On the road again. (not path)

We woke up late today to the sound of Mikes scurrying little companion chomping on any food scraps in sight. Our ride didn't start until about 2:30 pm and consisted of pushing our bikes up large hills on US1 and then tearing down the other side at nearly half the speed limit. The highlight of the day came near the end of the ride as we were pushing our bikes along the side of the road when an overpaid, undereducated bimbo decided it would be a good idea to honk the horn of her Mercedes and salute us... with one finger. Just as she passed us, continuing to stare at us and gesture obscenely, she missed a turn on the road and careened on to the shoulder, narrowly avoiding a ditch in her pricey means of conveyance. All in all it was a boring day punctuated with a missed opportunity to see the most beautiful backfire of a plan in my life.

We're in the tent now. No fire tonight cause I don't know who this property belongs to.



Next stop Richmond.

Goodnight.

Now leaving d.c.

Woke up this morning to find the 'cast away' movie file done and ready to watch. While dining on a breakfast of leftover shephards pie we watched most of the film, but the entertainment was cut short when we noticed it was getting late in the morning and we had a decent ride ahead of us to meet with bike mike, seen here with his pet, buddy, and Bryce.

We took our time riding along the Mount Vernon bike trail, which mike was less than modest about mentioning throughout the ride as he entertained us with his cycling stories, including his bike tour from California at age 54 which was unfortuinately cut short by a heart attack in Kansas. He took us on a winding journey through the streets of Virginia ending at his house in Woodbridge, and then drove us to the local Walmart to replace Bryce's worn out shoes and purchase some watches and an odometer to more acurately track our mileage. The night was spent reviewing his tour on google earth, hearing stories of his cycling and hang gliding adventures, and reviewing our route to Florida. He even lent us some cycling maps of the east coast to help us along the way.

Lots of thanks to Caitlin and Paige or the great food and a roof over our head last night and also to bike mike for all the hospitality tonight, even though Freddie was a little disturbing to sleep around.

More updates tomorrow....

Pacman2florida

Bryce discovered yesterday that his friend, Caitlin, was in the process of moving to d.c. and was nice enough to offer us the pullout couch in her hotel room to sleep on for a night which was just enough to convince us to stay an extra day in the town. After a long day of sight seeing, Bryce whipped up an amazing shephards pie from a heaping bag of groceries that Caitlin's friend (and now ours), Paige, brought home in the evening. After the feast, we were off to the bars for a few pints of great stout and pacman. The plan was to come home from the bars and watch 'cast away', but with all the YouTube posts of it deleted and a download time of over two hours it would have to wait til morning.

Goodnight!

To D.C. and then some.

Sunday, Day 13:

Today was spent recovering from last night and replenishing our backpacks for the ride ahead. We're watching the Steelers game right now. Not too much else to report for the day, but here are some photos that you all missed out on before:






"Lunch Rock"


Big Savage Tunnel



Harpers Ferry



So far on this trip everyone has thought we were crazy for even trying to do this on BMX bikes. Rather than tell people that we're riding from Pittsburgh to Florida, we started telling everyone that we were going 'to D.C. and then some', allowing them to dictate how much we told them. Most people still thought we were crazy for even trying to get to D.C., but some were curious of how far 'then some' was and were supportive. Now, we've made it to D.C., so we can't use that line anymore.

Here goes 'then some'.

Made it to DC! In the rain!!!

Saturday, day 12:

Boyscouts start their days early, and so did we today. We woke at about 830 to a breakfast of pancakes and orange drink and started our ride by around 10. Lots of thanks to Dave, Dave, Kyle, and Jesse (hope I got all your names right) for the food and fun. We started at milemarker 44 today an decided that we would finish the trail today. We rode to mile marker 17 before breaking for lunch, but just as we had packed away all of our cookware the rain came back. We thought about waiting it out, but soon just draped our ponchos over us and continued riding. Considering our trail ride along with city riding, today was a 50+ mile day.

We were welcomed at dennis' house around 6 or so where we were able to get our first shower in a week, and to clean off our dirty clothes. The night consisted of chili dogs and pbr at Millie and als followed by an attempt to karaoke at peyote where the dj was less than generous to anyone without a decent tip for him. Oh well, fun was had by all regardless, and Dennis managed to do some advertising for the blog.

Rain.

It's now Wednesday night. The tent is set up and the rain is out (for now). The day started with a turtle rescue. We ran into mountain bike mike, who we had seen several times yesterday but were just formally introduced to today. We rode 15 miles to the town of hancock maryland where we were directed to weavers for a great meal. We then pedaled over to the save-a-lot to replenish our food supply and back onto a side trail for a little shortcut to our camp tonight. The side path was a real treat as it was paved, and the main path we had been riding on since Cumberland had become rather bumpy to say the least. 30 miles today which ended with a rainy night in the tent again but also with a few raspberry cookies we bought at weavers.

We went swimming in the Potomac Thursday morning to clean up before starting our muddy ride. About 20 miles into the ride we were hit with a detour from the trail which took us on to country roads for about 5 miles. It was nice to get off the path again and on to some smooth roads, but the hills weren't as enjoyable. The detour ended with a steep hill with signs that warned 'steep grade dismount and walk your bicycle'. We chose to ignore the signs and had a much better time for the decision. Today was filled with wildlife as well. Early in the day, we rescued our second turtle from being smashed on the path. Later on bryce caught a treefrog that he thought had poisoned him because his hands broke out in a rash, but after a short look around and an itching sensation all over my body I realized that we were in the middle of a large nettle patch which we quickly exited. The night ended with a big storm again that would soak the trail for our ride friday. Horay!

We woke up Friday and rode all day through the muddy trail. We decided to push a little harder and rode until dark to get through 36 miles. We arrived at our campsite to find that we would have to share it for the first time with a full bouscout troop. They offered us smores and invited us to play werewoles and townspeople with them, which we did until retiring into our tent. The boyscouts, however, decided that 10:00 wasn't a good time to turn in and spent the majority of the night sabotaging each others tents and throwing rocks around which hindered our ability to sleep, but it was entertaining.

More stuff later.

Hops, Over doubles, and cancan grinders

I know the links didn't work in the past few posts but now, thanks to 3g Internet, all the pictures are uploaded and working properly.

The interview with the Cumberland times went well Monday. It was a busy day filled with food, laundry, ice cream, and after that we even managed 15 miles of riding in the evening.
We set up camp and had a good drum/harmonica session before a good nights rest.

Mondays short ride got us on track for a more productive day Tuesday. 30 miles, which seems to be quickly becoming the standard. Our food supply was dwindling, but we supplimented it in a corn field along the path.
We set up camp early and cooked our corn that actually ended up bring feed corn and didn't feed us very well. The mosquitos that normally bother us seemed to have taken the night off, but were replaced with a multitude of different varieties of ants, spiders, and multi-colored catterpillars. We got some good rest anyways, and were ready for Wednesday, which I will tellyou about later, because my battery is about to die and I want at least this much to be published.

Its raining really hard.

Good night.

Ooooooooo.... Those those ones with those little bikes.

Lunch Rock was such a nice place we ended up staying a little late on Saturday. Had a good breakfast of eggs, bacon, and oatmeal, and a nice cold swim in the river. The trail was a lot busier saturday because it was the weekend. We met a lot of cool people along with several ignorant idiots and heard a lot of 'when you gonna upgrade to a bigger bike', and 'what are you trying to prove riding the trail on those little things', and of course the great quote from our grammar rodeo princess who was able to use the word 'those' thrice in a sentence. The fact is though, all of our detracters were out for an afternoon ride, and we had been on the trail for nearly a week. Most of them were obese anyways. Our goal for the day was Deal PA, about a 30 mile ride, but when we got there we saw that we were just miles from the eastern continental divide and decided to keep riding. We made it to the divide around 5:00 pm, and saw this, which gave us a little encouragement to keep going further still. We rode on through the big savage tunnel a nearly mile long tunnel with minimal lighting, across the Mason Dixon line, past Frostburg, and into the evening, arriving in Cumberland MD well after dark with head lamps lighting our way. Our plan was to get a cheap motel for the night, and then rest the next day, but with one hotel asking $119 for their cheapest room and the only other completely booked, we were out of luck. We stopped at Wendy's and spent the first money so far on the trip, $3 each from the value menu, and then returned to the trail to find a campsite for the night, but after finding nothing after a 3 mile ride back in the direction we came from we simply threw the tent on some grass next to some train tracks and slept with rocks in our back for the night.

We woke up early Sunday and headed back into town. This would be our day off. We got a hotel room courtesy of my mother and father. Thank you! After checking in we headed off to the Queen City Creamery for breakfast, an ice cream parlor/deli decorated in 1940's soda fountain style. We were so impressed with the food and atmosphere, we would return here for lunch monday before setting off on the trail again. Sunday night was spent at Carmichaels Pub/Resturant where we would enjoy a few beers, a great crab dip, and a buffalo chicken pizza while watching the steelers game. The owner of the establishment, Bill Michaels, overheard our story as we told it to one of the patrons and approached us asking us to join him in his office. He happens to have a connection with the Cumberland Times and sent off a quick email to the paper. Within the hour we heard back from his friend, who set up an appointment for a photo shoot and write up today!

We'll let you know how that goes later on...

Balls...Balls...Balls...To the wall!!!!

Sorry about the lack of updates, but before we left on this trip I neglected to take into consideration the fact that forests lack the direct sunlight necessary for solar powered chargers to operate.



29 miles on Thursday. Whoever does the zoning in Connellsville should be fired, because a glass factory next to a bike path is not a good idea. Flat number one and Bryce was the victim. Later that day I hit a 2" diameter twig at about 10 yards during slingshot practice. That'll come in handy when we deplete the food supply and have to resort to small game. Finished off the day with a walk up a steep hill that never seemed to end. It was actually about a quarter mile, but each time you reached what you thought was the top it just turned and kept going. Oh well, the campsite was worth it and we got a good nights rest.



Friday was a 22 mile day for a total of 51 over two days. We had planned on going a bunch further, but had to stop at 'lunch rock' (photos soon), a site that looked like it should be on the cover of a backpacking magazine and that we would later find out was, in fact, on the cover of a yoga magazine. We were informed of this interesting fact by Mr. Jeff and his wife who unexpectedly visited our secluded site at dusk. With Miller lites in hand and two children in tow they arrived, briefing us on the sites name as well as the presence of a vortex just upstream with healing qualities. Mr. Jeff was particularly interested in our trip because of his past experience on a bike. In 1981 he and 9 other riders completed a 5000 mile cross country trip on road bikes. Tempting, but I think we'll stick with 1200. Nonetheless, after a good chat the four visitors vanished into the treeline, but just as Bryce turned to me and said , "Man, I thought we were scorin' a couple miller lites.", who would emerge from the brush but Mr. Jeff, two beers in hand. Good Night!



We may be a little behind our original schedule, but as our friend Jennings said, "No wife, no kids, no dogs, no cats. Have a good time. . . Just no ugly ones."



More updates on the recent days soon...

Firewood makes you warm three times. First when you're collecting it...

If I could have posted a blog last night, it would read "I don't have any service so I can't write a blog tonight", but I didn't have any service so I couldn't.

30 miles yesterday. A little better than day 1. I think we're both getting a little more accustomed to our 45lb packs.

We met some cool people who were also on the way to dc but, as they were on road bikes, they're now about 20 miles ahead of us. Thought we were getting sick from the youghiogheny river water but maybe it's just the MRE's. We set up camp at round bottom camp site right off the trail and gladly refilled our water holders with their well water instead.

More updates tonight (hopefully).

Lost already!!!

Took a wrong turn and ended up in boston.

Not the most productive day. 23 miles. Well short of our goal, but we'll blame that on my slipping freecoaster and the lack of a continuous trail forcing us to take state roadsfor much of the way.

We're now set up near Boston PA off of the great allegheny passage trail, and from here it's a steady and completed trail to dc. Theres a lot of mosquitos here. More fun tomorrow...

The shirts are in!!!

The shirts have arrived just in time. We'll be selling them soon on the site. Keep checking back for updates.

1 more day.......

The Flyer's done!

Heres the flyer that will be distributed all around the place. 6 more days...

Gear...

This is everything I'm gonna be taking on my trip except my bike. Clockwise from the top left is my cookware and food (dehydrated beans, vegetables, and rice), my sleeping bag, my tent on the top right, my sleeping pad and my backpack. The middles just all the little extra miscellaneous stuff like my gps, books, solar charger,knife, bike lock, tarp, hammock, flashlights, and other junk.

Bryce arrives in 7 days, we leave in 11...