States: 3
Miles: 165.4
We rolled out today at 1:30, a record. We wanted to beat DC Friday traffic and were stressing about that. As it was, there was enough traffic to justify taking the ICC (tollroad) to get out across town.
Navigation is an issue because we want to go off-highway, and Google will re-route you even after you have set the route the way you want it. Jaron was using walking directions on Google Maps at first a while back, until it became problematic with directions going the wrong way on a 1-way street and such. Then Google Maps added a bicycle option which worked alright but got confused when we would not get on bike trails. Now we are trying “avoid highways”, but this resulted in us not going thru any towns, which resulted in some serious hangriness by midafternoon. After several turnarounds and stops on the shoulder, we ended up stopping at a McDonald’s. This was my one visit for this decade. I gotta say, they’ve come a long way since I last set foot in one. Wait, actually I’ve set foot in them before to use the bathroom.
We ended up going thru a housing division in the middle of nowhere that had an obelisk. There were two stubby ones at the entrance and then a big, correctly proportioned one in the middle of a traffic circle.
We crossed MD, VA, and WV state lines a few times today. It was a beautiful ride. We saw like 30 cows in less than an acre of space and hope that is not where they are most of the time. There were sheep, too. There was this awesome stretch of road with lots of hills and they made your stomach drop. It reminded me of something my dad told me about Tickle Belly Hill when he was growing up. This was Tickle Belly Road.
We took a break at a Methodist church in a small town that had a playground and picnic tables.
We got to our campsite and discovered that it was walk-in from a dirt/gravel parking lot. Good thing we have those kickstand things now! The walk-in campsite totally justified our new MC camping luggage. It’s so awesome and perfect for this purpose. Everything has carry straps and Julie made it in one trip including carrying an empty can and my helmet. Jaron had more stuff on his bike than I did.
It wasn’t dark or raining when we put up the tent, which was super weird.
Julie found some longer spoons for use with the backpacker meals. Jaron got us some new lanterns more appropriate for a space-constrained trip. We are also using a smaller tent — not the Taj Mahal tent. So we’re getting things figured out. Based on not having anywhere to put mc gear overnight last time, we brought a bivy sack to put our armor suits in overnight. They both fit!
Tomorrow we’re going to check out Paw Paw tunnel. I don’t know if we’re in MD or WV.
Cell service is very low here, so I can’t upload pictures. Will post them later.
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