Me, Chay, Betsy and Phil

I had thought about running in a mile race that someone we met in the cafe the day before had told me about, but I didn’t actually wake up until 9:30, so it was too late.  Betsy made waffles in the morning, and we covered them with brie cheese, apple-cinnamon syrup and blueberry syrup.  I worked on the website a bit, finally getting a working link for donations on the “Donate” page, and we did a small load of laundry before leaving Betsy’s house.

We got a pretty late start, not leaving until after noon, but the wind, while not strong, was finally in our favor, so we made good time.  This was our fastest ride yet, with an average speed of 15.4 miles per hour.  The sun stayed out all day too, so I didn’t have any trouble with my feet freezing on me.

Crystal and Emma's porch is ready for Halloween

We arrived in Richmond, the city that hosted the first US Open of Cycling in 2007, just after 5pm, and reached Crystal’s house at 5:30.  Crystal was sitting outside on her very festive porch that was all decorated for Halloween.  We showered there, and then waited for Dennis to get back from mountain biking, since we were actually staying at his dad’s house.  We left our bikes at Crystal’s and drove about a mile to Dennis’s dad’s house, where Crystal made us a pizza and we talked and drank wine before going to bed.

This morning I awoke in the tent, huddled at the bottom (we had pitched it on a slight hill so the rain wouldn’t pool overnight), by Phil’s feet.  I hadn’t slept very well, since my sleeping bag was awfully tight so I couldn’t stretch out my legs, and I kept waking up, either with numb arms, hearing strange sounds outside in the direction of where our bikes were hidden, or finding myself sliding down, off of my sleeping pad entirely with my feet pressing up against the outer wall of the tent so I could actually feel the rain pattering down on them.  Nevertheless, I did not want to emerge from my warm sleeping bag when the time came to pack up and leave the church grounds.  We managed to gather all of our stuff together and get back on our bikes before 9am, but not before our hands and feet were numb.
It was less than a mile to the cafe I had picked out for breakfast, and after locking up the bikes, while walking through the entrance, I confided to Phil that I didn’t think I could ride in this.  He readily agreed, as both of our gloves and shoes were soaked, and our hands and feet were frozen.  It looked like it was going to be cold and rainy all day – not the kind of weather amenable to a 50-60 mile bike ride.  After reading what Phil wrote about how he occupies his mind during our long (and mostly silent) rides, I admitted that I spent the latter half of yesterday talking to my feet, convincing them not to freeze on me and trying to both mentally and verbally coerce my heartburn into shifting the heat to where it was lacking in my extremities.  Needless to say, I’m glad we chose to stay in Fredericksburg.

Betsy's bathroom was painted by a local artist and depicts Fredericksburg's skyline in brilliant colors

In the Hyperion Espresso cafe, we ate muffins and drank coffee and tea while using their free wifi to find couchsurfing hosts for the next few days.  We were very grateful to hear back from a few people, including Betsy, who lives less than a mile from the cafe in Fredericksburg.  We stayed at the cafe nearly all day, talking to other customers, reading, blogging, and avoiding the miserable weather outside.

When we finally left Hyperion around 3pm, Betsy welcomed us into her home and let us shower before offering us more coffee and tea and then taking us on a driving tour of historic Fredericksburg, with Chay narrating.  After the tour, we all had a relaxing evening at the house, enjoying homemade chili with brown rice and tortilla chips, plenty of drinks, and cake, while watching the movie “Shutter Island” to go with the season.

He holds him with his skinny hand,
“There was a ship,” quoth he.
`Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!’
Eftsoons his hand dropped he.

This trip has been a great adventure so far. For the most part it has not been the land passed or the sights seen, its the people I’ve meet. All of you whom I have both stayed with and met on the road. You are who has made this the wonderful trip that it has been so far and that I am sure it will continue to be.

Unfortunately the media tends not to report on the general good that goes on in the world the kindness that seems overwhelming on the small scale, yet when it is repeated again and again as it has been on this trip it shows itself to be the norm. The norm that is ignored. The media only wants the sensational. That which tends to be sensational seems to be cruelty and violence, but for those who are reading this I can only say good things of the world.

I do not mean to say that the world is perfect and that people have not been exposed to sadness and cruelty. It is sad and true. But its not the norm

In the 24 short years that I have been around I have been fortunate to experience very little but kindness and sincerity from all of those around me.

In short I want thank everyone who has helped me so far up to this point, both on the road and in general.

All I can really hope for is that I can return the kindness in the same or greater proportion than what has been done to me so far. This ride, is a small expression of that will to help others. Thank you everyone who has been a part of it so far.

Thank you.

Phil

By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp’st thou me?

The bridegroom’s doors are opened wide,
And I am next of kin;
The guests are met, the feast is set:
Mayst hear the merry din.’

Evening everyone, a few things to say.

First and foremost I want to give you all a few words on what this sort of travel does to you. In short, without proper expectations and preparation it drives you crazy.

I am an extremely active person both physically and mentally. This adventure certainly takes care of the physical bit yet it aside from conversation with random people hardly does anything for the mind. To qualify that statement, I mean to say that the long spans of riding in between point A and point B are the twilight zones for the mind.

Sure at the beginning and end of the day there is pleanty of human interaction, packing, planning and things to be done to properly occupy the mind. However once you get on the saddle and start riding, unless the conditions require constant attention your mind just starts to drift and you get bored and start to think about all the things you dont like about riding. How the saddle feels, what hurts in your legs, the wind, the rain anything. I am even fortunate to have a travel companion to talk to periodically but during riding Sarah can get so far away from me that I could easily consider myself alone.

Perhaps thats just me, perhaps I am slightly crazy but friends of mine have remarked of a similar occurance so I am here to try to lend aid to other travelers.

First and foremost you need a game plan. Something to do, something to mentally occupy yourself with for several hours a day.

Tips:

1: Get an mp3 player, I suggest the Sansa clip it costs about $60, the new one that is. Its a brilliant little mp3 player weighs a few ounces at most; its very bare bones, no flashy visual display or anything just nice and simple . The best part about the device is that its a standard 8 gigs of memory but has a Micro SD card slot meaning that it is expandable. I have a 16 Gig card in there at the moment. It cost me about $20. So for about $80 you have a 24 gig device with an excellent battery life. Ok that’s my endorsement for the evening. Regardless of what mp3 player you get. Get one! Use it to learn a language, listen to audio books, poetry whatever you please. Music works too, however you don’t really have to think or pay attention to listen to music so your brain can start wandering to strange places so something that requires thinking is best. Again I say audio books, language programs or something of the like are wonderful. I am currently working on learning Italian and memorizing various bits of classical poetry. It works wonders.

Ok so in the event that the battery dies on the mp3 player (which will happen, especially when you don’t want it to) or you just don’t have one, you need to use your own mental facilities to keep yourself occupied.

2. Try to memorize things. Stories, languages, Poetry, Pi, Strings of prime numbers. Anything really. Trying to memorize something makes you think just hard enough that you can still function and navigate, yet occupies enough of your brain so that your still busy and active in there. Its also pretty easy to get distracted by a car that passes far to close for comfort, or a beautiful landscape or bad directions. Just for long enough that you lose your place or forget just what you were doing and so you have to start over or somewhere you do remember. Hours of instant occupation, and honestly once you’ve memorized something you can put it to good use. Especially if its a language. But if its random facts or poetry you can impress random people, or come up with witty quotes that very few people will get. You can spout off the billionth digit of Pi; which is 9 by the way. Anything just memorize anything, once your done move on to the next thing. Supposedly its healthy for the brain too.

3. Play mental games. Doesn’t matter what it is, make something up if you have to. Few tips, look for funny or interesting road signs. Take pictures of them or just memorize them. Play license plate bingo with states or numbers.  Number games or taking formula to extremes are certainly time consuming. 1+1=2, 2+2=4 4+4=8 so on and so forth. Divide your mileage by different numbers.

Things that can certainly be tough and monotonous are hills. Pushing through them, particularly on certain hills can be tough. Besides a dedication to not stopping which can be much worse than going forward each pedal stroke can hurt. So I tend to count them. It helps keep ones mind busy on something else. Makes it a bit easier to get up hills.

Im sure there are other things to do to keep your mind busy but I strongly suggest keeping yourself busy or you may get homesick or lonely with what your doing so the best thing to do is to stay mentally occupied.

Good luck and happy cycling,

Phil

We took yet another day off at Rosheen’s house in Annadale, where we didn’t even leave the house (aside from a 6.5 mile run I did in the afternoon).  After getting  more than enough rest, we took off around 11am on Friday morning.  It was so cold, we only stopped once every 20 miles.  After the first stop, I lost all feeling in my right foot and never regained it until sometime during dinner later that night.

There weren’t many places to stop and warm up along the way, and after the second stop, I was really worried that my foot would become frostbitten and need to be amputated.  Then, just 7 miles from the end, I saw a place called “Try My Nuts” and was instantly drawn to it, for both warmth and nourishment.  The man inside gave us several samples of nuts, all coated in different sugars, spices, and butter.  I probably would have had to stay for a few hours to warm up fully, but after sharing a hot chocolate with Phil and eating a pretzel coated in chocolate and mini Reese’s Pieces, we ventured back outside to finish the last few miles.

First time pitching the tent since we left

Fredericksburg is a lovely historical town, and we passed through a battlefield and a large park on our way into the town center.  Phil had charted out the day’s course to end at a church that looked like it had a large yard where we could camp.  When we arrived, he went inside to ask about pitching our tent, and the man inside generously obliged.

After setting up camp in the church yard and locking our bikes up, Phil and I walked into the town to eat dinner.  We ended up at a quaint restaurant called Jake & Mike’s, where we each started with a pint of beer.  I ordered seared escolar over spinach salad and Phil had blackened chicken over zucchini and mashed potatoes.  For dessert, we split a pumpkin bread pudding with dulce de leche ice-cream.  Everything was wonderful, and we were able to load the next day’s route into Garmin and charge up some of our electronics as well.  I am not looking forward to riding tomorrow, as it is going to be even colder and will be raining as well.

We won’t be stopping every other day, I promise!  But it’s not every day that we find ourselves in such a vibrant area, with so much to see and do, and with family and friends as well.  We are trying to take advantage of being so close to the city, while avoiding cycling in the rain.

Tuesday morning we both woke up late, around 11am.  A few days ago, we began entertaining the idea of cycling straight to New Orleans for the winter, where we can work as pedicab drivers and in a bike shop, instead of cycling down the coast to Fort Lauderdale first.  Since boats generally don’t cross the Atlantic until springtime, we will likely have to stay in the states for the winter.  Why not go directly to New Orleans, where we know we have work, before cycling to Florida in the spring (preferably after the Mardi Gras marathon) to find work on a boat?  It will mean we need to start thinking about adjusting our course in a more westerly direction.

We discussed travel plans and towns we’d stay in along the way for a bit, and then figured out how to take the bus and metro to head into the city for the day.  Upon arriving in DC, my first priority was getting food (as usual).  Phil wanted to see the museums, and since they were closing at 5:30, we decided to look into those first- but not before I bought some food from the first food truck (and only traveling culinary carnival) in the city.  I enjoyed a delicious pumpkin and chick pea curry with basmati rice and a mango lassipop, while Phil started touring the Air and Space Museum.

The next museum we visited was the Native American museum (actually called National Museum of the American Indian).  Once inside, I found my way straight to the cafe, which was filled with Native American cuisine from all regions of North and South America.  The food all looked so good, but was so expensive.  I sampled a few things and ended up spending way too much money on a cup of pumpkin soup, wild rice/watercress salad, and guava tapioca pudding.  I shared this with Phil, since I didn’t want to fill up before we actually made it to any of the places recommended by our friend, Christina.

Silver Tree Sculpture

On the way to the Museum of Natural History, we walked through a sculpture park, where I took a photo of a silver tree.  Sadly, this is the only time I remembered to use my camera that day.  I really have been trying to take more photos for the website!  The Natural History museum was my favorite, but we had the least time to spend before everything closed and the guards began shuffling everyone out.  From there, we walked around to Eastern Market, where Christina had suggested we go for food and books, but it all appeared to be closed for renovation.  We walked to another of her suggestions, Good Stuff Eatery, where Phil ordered a burger and I ordered a pumpkin milkshake.  Looking back on everything I ate during the day, I guess I was really in the mood for pumpkin.  After this, we walked to Co Co Sala, a restaurant/chocolate lounge & boutique.  Charles, the bartender, was  helpful in deciding what to get and very friendly, giving Phil a drink on the house.  I was particularly impressed with his ability to spin a menu on one finger whilst simultaneously engaging in conversation.  I started with a chocolate martini and an exquisite dessert that involved dark chocolate mousse, salted caramel and dark chocolate gelato.  If I didn’t consume enough calories from that, I topped it off with a small plate of wild mushroom and tomato risotto.  Feeling sated, we departed the restaurant.

Phil was going to meet his friend Lauren, who lives in DC and had just returned from an interview in St-Louis, so I needed to catch the metro and bus back to Annandale on my own.  I needed cash for the bus, so I ended up spending $3.00 to withdraw from an ATM, and then had to spend money at the nearest store to make change for $20.  In my haste to catch the metro, I got on the wrong one.  Or I got off at the wrong stop.  Either way, when I got out of the train, I had missed the last bus by almost an hour.  There were two other bus lines that went to Annandale, but they left from a different metro station, so I had to run about a mile to another road to catch an entirely different bus, so I could eventually get on the same bus that I had ridden on the way into the city.  Without my smartphone, I never would have figure it out.  Then again, if my phone hadn’t been threatening to shut down because of a low battery, I probably would have gone to the correct metro stop initially (I had turned my phone off before getting on the metro because I was afraid it would die).  I finally made it back to Rosheen’s house around 11:15pm.

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.

The next morning, Phil and I were still feeling sore from the hills, so we decided to take a rest day in Baltimore before moving on towards Washington, DC. Except that it wasn’t really a rest day, because we walked to a yoga studio in Harbor East to take a Bikram yoga class.

On our walk, we passed through the Occupy Baltimore crowd and talked to a few of the people there. One guy, who looked no older than mid fifties, claimed to be 70 years old and was juggling. The yoga class was in a room heated to over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. After an hour and a half of Bikram, one of the guys in our class invited Phil and I to join him and his wife for happy hour at Ra, a nearby sushi restaurant. Brian and Carmen arrived shortly after Phil and I sat down, and we enjoyed a late lunch with the couple. Carmen is from Spain and teaches violin, while Brian is from England but originally from Zimbabwe. They also love to travel and hope to visit New Zealand some day, among a long list of other places.

When we returned to Coleman’s house, I could barely move my arms enough to take my sweaty clothes and yoga mat out of my bag before flopping face-down on the bed and passing out for about an hour. After waking from my nap, Phil and I biked to the grocery store to buy ingredients for the next morning’s breakfast. Coleman was home by then, and I went with him to a nearby pub to have a beer and watch the Ravens game.

Me, Norma and Phil before leaving Elkton

Before leaving Elkton, we ate fresh pineapple and muffins that Norma had baked the night before.  We went over the route that google had planned for us with Norma, and then packed and said good bye.

It was a beautiful, sunny day, and we warmed up within the first mile or two on the hills, enough to stop and peel off a layer.  While the weather was beautiful, the terrain was again full of rolling hills, and about halfway through the day, we lost the wide, protective shoulder on which we were riding.  It became a rather frightening ride on route 1, where we rode as close to the edge of the road as possible, hoping that no cars would hit us.  I was unable to look back, for fear that I might veer into the ditch to my right or into oncoming traffic on the left.

A great view from the orchard

We stopped at yet another orchard at the top of one of the hills and bought cookies.  Never have I been to so many orchards in one season.  Had I known that they all sold freshly baked cookies, I may have gone out of my way to visit more of them before.  We were still too far from Baltimore to buy a pie to strap to the bike, so we continued along route 1 after tasting a few of the cookies.  Our last stop was around 3pm for a late lunch at the Gunpowder Lounge, just on the edge of Gunpowder Falls State Park.  We stopped there for about an hour, cooled down significantly, and hopped back on our bikes to head into Baltimore.  My descents were poorly timed, such that I would arrive at the bottom of each hill to stop at a traffic light and lose all momentum for the next uphill.

When we were 6 miles from our destination, we stopped so I could phone Coleman, my friend who was hosting us.  As I took my phone out, it was ringing, and it was Coleman, who was already on his bike.  I shared with him our location, and we confirmed a meeting spot.  Coleman found us on North Broadway and led us through the city to his house, on his mountain bike.

We showered and walked to a new restaurant nearby, where we had beer and pizza, and then bought a pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream to take back and eat at the house.  I planned a route for the next day and programmed it into Garmin before going to bed.

Breakfast with Lucia and Steve

Steve and Lucia treated us to an excellent breakfast at a famous Jewish Deli within walking distance of their house, where the portions were enormous.  Afterwards, we went back to pack up our bikes.  Steve and Lucia biked with us to a bike shop, s0 we could buy a spoke wrench, and then escorted us through the city, including the Italian market, and to the edge of town where we said goodbye.

While the wind wasn’t nearly as heavy as it had been the previous two days, it still did not blow in our favor.  To top it off, the terrain was hillier than it has been for the entire trip thus far.  About 25 miles out, Phil realized that his fleece had fallen off his back rack, where he had secured it with a bungee cord.  We ended up cycling a few miles past the Delaware state line sign (which proudly announces that you are entering the home of tax-free shopping) on a busy road to get to a mall, where he could buy a new one at EMS.

Welcome to Delaware!

Our only other stop was at an orchard about 4 miles from the home where we were staying, drawn in again by the smell of donuts and apple pie.  We bought a pumpkin pie and some ice-cream to take to our hostess, Norma, as a gift.  Norma’s home is absolutely beautiful, and the plumbing in the bathroom adjacent to the room where we were to stay had been finished in the nick of time, just a half hour before our arrival that evening.  Norma cooked a lovely stew, and her boyfriend, Peter arrived with fresh bread.  Her neighbor, Darrell, joined us a bit later (arriving by golf cart) to hear about our trip.  Since we were so tired from the long ride, Phil and I excused ourselves around 10pm to go to bed (and here I am, just finishing this post).