Day 100

Cliff
A dog barked as I fell asleep and he was at it again when I woke up. I bet the poor thing does nothing but bark all day. I heard a few bikers go by. When I started packing up, a few more went by, but I don't think any of them saw me. Just a few miles after starting, I went across a long bridge. It was pretty windy. I stopped to take some pictures. There was a leaf in my chain, so I bent down to pull it off. Somehow I managed to tip my bike over just enough to spill a ton of peanuts on the ground. I had to get off my bike to clean it up. Bad idea. The wind cause my bike to completely fall over, spilling everything in the basket. Somehow nothing actually fell off the bridge... At least that I know of. Seriously though, what a fantastic start to my day. At least my basket wasn't completely destroyed yet. I stopped by a porta poty and a guy shouts hello. I said hi back. Then he continued talking on the phone. I was like wow... But then he soon hung up and for sure was talking to me this time. A group of bikers was coming through I'm support of wounded veterans. They had a bunch of treats for the people going by on the trail- bananas, granola and cliff bars, Gatorade, and fruit snacks. They didn't say they were fundraising or anything though, so I just got some snacks for free. Yay! I got into a town and had to hunt down a convenience store. It was all down hill, but finally I searched Google and was able to find one. For some reason I got a dozen donuts... I guess I was feeling hungry. As I was heading back up the hill, a guy in a truck pulled over and asked me where the trail was. Luckily I had just looked it up and was heading there myself, so I was able to answer. A couple of people have asked me for directions and I have always had to say that I have no clue, until today. I got back on the trail and stopped every so often to check my map. The trail did a crazy V shape that I wanted to avoid so that I could shave off a few miles. I finally got to the turnoff. I had to climb three hills, always blasting downhill afterwards. The sign said 13% grade- I'm pretty sure that's the most I've ever seen. Finally it was all downhill into Maryland. It looked like the road I was on would meet right up again with the trail, but I found out it actually was quite a bit above it. I was going to just continue until there was an actual spot to get back on, but the shoulder disappeared and the traffic increased. Maybe the shoulders would get better, but I didn't know because I didn't have data and therefore couldn't check on Google. I decided to just go back because I saw a road that looked like it crossed over the trial. It didn't. It crossed under. I didn't see any other way though, so I just pushed/dragged my bike up the steep slope to the trail. I saw just railroad tracks at first and got a bit scared but right on the other side was the trail. I probably negated most of what I gained from the shortcut by doing this but oh well. Less than a mile later, there was a gas station that had a ramp leading right  into the trail. Oh well. Soon I hit the first city in Maryland. After some confusion about exactly where I needed to go, I found the visitors center. Woot, postcard on the first try! The next part of the trail was different. Before I was on a rail trail- this was a towpath, canal trail, or something like that. The quality of the trail was fine through the city but it slowly devolved closer to a dirt road. I could still keep a good pace on it, but every time I hit a patch of small rocks, I could feel how much it slowed me down. I passed by a road kill raccoon, not unusual at all, I see them all the time. But wait, I'm on a bike/hiking trail, that's kinda odd. I stop and look back. It's moving! I went over to check it out and was really surprised that it didn't just immediately run off. Every time I got a bit close, it would raise it's head and then put it back down. I didn't really know what to do. It seemed like it must have been run over by a bicycle perhaps. Or, it was a windy day- maybe it fell out of a tree. There were flies all around it, so I doubted it would have a happy ending. I extended my arm out to it and that finally caused it to get up. It didn't make it far though. It was so sad. I'm really hoping it's just dazed. I know they are nocturnal, so maybe it's just tired. I was totally gonna nurse it back to health and carry it around on my bike but I realized that was probably impractical. I had to leave it there and continue on. The wind was gnarly all day. At least it was nice and cool. The trail really took me through the heart of nature. I saw lots of squirles and crazy amounts of deer. Actually I keep forgetting to talk about deer. I hadn't seen them for months, but now I see many every day. A few days ago I saw four at one time, and one had small horns. Yesterday I passed just a few feet from a deer. It didn't even run away. Deer in the headlights was a common look I got. They would stand there starring at me until I got close enough for them to run away. There was a fantastic tunnel I got to go through. I could bike the whole way, but it still took a long time to get through it. The path was not very wide, so I had to slow down when I passed two other people walking their bikes. The ground was pretty uneven at times, but not enough to walk it. Oh right, and to the left was a handrail protecting people from a 30 foot drop to te canal below. Okay, I guess I don't blame them. About every 5 miles or so of this trail, there was a campsite set up with a porta-poty and water pump. I had enough water for the rest of the day, but this is hugely important for any hiker or biker. It was nice to know water was always less than 3 or 4 miles away. They also had a sign that showed exactly how far away the next and previous campsite was. Pretty awesome. Once it was getting towards that time where I need to think about camp, I would just pass a campsite and read the sign. If I thought I could make it, I kept going. It was 6:26 and I had 5.1 miles to go. I figured that would take roughly 40 minutes, so I'd probably stay there. Somehow I managed to get there by 7:56. That's like 10mph! And I even stopped to pee once! The next campground was 5.3 miles away. I hesitated, but I figured that's a lot of miles. I'd love to be that much closer to Maine. I increased my pace a lot, knowing it would be almost dark by the time I got to the next campground. Sometimes I would go under treecover and I could barley see the trail. Finally I saw a porta-poty, but no water pump or sign like usual. I saw car headlights up ahead. What the heck? Then I did see a different sign- "group camping" and an arrow. I checked the time. It was 7:13. I'm thinking this has to be a different one, because that puts my speed at above 15mph. Oh well, it was dark and I didn't want to end up going for another 10 minutes only to find out that was the last campground. I pulled in and of course, there was another tent there. Out of all the campsites I saw, there was only one with a guy at a picnic table- the rest had all been 100% empty. Of course the one I have to stop at has people. Ugh. I didn't want to be in earshot, so I set up my tent closer to the trail. It had been misting since midday, but some the last campsite it started picking up the pace. I slipped inside my tent. After a bit, some people with very bright flashlights came by. I know this because they shined them directly on my tent. Thanks for that.