We wake up with our alarm, feeling groggy but that’s a sign of having had efficient (if not sufficient) sleep. After staging our bags and making some coffee in our suite, we head downstairs for 9am breakfast cooked by Megan, the innkeeper and chef. This breakfast is, in a word, outstanding. We meet some hikers who are traveling part of the Appalachian Trail, which intersects with the C&O Towpath in Harper’s Ferry.
Before leaving town, Becca decides to stop at the Post Office to ship a couple small items home to save space and weight. We read some 100-year-old-looking signs about the area’s Civil War-era history before descending the spiral staircase leading to the bridge out of town. On the other side of the bridge another group (headed the opposite direction, to DC) comments on our Anthony Fauci mascot. The leader of the group makes mention of his ‘wack-job conservative brother,” who is standing right there. Maybe the brother cursed our mascot because moments later we hit a particularly big bump and he fell overboard! An anonymous hiker shepherded him safely off the trail until we could backtrack and retrieve him.
A paved waterfront section of the path presents a narrower passage and denser traffic, slowing us down for a few miles. We got a late start and are already hoping for a ‘second wind.’ We meet the Metal Pigs again; they just finished going for a swim in the Potomac. Were they skinny dipping…? It’s a 40-mile grind to our scheduled lunch destination: a depressed town where the restaurants can’t afford to serve a lemon slice with their water but that has a strong social fabric. We scarf down an entire large pizza and let the cheesy carbohydrates re-energize us for the second half of the day.
Eventually mile marker 100 appears, an encouraging if merely symbolic milestone. Some podcasts and video game soundtracks propel us forward, and we devise a resting schedule for the days to come that mirrors Actors’ Equity guidelines: a 5-minute break every 55 minutes. We meet another rider, David, who embarked from Georgetown around the same time we did. No sooner had he dropped his son off in DC after riding together from Pittsburgh did he turn right back around and set out for Pittsburgh again, alone. He highlights some do’s and dont’s that should make planning and sight-seeing easier during the second half of our journey.
Becca leads a strong final push to Hancock, MD, listening and obnoxiously singing along to the cast album of In the Heights. We finally arrive in Hancock right as Act One concludes! Right off the trail is our next bed and breakfast, managed by the most professional and inviting proprietor you can imagine. Joe shows us to our room, takes our bikes to be locked in his shed, and recommends that we cross the street to grab a bite and a brew at Buddylou’s, a legendary local restaurant that is going to close if we don't hurry and get over there! Walking back from dinner we recognize yet another rider who left DC with us, Kinton. Unlike us, this young man embarked for Pittsburgh in the spur of the moment, staying at campgrounds without setting any plans in stone. We expect to see him again, but potential thunderstorms threaten to delay anyone bound for Cumberland, MD tomorrow.
