LIttle Orleans to Cumberland, Md

Recalling the Marty and Jake blog from the cross-country trip and then rereading some of this blog, whininess night be a reasonable impression for one to have of cyclists; or pointedly, me.

I mentioned the headwinds in Texas at least a half dozen times and now seem to be harping on the rain. There were two good reasons for this: It was windy as hell in Texas and rainy as hell in Maryland the past four days.

Neither element did a thing to diminish the fun of either ride, but they both gave me something to write about!





Yes, the rain continued today, but while most of the travelers were packing up rain-soaked tents and damp sleeping bags, Kelly and I were enjoying one kick-ass breakfast at the B&B. Considering they don't have to do too much to fulfill the promise of the first "B", they ought to have their stuff together for the Breackfast! Not whining about that, guaranteed.



We were shuttled down to the campground where the rest of the group had left an hour and a half earlier. No worries, we took off... in the rain.

At 75 degrees, the rain was not a problem. In fact, the rain made a lot of the scenery more beautiful. The trail was basically a tree canopied tunnel of deep shiny greens. All the water falls and run offs were flowing to capacity and when the sun finally spilled through the trees in the early afternoon, the sunlight itself looked wet from the rain.

The flipside was the trail was a freaking mess! More puddles with surprise potholes hidden, blah blah blah. At one point in the day, the entire trail was underwater. Needless to say, Kelly and I opted to roll slowly through that quagmire. We almost went down a couple of times, but knock on wood...

About halfway through the day, we came upon the Paw Paw tunnel, a 3100 foot tunnel was built for the C&O canal. I had to don a headlight and we walked the big rig through. It was pretty cool.
























At the end of the riding day we arrived in Cumberland, Md - the END of the Chesapeake Ohio Canal system.

The construction of the canal system began about the same time railroads were being built and the railroad guys were faster. Once the railroads were operational, the trains were WAY faster than the mule pulled canal boats. They stopped building the C&O when it reached Cumberland, well short of its namesake, the Ohio.

Basically the Canal was the Betamax of the 1800s. The VHS guys were clearly running the railroads.

Fittingly, the rest of our trip will be on the Great Allegheny Passage trail which is a 150 mile rails-to-trails project. The construction is crushed limestone and we will not be experiencing the mud, puddles, and muck of the past 180 miles.

Railroads win again.

The start of the day is a 24 mile climb. Kelly is ecstatic!

Jake - PS - time for Kelly to write one of these, right?