Day 101

People
I got up a little early today! I felt a little bit weird though, like I was a bit dizzy. Hopefully I can just ride it off. I found out that this particular campsite was a paid one. However, since I didn't actually use any of the facilities and I was expecting a free one, I didn't bother. If that was more clear last night, I would have kept going. The next campsite was only a mile or so away. There were two bikers there, so I'm not necessarily disappointed about where I camped. I filled up my water- a pain in the butt. You have to hand pump from the well. It took a while. I had to pump with one arm and try to keep my water bladder under the flow. The water tasted terrible because it was treated with iodine or iodide or whatever doesn't kill you, but I got used to it pretty fast. Google had worked in a shortcut, much like the one I took yesterday. Just before, I finally had data, so I looked up how many more miles I had. Google rerouted me, shaving a bunch of miles off by going more straight. It worked out so that I got 100 miles closer to my goal from yesterday's travels, rather than the 70 or so I probably biked. Hmm. I checked how far away Washington, D.C. was. It would add a bit more than the 30 miles I gained, but I figured if I push myself, I can easily make it. So I continued down the trail. Google had it's own shortcut for me this time. Again, it's amazing how difficult hills are after being on the trail for so long. I obly had to go a bit out of the way to stock up at a Dollar General. Oh and before I forget, it's finally started to get really darn cold. I wear my rain jacket a lot. It was super windy today too. Soon I was back on the trail. I felt nervous about adding miles, so I looked for roads that paralleled the trail. I could go much faster on the pavement. I switched over once or twice until it was late enough that I wanted to make sure I knew where the campsites were. I continued down the trail and stopped when I saw a sign that said "Stop! You can sleep here!" I looked over at the old canal house. There is one every few miles. They are usually locked, but I guess this one wasn't. The sign said to register online, which seemed weird. Is that like a reservation or something? That's when a guy came out of the house. Yeah, he already claimed it. Oh well, I knew there was a campground up ahead. I pedaled away and when I was probably almost out of earshot, I glanced over through the woods to the river and burst out in amazement. The sky was lit up with a rich pink. The calm river below reflected it, lighting up the whole right side. I haven't seen a sunset in a long time. There are so many trees here that the sun goes behind them first. You couldn't miss this one, even with the trees. Once I got to a clearing in the trees, the view was already past. I got to a campsite a little after 7. I wanted to go to the next one just to clock in more miles, but the next camp was over 5 miles away. There were less clouds than yesterday so it wasn't completely unreasonable to try it, but this one was empty, it's late, I might as well just call it a day. I wandered around the site, trying to find a good spot. There were only thin weeds over mud in most places. I finally found a spot with thicker weeds and set up my tent. Probably an hour and a half later, someone shines a flashlight on my tent- great, I've got neighbors. Or I'm about to be killed. Or I'm being checked out by a cop. It was weird because I didn't hear them set up a tent or anything. I dozed off just trying to listen.