C&O Canal and GAP Ride - Day 2 - Two Tired Little Puppies

Bob and I awoke on the second day of our epic ride as two weary travelers.

The root cause of our fatigue had nothing to do with the miles we had ridden the previous day. We are two finely honed physical specimens of unparalleled strength and unrivaled endurance.

We woke up dragging namely for one sole reason - TRAINS!!!The literature said that Brunswick Family Campground was subject to "some train noise". I'm envisioning the occasional train chugging along, quietly blowing its soothing whistle. No big deal - in fact - I thought hearing a distance train whistle as I lay there in my tent would conjure up pleasant images of distant lands.

The fact of the matter, and what the literature fails to point out, is the campground is adjacent to a train yard. Now for those of you unfamiliar with train yards - they work night shift. I kid you not when I say ALL NIGHT LONG the trains clinked and clanked, banged and bonged, roared and rattled, squealed and squawked and honked and howled. The attacks on our sense of hearing were absolutely unrelentless.

Laying there in the dark, listening to the cacophony of noise, afforded me the opportunity of profiling Train Engineers. They resent the fact that they have to work all night long and therefore don't give a rats behind how much noise they make. They could be easy on the throttle to avoid the incessant roaring of the engines. They could gently connect the cars one to another. They could blow the horn in short, subdued blast. BUT THEY DON'T! Instead, every time they have to move the engine, they throw the throttle to full speed ahead. Everytime they have to connect to another car, they try to get up as much speed as possible in order to make the connection a minor nuclear explosion. And for God's sake, everytime they even come close to a car crossing, they put both hands on the whistle rope and swing from it until their arms can no longer hold their weight.

Train Engineers - don't let the innocent image of gentle old men wearing coveralls and a blue and white pin striped hat fool you - they are but a sick, sadistic, foul lot.

C&O Canal and Gap Ride - Day 2 - Proper Butt Care

In any long distance bike tour tour, proper butt care is absolutely essential. If you show your butt a little TLC, you'll hardly know it's there. If you neglect your butt, trust me it will be unrelentless in voicing it's displeasure and discomfort. Your butt will literally become a pain in the @$$.

For this trip, it turns out that not only did Bob and I share the same bed, we also shared the same Butt Cream.

By the end of the week, it turns out that my butt faired a little better than Bob's (thanks to my beloved Brooks). Hence every 5 to 10 miles, Bob began to insist on what affectionately came to be known as the "Butt Break".

C&O and GAP Ride - Day 1 - Brunswick Family Campground

Our itinerary for the first night called for staying in one of the primitive camp sights along the trail. These sights were nothing more than a small space adjacent to the trail with a picnic table, hand pump for water and portapotty. We reached the predetermined camp sight and decided that we were on vacation and entitled to a little better accommodations (particularly flushing toilets, running water and hot showers). Therefore, we rode an additional 5 miles to the Brunswick Family Campground.

The was not my first time at this particular campground. In fact a number of years ago, when my 2 sons were young, we rode the C&O Canal Trail and stayed at this very same campground, for the very same reasons. On that particular occasion, I distinctly remembered that there was this entire family living in a tent. They weren't there just for the weekend. It was obvious that tent was their home. It was a big tent and they had rigged a blue tarp over it to increase its water resistance. Inside the tent they had a couch, recliner and TV set. It was really sad. Once the boys and I set up camp, I decided to go to the bathroom for a shower. As I was walking past their tent/home one of the little girls who lived there came riding by on her bicycle, and get this, she was singing "Santa Clause is Coming to Town". She was as happy a little girl as you could imagine. She lived in a tent and yet didn't have a care in the world. That little encounter happened many years ago, but the memory and lesson of it are still crystal clear for me today. In a material centric society like ours, where we spend so much of our life energy accumulating stuff, we would do well to heed this little girl's view on life. The roof over her head was a blue tarp. She did not have running water. She did not have AC. She did not have a bed. She did not have her own room. She had every reason to gripe and complain about her plight in life. Yet she rode around on a rickety, old bike, singing joyfully at the top of her lungs "Santa Clause is Coming to Town."

Being a Sunday night, the campground was pretty sparse, so Bob and I had our pick of sites.Once Bob and I set up camp, I emptied one of my panniers and we headed into town for supplies. Principally food and beer. When we got back with our supplies we were faced with a troubling dilemma. We had beer and no way to keep it cold. Bob went to get ice in the camp store, which was nothing more than the old trailer the campground owners lived in. He was gone for what seemed like forever. Just as I was about to go look for him, I saw him in the distance slowly walking his bike with a bag of ice tied down to the back rack and balancing a styrofoam cooler on the top bar. It turns out that the campground owners took mercy on our plight to keep the beer cold and dug in there trash pile and gave us this dirty, old, cracked cooler. On the open market, that styrofoam cooler wasn't worth 2 cents. To two touring cyclist with quickly warming beer - it was priceless!

With our beer happily chilling away, we set about cooking dinner. The menu for the night called for chicken jambalaya, cornbread and beer. There's a country song in there somewhere. As I cooked dinner, Bob busied himself setting up the table with a flair that would rival a 5 star restaurant.Bon Appetite!!

C&O and GAP Ride - Day 1 - The Ride Begins in Earnest

All the stuff we read indicated that the C&O Canal Trail in the Georgetown/DC area is heavily traveled and suggested we start on a parallel trail, the Capital Crescent Trail. We did just that. We rode this smooth, paved trail for some 5 miles or so and then jumped on the C&O Canal Trail.We had not been on the C&O long when Bob piped up, "Paul this trail isn't paved!" "N0 - it's not" I replied. "I thought the trail was paved?" Bob persisted. "No - it's not" I replied. "Is it like this the whole way?" Bob asked. "Yes - it is" I replied. I could tell Bob was not particularly pleased with this discovery and couldn't help but smile to myself. After a few moments of grumbling about it, Bob accepted that which he realized he could not change and rode on. I never heard another word of complaint from Bob about the trail for the next 365 miles.

The C&O was indeed quite congested from cyclists, hikers and runners. It continued this way all the way to Great Falls (MP 13). Where Bob and I took turns looking after the bikes while the other ventured on the trail to see the falls. The day was beautiful and the falls were awesome.Shortly after Great Falls, the pedestrian traffic thinned considerably and we were left to enjoy the beautiful and historic sights the C&O Canal trail had to offer.

We passed lock after lock which were designed to lift and lower the barges through the 605 feet of elevation change along the way.We passed the accompanying lock houses which housed the lock keeper. It turns out the lock keeper and his family were allowed to live rent free in the house. The only catch, he had to be available to open and close the locks 24/7. No weekends. No sick leave. No vacation. A free house? I don't think so.We passed numerous aqueducts, which are basically bridges used to carry the canal over the many tributaries that fed the Potomac.At lunch time we stopped at a small convenience store/deli at White's Ferry, which shuttles cars across the the Potomac River to Leesburg. I am huge proponent of being a lifelong student. We should always be observant and have our ears, eyes, heart and mind open to the little life lessons that we can pick up in even the most unlikely of circumstances. Case in point, as Bob and I sat in this small store eating our lunch, a big redneck of a man came in sporting a T-shirt with a few words of wisdom:

"Life is like a jar of jalapenos. What you do today can burn your @$$ tomorrow.

After lunch, I grabbed a cold beer and we moseyed over to a picnic table and watched the ferry go back and forth. Now this was how life was meant to be lived. Sitting on a picnic table, under the blue sky, sipping a beer, pondering jalapenos and leisurely watching life go by. We had no schedule to keep. We had no particular place we had to be. We were riding our bikes. We were free.

C&O and GAP Ride - Day 1 - Milepost 0

We woke up around 6 am on Sunday morning, loaded our bikes, slipped down to breakfast in the motel and headed out for our epic ride.Our initial goal was not merely to find the trail, we wanted to find Milepost 0. Mind you, that turned out to be no easy task. We found the C&O Canal Trail. We followed it to another trail. We followed that trail to a park. We followed the road through the park to the Potomac waterfront. Still - no Milepost 0.

Lesser men would have given up, pointed their bikes North and hit the trail. Not us, we are engineers. We wanted to start at the beginning. Milepost 0 is as beginning as you can get. We were gonna find and start at Milepost 0 even if it took us all week to find it.

Bob asked a couple of cyclist lounging on a park bench. they pointed us in the general direction of a nearby boat center (Thompson's). Boaters were busy carrying their canoes/kayaks/row boats down to the river. We pushed our fully loaded bikes through the hustle and bustle of boating activities. We were about halfway across the boat center property when an older gentleman yelled at us and told us we were going the wrong way. He told us there was was no trail in the direction we were heading. We explained that we were in pursuit of Milepost 0.

The older gentleman didn't have a clue about what we were talking about. He yelled at another boater who held a kayak suspended above his head. That busy boater motioned with his boat in the direction we were heading.

We pushed on to the end of the boat center and around the side and were rewarded with none other than Milepost 0.We were now ready to begin.