Chris had to leave early from the ride. The downside of having a life I guess.
We carried on and had lunch in Harpers Ferry after visiting the Antietam battlefields just outside of Sharpsburg.
We stuck to the route and hit a small patch of rain, our first since the start of the trip. We were quite fortunate on that front throughout.
Around 2pm we loaded up on CLMW (Cubes/liquor/Meat/Wood) and found a state campground for the night
The next day we decided to go as far as we could on the trail, camp and then make a line back to Joes house along the river near Baltimore.
Lunch at The Holly Springs Inn
We had seen a few snakes along the route, along with the deer and 1 bear
It was about this time that I saw what seemed to be about a 30lb cat walk across the road. I didn’t really believe my eyes because I did not think they had mountain lion around here, but then every small town we blasted through had a high school with a team mascot as a mountain lion, cougar or some cat.
We pulled into a town around 3pm and hit a Walmart. We were kinda beat by this point, maybe from the trip as a whole or the hills of PA. You just keeping winding your way up one side and back down the other. It did not seem like you were making much linear progress. There was a nice campground about 9 miles away but it would take 30 minutes to get there. There was a campground about 1 mile behind the Walmart that we opted for. We were not expecting much and we were not rewarded with much. It seemed to more of a trailer park.
People brought in an RV and added curb appeal to each lot so it looked as if they were permanent residents, but it was pretty empty of people. We assumed they just came on the weekends to relax? It did not look like a relaxing way to spend a weekend. We were chastised a couple times for going over the speed limit of 5mph, but honestly our bikes would fall over below that speed.
We cooked up a meat bucket
Similar to when you go to the bar and they advertise 5 beers in a bucket for $15, this was 3 steaks and some sausage for about the same price.
The next day we were leaving and as we pulled out on the highway I was behind Joe and saw a bungee cord extending from his rear rack down to his brake caliper. I looked at it for a minute trying to figure out why he would wedge a bungee cord into his brake caliper. With this group you had to be on point. If you said something stupid you would not hear the end of it, and I was no mechanic. I took the risk and told him to pull over.
I was correct it was not as intended. Somehow the bungee detached from bags and hung down and caught in the brake caliper. You could not get much luckier than that. It could have easily went into the wheel and done some damage. It took a pair of pliers to get it out.
We went through Gettysburg, and bragged to all who listened that we had come from Antietam a couple days ago. We ended up just outside of Baltimore. We spent the next 2 days just sitting at Joe newly refinished cottage near Annapolis on an offshoot of the Chesapeake Bay.
Annapolis is a fun town. We were able to just pull his Whaler right into town and tie it up amongst all this million dollar boats
We ate good seafood and were overserved again
We finally had to head back to DC. Another successful trip where no one got hurt and the bikes came back in decent shape. Everyone is looking forward to next year’s trip and the stories it provides.
Darren
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