Phil and I made blueberry banana pancakes for breakfast before packing up and leaving Baltimore, with enough leftover pancakes to make 2 almond butter sandwiches for the road.  It was almost 11 when we finally left.  It was another beautiful day, but it was still hilly.  I felt like I was on a roller coaster, slowly and steadily cresting each hill only to let gravity accelerate me to the bottom again before repeating.

We stopped for lunch at a Greek gyro restaurant, where Rhode Island Avenue meets Route 1.

We ran into trouble with Garmin again, where it kept leading me off the road, onto paths that don’t exist, or on loopy detours that just aren’t necessary.  Garmin sometimes makes me wonder if I maybe programmed it in a parallel universe where the roads are slightly different than they are here.  The worst part about misinterpreting Garmin’s instructions is that sometimes you have to climb several flights of stairs to get back on track – no easy feat when you’re hauling 80 pounds worth of bike.  We finally gave up following it when we ran into yet another detour on the bike path after passing through Washington, DC.  Two women who were running on the path stopped to ask us where we were going when another cyclist (who happened to be one of the women’s brother) stopped as well and sent us in the right direction.

I ended up using the GPS on my phone to get us to Rosheen’s house in Annandale, but that method sent us through a trail in a dark, wooded park, where we had to cross a small stream.  I was convinced that the park was haunted, as we could hear eerie sounds that sounded like distant screams, echoing through the trees.

We finally made it to my cousin Rosheen’s house at 7pm.  We finished off the pasta, roast beef, and quiche that she had made, as well as most of the chocolate chip cookies that her daughter, Elizabeth, had made.  We still don’t have a place to stay south of here, so we are probably going to spend Wednesday in Washington, DC, while we’re so close to the capital city.