the West Creek Trail, and take it into the Monongahela and paddle back to Prickett’s Fort. Then we’ll drive back to the start of the West Creek trail and I’ll ride that 18 miles to Shinstown. This way Judy will have me to navigate this shitty section through Fairmont. I have to do the paddle to bypass all the inner-city riding through the dregs of Fairmont, WVA on asphalt to connect these two trails. 

Ok, my left knee. Pretty damn sore this morning. But I can ride. Just hurts to walk. I’m walking with a slight limp right now, and all that pushing and pulling the bike up and down that stream section, that really hurt. Two buffs over the last two days on my left side didn’t help either. But, let’s just keep this thing rolling. 

Want to say hello to some friends who were kind enough to email and call within the last several days: Thanks much to Bill R, Wally S, Andrew F, and Dominc C. Love you guys and thanks so much for your encouragement. Talk to you all soon…….Pete

Wednesday, May 13: What a difference a day makes - the weather, my bum, no getting stuck and lost, and the terrain. Well, stayed last night at this little hole in the wall motel, recommended by my cycling bud Bill. And I’ll tell you what for 45 bucks Charlie’s Motel was a real deal. No frills for sure, but very clean, fridge and microwave, and wifi and dbl beds. And it was right next to this little sports pub that had some crazy good food for us budget minded folk! All in all it was worth the 10-mile drive out of Cumberland and into Frostburg. 

Ok, so got up this morning and it was a chilling 42 degrees. Yea, freaking crazy. We could feel the front moving in late afternoon as we were eating on the deck of the sports pub. The wind was just lifting chairs and tossing them off the deck like tooth picks. So no breakfast at our no frills motel, and we packed up at 6:30 AM and headed to Mickey D’s where Judy fulfilled her coffee jones and I was able to work while sipping coffee and eating their stellar food! Got down to the end point of yesterday with the temp at a chilling 44 degrees, a real shocker after some 11 days of 80+ degrees. Ended up putting on two pr. of cycling shorts with a pr. of cycling knickers over top of those, and up top I had a poly pro long sleeve and an insulated long sleeve winter cycling top. Also had gloves and earwarmers. 

Now the terminus of the C & O canal trail is the beginning of the GAP trail - Great Allegheny Passage. The two trails are stacked on atop the other so there’s no actual gap between the two. BUT I did have to ride the ballast on the side, and in the middle of this old Maryland Scenic RR line for about 3 miles because the first three miles of the GAP trail is paved. VERY happy to get off the ballast when the GAP turned to crushed limestone and I could get on that. BUT, there began the 20 mile climb up to the Cumberland Divide.  This thing is just forever and a day. I mean it’s about a low 2-3% grade that just goes on endlessly. Add the cold headwind coming in from the west and it made for a very slow first segment. You can just look ahead and it seems to twist and turn and twist and turn and continue to the pearly gates of Heaven. I was probably churning away at about 8 mph what with the grade, the headwind and my big old duel shock 29er. Worked hard enough to have to take off my winter cycling jersey and ear warms so I wouldn’t overheat. 

Now the scenery is so much different that on the C & O. Just totally different. This GAP trail is more like mountain terrain whereas the C & O is more like swamp and lowlands for most of it’s length until about 30 of 40 miles east of Cumberland. But this GAP, it just ramps right up into the mts. Passed the Mason-Dixon Line, the border of PA and MD, which was kind of bricked off on the ground in white marble with an obelisk on one side and some marble blocks on the other, a pretty cool display, and then I just continued to climb higher. I stopped just before the summit to eat a banana and fruit bar, and to give Judy a call to let her know I’d be riding far slower than the 12-13mph she was used to me riding. But just that little stop and I was just cold as hell. Had to put my jersey and ear warmers back on, plus put on my goretex jacket. Man I was cold. And to add insult to injury a slight spritz of drizzle was dogging me. 

So when I did top out, and it took a good 3 hrs, I went through this long, lighted tunnel where the wind was just gusting like a wind tunnel, and then once out I was greeted with this weenie descent. I mean it was NOTHING compared to what I’d climbed. Just seem to be a very gentle gradient down, not the really apparent climb I’d just done. Hell, there were people just flying by me riding west to east. But what I got just wasn’t fair. Not fair I tell you! Now I was able to go from the middle ring to the big ring, but heck, I was still working to do this descent because the headwind was just vicious on the east side of the divide. And I was just freezing up there. My hands and toes were numb, more from the Raynaud’s Syndrome than the cold. But the cold does bring early onset of the Raynaud’s with me. 

There were times where I was just out of the saddle working it to keep the momentum going. Finally hit our support stop in Meyersdale, PA in a pathetic 3:45 hrs. Only plus here was that we put another state behind us. Now I have to give Judy so many props for taking care of me. So I get to the van and I’m just cold as hell, and wouldn’t you know it….she had the heater going so when I stepped in it was toasty warm. I had to put my feet up on the heater vents along the passenger dash they were so numb. Downed a ham and turkey sandwich with swiss cheese and avocado, pounded a coke and water….and had a VERY hard time getting out of that van. Basically Judy had to chase me out to continue. So we decided that since the rain spritzing was continuing that she’d just go up 10 miles to Rockwood for the next stop rather than go all the way to Confluence, just in case the heavens burst forth with a full on rain. I’m good with riding in the rain, BUT no when it’s 48 degrees out! That’s hypothermic. 

So I got going again, dressed in full winter gear. And man, just stepping out into that weather again was such a mind game. It was like jumping out of a sauna room and into an icy lake. I mean it was just a shocker! Gritted the teeth and pedaled on, into a drizzly, cold, windy day in the mts of PA. Damn what a difference a day makes. I’d been sweating my “butt” off for 11 days. And then this!

But tell you what, my butt felt ok. No sweat meant a nicer situation for the butt. Yet I’m now having these little tweaky issues with my left, medial knee. I think it’s because the bike I’m riding is new, and I just hadn’t had a chance to put in miles to familiarize my body with the bike slowly and gradually. Don’t really know if I have my fit dialed in with this thing and that could be bad what with putting in big miles each and every day on a new bike. So I stopped and bumped up the seat height again to see if that might work. And it just may have. I felt a bit more efficient so we’ll see over the next few days how this change went. Now I also switched shoes today, taking off the old Sidi beaters that I’ve been doing all this crappy bike-a-hike stuff, and put on my good Sidi ultra distance shoes. 

To me these pups are like Dorothy’s ruby red shoes. Except when I click my good Sidi’s they make me go faster! I put my ruby red’s on after that first support stop, thinking that maybe the change of shoes and the slight change in seat height might help my knee, and also make my ass feel better - better bike fit makes happier ass. So these subtle little changes “seemed” to make these better. We’ll see in the long term. 

Made the second support stop at about a 12 mph average - much better than the first stage of mt climbing. Made this one a quickie stop just so we could get done at a good time. So the plan was for me to do the last 21 miles to Confluence. Weather appeared to be stable with no rain looming over the horizon, so let’s “git er done.”

And be damned if not more than 2 minutes after me leaving the van the rain began spritzing again. Nothing steady, but it was there. And all I needed was the heavens to break open and me getting soaked for 21 miles in 40-some degree temps. But luck was on my side and the spritzing just came and went on occasion. Made Confluence in about 1:50 hrs, and darned near the minute I loaded the bike in the van the spritzing turned into a light rain. Luck was really on my side today. 

Now I have to say that this GAP trail is a really sweet trail. This is my second time doing this section of the trail and I just love it, despite that 20-mile climb out of Cumberland. If you really love getting out and just enjoying a weekend of scenic cycling, the GAP is definitely a super choice. We headed to the Trailside Pizza shop and were treated to a fantastic gourmet pizza for 15 bucks.

Forecast for tomorrow is for sun and 67 degrees. Can’t really get any worse than today I guess. So we’ll see what we get. I know that my care-free trail riding ends tomorrow as I have to get on some old abandoned rail lines sometime around mid day tomorrow and then it’s back to battling ballast, old RR ties, ATC tracks and berm riding. Got to savor the 20 miles of GAP I do tomorrow morning, because things get gnarly again once I’m off of that.

Monday, May 11: First full day of riding and my butt sure feels it! Unfortunately, prior to the trip I just had not been able to devote all the time I was thinking I’d needed to get my body prepared for the trip and the rigors I’d start out with. Just to much to do with my business and with all the extraneous facets of life - trip preparation and parental stuff - to get in the needed training. Thus, I’m doing what I never advocated doing in the race season - riding myself into shape in the beginning of the season. I hurts, and it ain’t fun, and at times it’s damned sobering, but it’s all I can do. So I have to buck up and endure some tough days on the bike before my body responds to the mileage and hrs. We call that TITS - time in the saddle. With TITS comes fitness, and with fitness comes faster speeds and more mileage per day. My biggest issue at this point is my sore arse. I’ve been liberally applying this salve to my sit bones. Now my legs are sore, but not totally shredded. And my upper body really feels pretty good. No shoulder, neck or arm problems. Nope, it’s just my poor arse. Now I know from having done this stuff 4X across America, that I’ll get fitter and the rides will get faster. It just takes a couple weeks to really feel the difference. 

So let’s digress to the start of the day. Sue was a trooper again, and drove me down to the end of yesterday’s ride at the Point of Rocks. Judy followed in the van and then they both went to breakfast at a little place that used to be a church. With their help I was able to shove off at 9 AM - and the temp was a pretty humid 70-some degrees already. Got things rolling right off the bat at my 13.5 mph pace that I did yesterday. Now 13.5 really sounds slow, and it is….until you figure that I’m doing it on this monster 29er duel suspension mt bike with 29x2.4 tires!! Plus it’s on a gravel, stone, grass, root, and rock surface. Hey, don’t get me wrong, I’m not bitching, and compared to creeping down the middle of some old RR line at 3-6mph, like I was a week ago, this is bloody freeway speed!

Passed by Harpers Ferry in quick time, and just kept it rolling. Felt really good to be back in the mode - the X-country mode of just thinking and riding. I really love my friends and Judy and everyone else who I ride with, but honestly, I just LOVE riding alone. Hell, I love hiking alone, backpacking alone etc, etc. Don’t know why, but it’s my MO. It’s just such a liberating feeling with just your thoughts to keep you company. No chit chat, no banter, the surroundings and me on the bike, taking in the sights and sounds. Love it! 

My first stop for support was at Snyder’s Landing outside of Sharpsburg, MD. Made it in 1:40 hrs for a distance of app. 28 miles. By that time, just before 11 AM, the heat had really gotten up there, probably in the low to mid 80’s. Now this place was a real pain in the arse to find according to Sue and Judy. My car gps didn’t even register a road, and Sue had to navigate with her phone as Judy followed her. I mean after yesterday where we were in the bowels of the DC area to this - wow, it was just culture shock at how backroads this place it. Just across the Potomac is WVa, and this place in MD could just as well be in WVa. It’s VERY rural. Well the ladies were sitting out on a lock as I rolled in, and I was drooling for for this chicken I’d gotten the night before for chicken sandwiches. But Judy pulled out this awesome sandwich she’d bought at the church restaurant. It was just amazing. 

We all sat there in this little parking lot in the middle of nowhere along the C & O and it was pretty cool. Very relaxing to sit in the shade and eat lunch with Sue and Judy. Well, the moment came for us to say goodbye to Sue. Now it’s just amazing what my cousin has done for us on this trip, and even prior to the trip. We love her dearly. Yet we were joking about the fact that we were on the verge of overstaying our welcome with Sue. I mean we’re up at 6 AM brewing coffee and eating, with me on the computer working and doing blogs and emailing. Or we’re up later than her, watching the NBA playoffs on TV. I joked with Sue that she’ll have to settle back into a state of Post P & J (Pete and Judy) where her life can get back to normal. But in all seriousness, she has made these last 11 days so awesome for us.  

Stayed for about a half hr and then made some seat for-aft adjustments and then I was off, with my next support stop scheduled for Williamsport, MD. Now with the hotter temps and the increase in humidity, this 24 mile stretch was definitely tougher than the first 28 mile stretch. I was really having trouble with my arse and I’d hoped that moving the seat forward and slightly up, would quell the arse issues. No luck. I stopped again to readjust the seat, moving the seat back again in the aft position but raising the heigh a bit more. Better, but no cigar! Made it to Williamsport in like 1:47 hrs and I was just hurting. I went straight to the van and put 5 scoops of this Powerade electrolyte in a big gallon jug, mixed and just chugged down a half gallon of the stuff. Judy made me a chicken sandwich with some avocado and I was at least pacified for a bit. She’d parked in the shade by this little picnic area so I was able to relax a bit. I even took this sheet out that I use to put on the roof of my van when I take the canoe out, and I sat on it like a pillow so my arse wouldn’t hurt. 

Made a few more adjustments with my seat height and for-aft then bucked it up for the last 24 miles to Hancock. At that point I just knew that it was “pay your dues” time. Cuz I sure as hell didn’t feel like getting it going again in that heat, with some pretty beat legs and a raw arese that felt like I’d been sitting on a hot fry pan. By this time the “joy” of being out there on my bike, well, that had kind of been replaced by survival - “let;s just keep it rolling, and not look at the watch or the mile markers”. I was out of the saddle constantly trying to give my poor arse a break. Thankfully most of this trail is shaded or I’d have been roasting like a fish in the hot sun otherwise.  Finally looked at a mile marker about 1:18 hrs in, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that I just had 8 miles to go to Hancock. But tell you what, I looked for each and every one of those mile markers all the way back. Hell, I was counting them down. 

Made it back in about 1:55 and I was pretty wiped out. Chugged another 16 oz of Powerade, had an ice cold coke, drank h2o and just sat in a camp chair to sooth my poor weathered arse. So my total for the day was 76 miles. And honestly, couldn’t have gone another 10 miles if I had a $1000 bet encouraging me. Finally, after about 20 min of hydrating, I had an ice cold Lager. We’re doing a motel tonight cuz I’m just a crusty mess with my legs just caked with mud, dirt and dried sweat. Tomorrow shooting for Cumberland or beyond. Well, time to apply a nice coat of that vitamin A & D ointment on my butt. Until tomorrow!

Saturday, May 9: Darn, feel like I’d gone 10 rounds with Mike Tyson last night and this morning. I mean I was sore from head to toe from that Friday hikeathon. Hence, got kind of a late start this morning and didn’t make it back down to the marina at Fort Washington until about 11:30 AM. My cousin Sue drove, and Judy and I owe her immensely for the drive/support duty she provided today. Sue’s lived out here for quite a while and knows how to navigate the greater DC area. So she made our lives very comfortable getting from the marina on the east side of the Potomac over to the west side in Alexandria south on the GW parkway. 

Well, we got my canoe ready and I shoved off from the pier by about noon, in the 80-something degree heat. I needed to paddle with my bike bag across and then switch over to my 29er to ride the grassy berm of the Mt. Vernon Trail. The paddle was about 1-1.5 miles across. Made it out into the river on some pretty smooth water, but then some motorheads zoomed by about a quarter mile or so away and I caught the brunt of their wakes. Captain Shawn from the Chesapeake trip had advised me to get the bow about 45 degrees into those wakes, so that’s exactly what I did, and it worked out pretty good - a bit bouncy, but otherwise safe and sound. 

Well, I kind of misjudged the route across because I could keep the Fort Washington area in sight, due to that little peninsula jutting so far out in the water to the north. So by the time I got half way out I saw that I was off track for my landing spot at Fort Hunt. So rather than continue the western trend I had to put er in full throttle and paddle to the north right out in the middle of the river get my bearings together. Now let me tell ya, this is a BIG river, despite the fact that where I was Xing was one of the narrowest points in that Mt Vernon area. So I mean you’re out there when you’re half way across the bloody river. And again, you get a cigar boat or some big fishing boat jamming by and the wake is pretty intense. And we’re not talking like getting buzzed, I’m talking like the boat is a quarter to a half mile away and you can just watch the wake coming at you. But at least it gave me enough time to orient the boat properly such that I didn’t have the wakes hitting my broadside. 

So once I got oriented properly and had the full peninsula in sight behind me I could figure out where I needed to paddle to on the other side. My sole goal at the point was to reach the other side before another big ass boat gifted me with its wake. Made it to the other side in like 50 min. And then I needed to paddle north along the west banks of the river until I could find a good place to put out. Now I know, what with the GW parkway right next to the river, that either Fort Hunt, or just up river there were a couple places to put out at. Other than that it’s just a tangle of drift logs, woods, weeds and rocks that line the shores. Goal was to find a trail of some sort on the banks, which would indicate a parking area along the parkway where people can come down to the river. 

During that recon a good 3-4 big boats had gone by in the main channel and really stirred up the wakes along the shoreline, which forced my to paddle a bit further out into the deeper water to avoid capsizing. Finally found a trail, just a bit off the course I was plotting off of Fort Washington on the other side. Pulled the canoe into a tangle of logs and arrived at the foot of the trail. Secured the boat and then went up the trail to see how far I’d have to carry the boat to reach the parkway. This pup went up for about 50-60 yrds - up this single track trail, over to big trees that had fallen over the trail and finally into a grassy area next to a parking area. Not the best, but hell, as far as I was concerned that was home baby. 

Called Sue and Jude and found that they were only a nudge to the south of me. Toughest part of the day was hauling that 45 lb canoe up that steep trail, over two trees and then having to negotiate a couple of really tight turns, where I had to really move the canoe back and forth and kind of wiggle it into the turns. By then Sue and Jude were there and they helped me get all the gear and get the canoe back up on the van. Ok, stage one of the day complete. Stage two: ride the grass berm of the Mt. Vernon Trail to the Theodore Roosevelt Island, 15 miles to the north. Now when I told Sue that ride would probably take about 2 hrs, she thought I was goofing on her. Nope, wasn’t fooling cuz riding on the grass berm was worth, at the very most 7 mph. But I had my corridor to the north. Judy joined me - well, kind of ….I was riding way too slow so she was always well ahead of me doing recon. The first two miles were damn near futile, as the berm on the side of this asphalt trail was about 6 inches to 2 feet wide, and let me tell you, having my bike mechanic Steve Thomas cut about 2+ inches off of the end of each bar, that was KEY to getting some of this riding in. Otherwise I’d have been raking those bars on everything. But still, many times it was like riding on a tightrope, just trying to hold the very cleanest line I could possibly hold. Did well most of the time but there were several occasions where I just got raked hard by holly trees and prickers. Caught a couple on my shoulders, chest and forehead. 

Then there were a few occasions where I just had to bike walk because the rideable area was like 6 inches. Just wasn’t worth taking a chance on doing a nice biff in front of all the rec riders. I did bike walk any bridge that was concrete, so I had a few of those to do. Now some of the bridges were wooden, so those were fair game. A cool thing that I found from last year’s recon was that the local mt bikers have ridden on the grass along this paved trail in areas such that there is a nice single track on one or the other side. That’s when I could shift up into the middle cookie and get some speed back into the ride. And as I was riding this single track the people riding on the trail would look at me like I was an alien - major dbl takes. There were times where I’d just ride around trees and park benches just to stay on the dirt.

I’d say half of that 15 miles has this single track on it so it made for a very fast 2:08 hrs to complete the 15-mile ride. Yea, just call me Speedy Gonzales. By the time I got to Theodore Roosevelt Island the place was just a total cluster &%^^#@. I mean people in the water everywhere - and a ton of cigar boats tooling up and down the river. So with the time at 4 PM, I decided to spare Judy and Sue another 2 hrs of so of me unlashing the boat, crossing the Potomac a second time, this time from west to east to hook up with the C & O trail, and then relashing the boat back on the van. Nope, time for dinner after a “grueling” 16.5 miles gained today. Pretty pathetic isn’t it? But tomorrow, yes tomorrow I’m free and clear after the canoe Xing to ride and ride and ride for quite a time. So the real riding begins tomorrow. And I can’t say I’m unhappy having spent 8 days connecting the C & O with the Atlantic Ocean - and taking 4 more days than I’d planned for. Nope, it was worth it just to have accomplished it. And now I can truly say that the trip will span ocean to ocean.

Tuesday, May 5: Well, I’m writing this on Thursday, May 7 because we’ve just been so fast-forward that I just have not had a chance to get on the computer to do the blog. So let me go over the past three days to get everything caught up. So we’ll start with Tuesday, which was an off day really because I had to wait until Wednesday morning to catch the sail across the Chesapeake Bay from Cambridge to Deale. 

So the first thing we did was to redo the last portion of the bike because I found out from Shawn Martin, my sailboat captain, that he had to dock at a different dock than I had ridden/hike-a-biked to on Monday. Needed to reconnect the dots such that I had my track going to the proper destination. Now the change was actually more to my benefit, had I of know that on Monday. But, it is what it is. We rode from our motel, but to where I had done my gnarly rail section into downtown Cambridge, but went on a newly plotted course I had reconfigured on Monday night when I found out about the dock change. 

From the old RR line I got on this grassy berm/farm field riding along Bucktown Rd for about  two miles to Rt 50, bike walked across Rt 50 and then got on this crushed clam shell trail that went into the Hyatt Regency and the marina down along the Choptank River. God, it was a piece of cake really with wooden bridges and this crazy crushed clam shell trail all the dag gone way. Shawn had told me he’d be coming between 4 and 8 PM, so as soon as we completed the chain of my trek to the marina, we got back on a bike-hike trail that led into the old downtown of Cambridge and I rode with Judy for a while so she could get some riding in. I mean the riding has been so nasty that she had just NOT had any opp to ride with me - the tracks have been so awefull I wouldn’t even think of recommending that she do any of the riding with. 

Matter of fact we were doing this one section of boardwalk pedestrian trail in the old district of Cambridge along the Choptank River, which for me felt like GOLD, but to Judy, she though it was a bit bumpy. Yea, bumpy!!!!! So I suggested that she ride on the grass berm along the wooden walkway, and by God she couldn’t believe how hard it was riding on the soft, sandy-loamy ground compared to the boardwalk. That’s when I told her “welcome to my world!”

Hell, after riding stretches of old RR ballast, ridden on God-awefull berms of mud, sand, gravel and grass, weeds, pine cones, branches and garbage on 45-degree angles, that boardwalk felt like paradise. 

Went back to the Hyatt Regency complex marina later in the day after our ride to meet Captain Shawn Martin, sometime around 5:30 PM. And let me tell you this place is crazy freaking expensive. The rooms must go for 3 bills a night. I mean it’s glitz galore! I couldn’t believe that they even let us pull my ratty old van in the place. So we parked and just rambled around the complex a bit looking at the pool area and keeping an eye out for a sail boat crossing under Rt 50 and sailing into the marina. Took a stroll out onto this floating dock that ended at an observation gazebo that juts out into the river. And I saw this dude with long hair just getting out of a sail boad right at the end of the dock near the floating gazabo. Got up to the guy and he kind of gave me a doubletake look, so I said “Shawn?”. He replied “hi Pete”. And there we were, my captain had just arrived. We sat and chatted with Shawn for a bit at the gazabo as he was munching on a sandwich, then he invited us to the boat to take a look. He had sailed in on a 23-foot boat, with a cabin area below that contained a bow and stern sleeping area, a very small head, a small sink and some sitting room on each side of the main compartment. 

Shawn invited us to stay the night on the boat, and we did consider it for a bit as we walked back to the van at the marina office to get our sleeping bags etc. Somewhere along the way we kind of decided to just stay in the van for the night rather than stay in the boat - partly because of Judy’s claustrophobia and the rocking of the boat all night as the tide changes. Went back to let Shawn know of our change, in addition to bringing a couple of beers  back to his boat so that we could chat and drink a couple cold ones. Shawn works for the South River Boat Rentals company, and right off the bat I have to thank Nancy for giving me a discount on the sail across the bay due to my American Dirt mission. They were very kind to me and I’m very grateful for their assistance. 

Anyway, Shawn is a 48-year old guy who loves sailing as much as I love cycling, and he has the demeanor  and disposition of a laid back So Cal guy. Turns out he actually live in San Fran yrs back when he was a graphic designer. He’s a very cool, good natured dude who just loves the water and the whole mystique of sailing and maritime navigation. I was rather amazed at how similar our values and beliefs were. He, like me values time, travel, people, and adventure more so than just working your life away to bank a ton of money for retirement - and then travel. So I felt a kind of kinship with him right from the get-go. Well, we decided to shove off at 6:30 AM on Wed. Went back and spent the remainder of the eve sitting on a picnic table with Judy watching the sun set to our left over the mouth of the Choptank River. Was just a stellar evening. Hit the hay around 9 PM. 

Wednesday, May 6: Woke up at 5 AM to the sound of the garbage guy empying a big bin that was in the marina parking area. Went to get some coffee and breakfast sandwiches outside of the complex at this gas station and then went back inside where Judy dropped me off close to the floating dock and Shawn’s boat. He was ready to roll and we were off the dock and in the middle of the river by 6:37 AM. Shawn had told us the night before that the trip could take anywhere from 8-12+ hrs depending on the weather, the tide, the current of the Choptank, and several other factors that I cannot remember. Well, about 1/3 to 1/2 of the trip is just getting out of the Choptank and into the Chesapeake Bay. I mean this bloody river is so wide and so long it’s just amazing. It almost feels like it the bay itself. Figures that I’d pick the very widest stretch of river/bay to cross over to the western shore!

And you might ask me why the hell did I do it this way? Answer’s simple - Xing by sailboat would save me days and days and days of route finding, and distance. There’s just damn little in the way of gravel roads out here, so Xing by boat would just make this trek much more realistic. Plus, once I get to the western shore in Deale, MD I’m darn near straight line due east of where I need to be to make it west down to the Potomac to X the river at Fort Washington where the river is much more narrow. So logistics dictated that I X the Bay exactly at Cambridge. 

So we had to use the boat’s outboard motor to get us into the right channel of the river. The weather….it was so darned calm that the river was like glass. Shawn said that was pretty unusual for this time of year. So we had just about no wind, breeze, or even puff breath to deem the jib and main sail be put into use. This translates into…we had to use the motor of the boat to make any kind of forward progress. And this lasted the 3-4 hrs we were working our way west out of the Choptank River. Another weird thing was that this massive river is about 2-5 feed deep in most places, which really blew me away. I mean there are places that you can wade through mud for a mile out into the river. This I found out as I watched Shawn use this marine gps app on his I-pad that pretty much gave him the proper course down the river within the right depth of water. I was actually pretty entertained by watching the depth, mph, course, track and buoy lines on his I-pad as he navigated down the river. And he really did keep me engaged by explaining what he was doing and what we should watch for as he steered the boat with this hand rudder down the river. 

By the time we actually got into the Chesapeake a very, very light wind had begun to blow, and it was coming from just the right direction to. But when Shawn turned the engine off, unrolled the jib and main sail, we actually slowed down to a paltry 2.3 mph - that compared to our 4.3 mph with just the jib unrolled and the engine on. So I looked at him and kind of asked in a defeated tone, “so how long will the Xing take if we just go by sail.” “Probably up into dark,” he responded. Well, having Judy wait at the Deale marina for 6-7 hrs was bad enough, but projecting that for 6 more hrs, till sunset or beyond….I didn’t think that was a good idea. And he asked me whether I’d like to go just sail or sail plus motor? “Let’s do both,” I answered. I just couldn’t let Judy sit there for that long. And that was that. 

Now a year ago I wondered out loud if I could paddle across the Bay. My cousin Sue said that was nuts to try to paddle across the bay, and the more I thought about it, and the more I read about it I kind of agreed with here - I mean the weather out there could get treacherous if a storm popped up. But on this day, Shawn said I could have had the opp to do it …realizing that the paddle would have taken me at least a full day to complete the 32 mile trip! 

Well, we made Deale in just about 8 hrs. Met Judy at the docks, and Shawn met his wife Lynn there to. Lynn had driven down to meet us and spend the eve with Shawn on the boat as he had to sail it another 6 hrs up the bay to where the South River Boat Rentals is located the next day. While Shawn was moving the boat to it’s mooring I just had to get out there and put together just a tiny porting of the trip such that I was at least “trying” to catch up to my projected schedule - which by this time was like 3 days off. Rolled out of the marina on through a gravel maze of roads and onto the berm of Deale Rd. The first portion I was able to actually do on the edge of these fallow farm fields that abutted the roadway. Then I had to ride some nasty, skinny sections of gravel, grass and stick/branches/limbs berm. But within 40 min I’d gotten to where I was hoping - a gnarly bushwack hike-a-bike section down along Lyons Creek to it’s jcn with the Patuxent River. Yea, I’d save that killer section for tomorrow!

Went back on roadway to the marina where we all hung around Shawn’s boat - Harmony - for a good hr drinking some cold beer and just shooting the ship. Ended up going to dinner with Shawn and Lynn at the local watering hole just outside the Deale marina to finish off the day with a pretty sweet evening. The food was just awesome, especially the local specialty - breaded oysters - wow!

Jude and I did another van sleep at the Deale marina and that was a wrap for Wednesday. 

Thursday, May 7: Up at 6 AM, bid goodby to Lynn and off we went to begin another gnarl-ass day. Now last eve, having done the berm/farm field riding I considered changing the hike-a-bike down along Lyon’s Creek through swampland, to another shot at riding along fallow farm field and crap berm to a place that was just before Lyons Creek met the Patuxent River. This would accomplish another puzzle - saving Judy from driving all the way to my canoe put-in by herself where I wasn’t sure if he van could get all the way down to the water. So I just had her drive ahead of me a couple miles at a crack such that we could hit that put-in together venue together and I could figure out on the spot where we had to have the van with the canoe on top. And my decision really turned out to be on the spot - the berm/field riding was not too bad.

At this point when I say not bad, I’m talking like 3-5 mph in the tiny cookie in the front and usually one of the easiest gears in the back. It’s slow, laborious riding, but not killer nasty like the stuff up in DE. So we got to this last section, where the road was a dead end that just stopped at a point to where the creek met the river. I’d told Judy to wait up the road while I did the recon down to the end of the road just in case this road got nasty and unnavigable in the van. I hadn’t actually done a recon on this exact area back when I did recon up here last year. Kind of took it for granted that we could make it work. Well, got to the end of the road just when a school bus was picking up a little girl. The road kind of did this T and it looked like private drives on both sides of the T. So I asked the young mom who had been with the little girl boarding the bus, if this area was all private, or if I had a way to access the creek or river. She told me it was indeed all private creek/river property. She kind of looked at me inquisitively, so I told her why I was inquiring about the water access - with my American Dirt story. 

That’s when she invited me to launch my canoe from her family’s dock down on the mouth of Lyons Creek. Couldn’t have had that situation turn out any better. So I phoned Judy, told her she was good to drive all the way down the road and told her where Lori lived on the left side of the T. So in the meantime Lori, a veterinarian, mother of two, and a super kind lady got me a cold glass of water and directed me to where they launch their kyaks and canoes behind the house. Once Judy arrived I got the canoe unlashed, prepped my water gear, took out my bike-in-a-bag and we all headed down this little wooded hillside to the water. Literally just toted the canoe down this leafy trail to water’s edge. Was in Lyons Creek in no time. What really felt good was that Lori told me that my decision to abandon the hike-a-bike down the totality of Lyons Creek and do the bike on berm/field to the put-in was definitely the right call. And looking at the Lyons Creek valley I felt pretty damn good on that one. It was just a boggy, marshy mess for miles and miles upstream. That would have been the bushwhack of the century!

Once on the canoe didn’t take but 10 min and I was out of  Lyonn’s Creek and into this massive, broad slow moving river - the Patuxent. Now the Patuxent is a very popular river here in MD for recreational paddling. It’s flat, slow moving and really out in the middle of nowhere - feels like some real wilderness. It’s a quiet paddle in this massive protected watershed area. Took me a bit to paddle from the south side of the river over to the north side where I needed to put-out. Now this river is so big at this point that I just couldn’t see where the river went on the other side. It’s got hundreds of yards of water lillies and in places and when you’re at nearly water level, well, your vision is pretty limited. Just continued to paddle and sure enough, beyond the water vegetation, off to my right I could see the main river channel do a slight curve. And from there I could see Shelby’s Landing - my put-out point. 

Now as I was paddling I had a phone call, which I assumed was Judy. But having all the electronic gear in dry bags, I just wanted to wait until I put out to pull the phone dig into the dry bag. Once I did get the phone out it’s just what I’d expected….she could not find the landing where I was at. It’s truly a maze of roads in this area, and getting to an out of the way spot like the wildlife area can be a real challenge. So as I was pulling the canoe out of the water I was trying to give her directions to where I was, yet she really didn’t know where she was. This guy who was fishing off of the dock tried to help give her directions, but this dude appeared to be a few bricks shy of a full load. He was just hemming and hawing about the succession of roads for her to take, kind of drawing a road map in the air with his index finger as he was going through the progression. 

Finally we got a few nuggets of info from him such that Judy could find a couple landmarks. I eventually pulled all my gear up out of the loading zone at the pier while the guy went on and on talking to me…and soon to himself saying “yea, we’ll get her here, we’ll get her here”. It was goofy. Judy did indeed make it, we got the canoe and gear back on the van and off I went on the next section - a bike on trails, berm, farm fields and RR ballast. This pup was only about 8-10 miles but it took over 2 hrs. Just a really tough go on some of the berm sections, where again I was in the absolute easiest hear I had. 

Actually the RR part, with me riding down the middle was the fastest. And again, we had a coordination glitch where once off the RR Judy nor I could find what appeared to be this little town of Cheltenham. The toughest part of the day, a bike down this powerline trail, was just a pure ugly grunt.  And to make sure Judy knew exactly where to end, I had her take me to the end point of the powerline ride from our last end point at the RR so I could ride back up to my prior ending point at the RR. This made it way easier for her to just drive as I did the navagation to the powerline start. Once I got going on the powerline trail, I knew it was going to be tough. I mean the dbl and single track which I assume was created by ATC and ATV riders NOT the powerline company, was often loose, slippery, rounded quartz gravel, and some of the climbs and descents are just stupid steep. I had to bike walk up these things and then back down the other side. Some of those slopes had to be over 45-degrees. And the stuff I could ride was just rutted out such that the ruts can catch a wheel and just toss you in the opposite direction. The descents I did do were just hair raising, what with that loose, rounded gravel - the wheels would just wash out at the slightest lean or twist of the bars. 

And then I came to this section through a swamp, where the track appeared to go way, way off of the straight line track of the powerlines. So I kind of was at this half way point to where it was a do or die situation. Did a few turns away from that track, and then turned back thinking that maybe the trail didn’t go the whole way (which I’d researched on google maps and saw the whole track). But when I went back to look at going straight along the powerline, well, it just looked like a complete mess, with about a half mile of bog. So I decided that maybe the trail went way around the bog area. And that’s what I did, taking the trail and veering way off to the north hoping that the thing would swing back around to track west with the powerlines again. 

Still had to ford a few streams, push and pull the bike through mud holes and traverse piles of broken branches and dirt and sand. My shoes were just these big clods of muck by the time I made it through the boggy stuff. Then there was more bike hiking up and down some of these wicked hills. I swear, one was so steep I damn near could not even push the bike up it - the shoes were slipping as if I was on ice. But I did make it, and when I hear the traffic of Rt 301, which was my endpoint, I felt elated to be finished with that little 5-mile section. By that time it was 3:15 PM, with my next section being an ugly hike-a-bike with the bikepack along that same drainage where the powerline trail ended. I’d reconned this section last year, hiking it for several hrs and it’s indeed nasty. So I was ready for the day to be over at that point. Doing the hike-a-bike would be at least 3 hrs. Save that pup for tomorrow. 

We got rolling south on 301 and found a motel where I could wash the mud off my legs, pick the ticks off my legs, and where I could just stand in a hot shower for a half hr. Ended up washing my cycling kit in the tub, then hanging the laundry out on my van. Dried the cycling shoes off by putting them on the windshield to sun dry, then I smacked them together to bust off the dried mud. 

Ok, that’s it. Got to get to work on my real job!

Sunday, May 3: Man, I slept like a corpse last night - just dead tired from my first day of X/Duathlon/cycling/mental beat-down. And heck, the fun’s just begun! Was so tired that I didn’t do blog last night so I was up at 6 AM and did some coaching work, then finished the blog. By the time we ate breakfast and drove back to yesterday’s end it was 10 AM. 

Now what I’d though would be a hike-a-bike turned out to be a bike. This I’d figured yesterday on the hike-a-bike when most of the sides of this ditch were kind of like double track. And with that big Terex earthmover of a 29er I’m riding, it looked like a piece of cake. Well, I was right, and once I got on this thing I was cruising over the track with zero problem. Now I did come to this V where two ditches converged into one, with me trapped in the middle with only two options: ford one of the ditches, which by this time were 4 foot deep streams about 10 feet wide….or go all the way back to the start on get on the outside of the V. I chose the second option. Now I did have a stupid thought for a quick second about filming myself fording one of those ditches, but then common sense crept in and I just doubled back and took the dry road. 

I was riding through State forest land, and these ditches are irrigation ditches that turn into a big stream further west, and the difference between the ditches from yesterday, to today, in the span of 6-10 miles is huge. Yesterday they were X-able up to about knee deep. Today - waist deep and twice as wide. Made it to Judy in less than an hour for the next phase - paddling. But the problem was that I had nowhere to put in - other than to trespass on someones property to get a good area that was wide open. So we kicked it around for a while, even going in the van to scout the area for me so that maybe I could  do another bike along the ditch, as I just had completed. So we did this quick little recon mission and came up with……nothing. 

So with that said, and clean dbl track on the south side of the ditch, we decided for me not to put in what with all the tree, weeds, roots, rocks and rose thorns we’d have to drag the boat through, and I would instead take a chance on that dbl track continuing all the way to the Nanticoke River, which I would then put in at a good spot and continue through Seaford. So Judy dropped me off and continued to the Nanticoke. As luck would have it I road app. 2 hundred yards down the dbl track, around a bend….and it freaking ended ….in a tangle of brambles, soggy swamp and thick brush and trees. Blindsided big time! Well, rather than do the “ET phone home” routine with Judy I decided to do a recon on the fly mission. So I went back up to the bridge we’d parked at, and then road this gravel berm for about 100 yrds to where there was a State Forest sign, a parking area, and what looked like some dbl track that paralleled the ditch. 

So I took it, and it was nice gravel dbl track for about a mile, and then I ran into this chick walking her dogs. Asked her about the trails and if they went all the way to the Nanticoke. She said they didn’t go that far, BUT they did go at least half way, but not next to the ditch. She give me directions as to rights and lefts onto the maze of trails and I was off. Now not long after, the trail really deteriorated  into this piney old logging trail filled with tons of small deadfall. But it was ridable, so I just kept rolling. I mean I was front and rear bunny hopping about every 50 ft down the trail. Finally made it up to this asphalt road about 3 miles from the Nanicoke. Go on this really loamy, sandy berm and took that all the way to where Judy was parked - at a damn at the upper reaches of the river. I guess I was pretty lucky to have winged it and then have it work. 

Reparked the van and we finally got the canoe out for my reverse portage into downtown Seaford. Thanks to Johnny Mac for suggesting a solo canoe instead of a packraft. You see I want to actually have a bike with me for every portion of this trip, so while hiking I carry a foldable bike in a pack, and while canoeing I carry the foldable bike in the bow of the boat in the hiking pack. Hey, I created the rules, so this insanity rests totally on me! Anyway, John though I’d need a canoe with more floor room and stability than a packraft. And he was dead on. I works just perfect. He also lent me his fiberglass kayaking paddle - perfect. 

Well, it took us a good 40 min just to get the canoe unlocked and off the van and down at riverside, then another 15 min to get the gear inside. So this transition thing from bike to canoe is very time consumptive. By this time we’re talking like 1:15 PM, and the temp was in the 80’s with the sun just blazing - just NOT used to such heat yet. I mean we went from 40’s and 50’s back in O-hi to the 80’s out here. It’s crazy. Got it rolling on some damn flat water, which was amazingly shallow. I was stunned with how shallow some of the sections of the river were. I mean this this is about a quarter mile wide and there were some sections that I could wade knee deep in. Now it did have channels in it - OR - maybe it’s affected by the Chesapeake tidal current, I don’t know, but wow I was concerned I’d hit some lunkers along the way. What’s more I had to be very vigilant about looking for the little telltale signs of the lunker - the rippling of water on the surface - indicating something VERY close to the surface. 

The first 30 min were pretty cool…until my hands started to develop some blistering between the thumbs and index fingers. Then my obliques began to get sore with all the side to side pulling of the paddle. Then the ass got sore, then the legs, and on and on and on. Man, what a whimp I am! Just not paddle hardened like I’m bike hardened I guess. Next paddle I’m definitely putting a cushion on the seat. I was getting into all sorts of contortions along the way trying to stretch out the legs, arms and glutes. Made the 5 mile paddle in about 1:15 hrs - all downstream. By the time I met up with Judy in downtown Seaford the sun was just torrid. I mean I had sweat just rolling down my face as we lashed the canoe back down on top of the van. 

By the time we got done the clock was at 3:15 PM - nearly 2 full hrs of unlashing, moving, relashing the canoe. Next up was a gnarly old RR section that I had to tripple check so as to not go on the wrong way on several sets of rails. Did make the right call and got on these old puppies that were Awesome compared to the crapfest I’d ridden yesterday. These guys had a good matrix between ties, rather than the dead air that I experienced yesterday. Still had some pretty sore hands from all the jostling. It’s like riding on corrugated steel roofing actually. You get this rhythm going. Anyway, made much better time, today averaging maybe like 7-8 mph. Yea, that felt FAST compared to yesterday. Rode for about 1:15 hrs and then called it a day in this little town that’s not really even a town - it’s like 2 farmhouses. Ended up logging like 6 hrs today when all was said and done.

Sooooooo….I’m way behind schedule - like a 2 days at this point. I want to make Cambridge tomorrow. And to think I was believing that I’d do yesterday, today, and tomorrow - in a day? Are you kidding me? I had to be nipping the bourbon bottle when I came up with that schedule! What’s more I found out that I cannot get my sailboat across the Chesapeake until Wed. So again, I’m another day behind on top of that. Bad thing was that Judy was planning a day with my cousin Sue while I would be on the boat for the projected 8-12 hr ride. So that’s out the door. Could be we’ll just have to chill in Cambridge for a day - Tuesday - then have me do the sail on Wed, and then get it rolling on the east side of the Chesapeake on Thursday. This means I won’t make the Potomac until mid to late Thursday. Oh well, it is what it is. That’s part and parcel of doing something as goofy as this. 

Well, I think it’s “Beer-Thirty.