Yesterday I dragged Jake to the tow path for a 15-20 mile ride...that turned into 30 miles, but who's counting??
We hopped onto the tow path at Brunswick a little after 5 and headed north. We made it to the Antietam Aquaduct (15 miles) around 6:20ish. Not too bad all things considered, but the sun was definitely on its way down.
We threw down some fuel and started south.
Rest break at Dragon's Bend
(Dargen Bend if you don't have a 5 y/o)
And it began to rain
and rain
The tow path is a dirt trail. Dirt + Rain = Mud.
I wasn't too worried though because the trail is slightly downhill going south so we'd be nice and dry in the truck in about an hour. Not!
Our happy little world started hiccupping...
Hello world!
It rained enough that I had to take my glasses off. And it was getting darker because of the clouds. Neither of us has a headlamp on our bike...we don't usually ride in the dark so we've never needed one. This made it hard to tell if the dark spot ahead was a pile of leaves, a rock, or a hole. I hit some puddles and got very sloshy wet and muddy.
We made it to Harpers Ferry and I was silently rejoicing...only 5 miles to go!
Then Jake's pedal
BROKE
as in it whirled around and both of them were pointing down...at the same time.
And neither one of us brought the tool kit...because, you know, we never need it and there are always plenty of cyclists on the trail. ha! The trail was deserted.
So he did a combination of walking and scootering (standing on the pedal w/ one foot and pushing off with the other). Bike pedals are taller than scooters so this was killer on his already tired quads. I tried it for a short bit, but it killed my foot.
2 miles south of Harpers Ferry is a parking lot-Weverton, and we were parked 3 miles south of that-Brunswick. We made almost to Weverton, and I told him I would ride ahead, get the truck and pick him up at Weverton.
By this time it was pretty dark. Wearing my glasses was still pointless because of the rain. But I hauled biscuits as fast as I could so he wouldn't have to hang out in a dark parking lot by himself.
30 miles of wet, muddy fun!
I got to the truck and my hands were so muddy that I didn't want to touch anything valuable, like my phone or keys. But I had to hurry because I could hear a train in the train yard moving, and I didn't want to get stuck on the wrong side of the tracks.
I get things loaded and
I can't find my
keys
Argh! I just had them; what the heck did I do with them?? I check and recheck all the places I might have put them and finally found them in my
jersey pocket
with a lot of mud to keep them company. Sigh...
After this was smooth sailing though. I beat the train, got Jake, bought him a pizza for being a good sport and went home to shower and crash.
I was covered from head to toe with mud. I had mud up my nose, in my teeth, in the folds of my rear. I had to wash my hair twice to get it all out. My socks were dripping and I had a solid mud stripe up my back. Crazy!
But
It was also kinda fun...
my phone takes sad pictures in the dark
No comments:
Post a Comment