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.