Biking and Hiking and Kayaking: Be Careful Out There

Dodging Hurricanes, Bountiful Biking, Barely Any Boating

Hurricanes that have names beginning with the letter "I" seem to be the ones we have to worry about in the Baltimore-Washington area - Isabelle was the last one I remember causing me to check the famous NWC hurricane forecast cone every hour . While Irene did not end up being the apocalyptic event the weather folks were screaming about all week, it did lead to lots of power outages - our's was out for over 3 days. I borrowed Jim's generator, showed Carole how to fuel it and start it (which you have to do every few hours) - and then hopped on plane for a work trip to sunny, fully powered San Francisco. Carole was thrilled...

The day before the storm, Lauren and I took the boat out for a run up the Bay, up and down the Severn River and then into Spa Creek and downtown Annapolis.  It was literally the calm before the storm, as I was able to open it up and do 40 mph on the Bay. Lauren drove on the Severn and into Annapolis - and got to see what the water outside of Pusser's looked like from the viewpoint she had after taking a leap from their dock on her bar-hopping celebration of her 21st birthday a few days before...

Between travel and weather, after the storm we never got in any more power boating, or kayaking, but I was able to work in a few bike rides. I did a 40 mile loop around Rock Creek Park and the Capital Crescent trails, with lots of evidence of Irene-driven flooding. The next day, Carl and I did the final segment of the York Heritage Rail Trail for the year, from Hanover Junction (below) to York, PA (above.) The weekend Irene hit, York was scheduled to have a downtown arts festival, but for Labor Day weekend there was absolutely nothing going on in downtown York. As a former manufacturing area, you'd think there would be something - but nothing but the usual depressing abandoned downtown.

Hanover Junction to York and back was a 22 mile round trip, and passes by the Serenity Station restaurant/spa/music venue - which unfortunately does not seem to be a financial success and is now for sale. $395K gets you .3 acres, 10 street parking spaces, a rental apartment above the restaurant and pretty much everything else. We supported the cause by buying expensive slurpees (not smooth enough to live up to be called Smoothies) and biked back to the Hanover Junction station parking area. Actually, an interesting area - and a nice garden with a bust honoring Abraham Lincoln. Abe rode the North Central Rail line (on which the North Central Rail Trail and the York Heritage trail now travel) to give his famous Gettysburg address - and the same rail line carried his body and funeral procession after he was assassinated. 

 

The Biker Chix Kidnapped My Fourth of July Weekend

Another 4th of July holiday has come and gone, and once again I didn't see fireworks one. I started out the weekend with a 6 mile paddle on Triadelphia Reservoir. Nothing exciting -though I did conk a few turtles on the noggin as I sped along. Then, Carole and I went out with Jim and Jacquie as first-nighters to see "Larry Crowne", about the only new movie opening - four unanimous "what were they thinking??" ratings - but but followed by a great dinner at Spice Xing in Rockville.

Saturday is when those Biker Chix began to inflitrate my 4th of July weekend. I managed to get all four of them (we calculated that they do not yet equal the same age or weight as eight 28 year-olds) (but it is getting close - on the age side, only - or they would never have fit in my car, any car really...) and 5 bikes onto my Subaru Outlook and we drove to the Washington and Old Dominion Rail Trail at Goose Creek. I took off and did a high speed 16 mile ride to Purcellville where I spent several dollars at a home-grown lemonade and granola stand run by a 10 year-old Opie look alike. I turned around and started biking back and met the Biker Chix a few miles outside of Purcellville where I urged them to support the pint-sized entrepreneur while I continued back to the car, completing a nice 33 mile ride. I then drove back to Clark's Gap and parked to wait for the Biker Chix to finish their 21 mile ride. While I waited, I ate about a gallon of wild red raspberries from the bushes on the side of the road.

Monday I managed to escape the Biker Chix, and Carl and I did a manly bike ride on the North Central Rail Trail, from White Hall up to New Freedom PA. This section of the trail is mostly a 2-3 percent grade uphill until New Freedom but the reward is a nice downhill ride for most of the 14 miles on the way back.

The North Central Rail Trail is one of the best in the country. Like most rail trails, when it was proposed neighboring landowners fought it, picturing bikers stealing their VCRs and littering their yards with PowerBar rappers and peeing in the bushes. However, once rail trails get built, inevitably homeowners spruce up their landscaping, local businesses see revenues increase and the attractiveness of a nearby amenity like a bicycling trail causes real estate prices to rise.

The respite from Chix-dom was brief, as the Biker Chix forced Hunter Dan (Andie's husband) to kill, butcher and char tons of meat for a 4th of July barbecue, augmented with many fine side dishes and desserts baked up by the Chix who continue to prove that not only can they send their husbands to the grocery store, but when he comes home the Chix can use up all his Giant Shell gas discount points and make pretty tasty desserts.

But, that wasn't enough for the Biker Chix, noooo. On the final day of the extended celebration of when we declared independence from the British, they dragooned me into taking them out on the boat up the Chesapeake Bay to the Magothy River and Dobbins Island. We anchored there and as you can see, Andie proceeded to flex her calves in an attempt to lure young Zumba instructors over, while Sue called to get into the next Zumba class lead by the hot 28 year-old guy, Christine poured Watermelon juice on her white shorts to show what the hot Zumba instructor looked like when he sweated through his tight Zumba shorts and Carole demonstrated how he did rapid pelvic thrust Zumba maneuvers in his soaking wet, tight, white Zumba Shorts.

Sometimes (often, actually) I find it wise to distract myself from the estrogen-laden world of the Biker Chix, so I focused on nearby Little Island where years ago some guy caused a huge controversy by building a big house, with it's own faux lighthouse, without getting the proper permissions. Being rich enough to build such a house apparently means being rich enough to fight the powers that be - the house is still there.

While we sat anchored and the Chix dangled their legs from the boat's swim platform into the warm waters of Sillery Bay, a small plane made continuous counter-clockwise circles. We didn't put two and two together (luckily) until the way out when I noticed two official looking boats anchored at the center of the river and remembered someone had drowned there the day before - sure enough, they were still looking for his body. Luckily we did not have to play amateur "Quincy" medical examiners...

You can see a map of the Biker Chix's boat ride here.

Hanging With the Biker Chix

I started out the weekend with an 8 mile kayak paddle on Rocky Gorge reservoir, but then pretty much spent the rest of the weekend being a groupie/roadie for the Biker Chix. After kayaking I headed out to the boat to take them (plus Biker Chiklet Tara) out on the water. Not a bad way to spend a warm, hazy Saturday - skippering five hot women on the South River, out on the Bay a bit to the Thomas Point Lighthouse, and then south  onto the West River down to Galesville. It actually started to rain a bit, and the Biker Chix all covered up. But we then went onto the Rhode River for a bit, and the sun came back out - and the Biker Chix all broke out the string bikinis again and life was good.

The Camp Letts kids were out canoing and it was tempting to pick a few of them off but I refrained and we circled back out onto the Bay and back to the South River. I stopped at the gas dock to fill up and once again the normally cranky old man who operates the pumps was all smiles when the Biker Chix pulled up and flashed acres of skin at him. You can see a map of the Biker Chix boat ride here.

Sunday was the "Tour dem Parks, Hon" bike ride in Baltimore. It is a unique ride that goes through lots of interesting neighborhoods in Baltimore - some that are interesting as in the old Chinese saying "may you be cursed to live in interesting times." The ride also (oddly enough) goes through many parks like Druid Hill, Clifton, Patterson, and Federal Hill - which every year points out how many neglected gems there are in Bawlmer. The Biker Chix minus Christine, but including Chiklet Tara, did the 25 mile ride while I did the 36 mile ride. The weather was pretty much perfect and about 1,000 riders showed up - seemed less crowded than last year, but organizers claimed more riders.

The road markings for this ride are never great and I ended up adding some extra mileage on by missing some turns, but just like last year I pulled in to the last rest stop at the same time as the Biker Chix did. From there it was a 6 mile ride around the Inner Harbor, up to Federal Hill and then back to Carroll Park for the finish and some refreshments and a jazz trio playing. None of us went up to the famous Hon Fest afterwards, which would have been interesting this year because there were tensions over the Hon Fest somehow trademarking the term "Hon" - who'da thunk it? You can get an idea of what that the Hon Fest is like by looking here. 

 

Boating, Biking, Hiking - plus Fine Dining and Movies - Make Memorable Memorial Day

Well, about the only thing we did to actually honor the actual spirit of Memorial Day was to put the flag up on the porch - but we did get in a lot of quality outdoor time, plus a lot of fine dining. In fact, actual cooking is just a faint memory to Carole right about now.

We started off the weekend Friday night taking a 4 mile walk along the northern end of the College Park bike trail, followed by dinner with Carl at Christopher's in Crofton - crab bruschetta with huge chunks of lump crab, great snapper, salmon and seafood pot pie. The next morning Carole and the Biker Chix (plus Jacqui) went kayaking on Triadelphia Reservoir while I did a 35 mile bike loop on the Rock Creek/ Bethesda Branch trails. I kept up a 18 mph average pace until I ran into a Memorial Day 5k race/fun run that clogged up the trail from the Air Rights complex through the Columbia Country Club with tons of annoying runners. The Biker Chix reunited Saturday, dragging their husbands along to a fine Memorial Day yard party that featured many Latvians with hordes of blond kids - it was like being transported to Salt Lake City for the evening.

Sunday morning the Biker Chix re-reunited and kidnapped Carl as their boy toy for a bike ride along the full College Park/Anacostia trail system. We went down to the end at Anacostia Park, went over the bridge to the Bladensburg Marina, then on the way back went around Lake Artemesia a few times. Under some trees near the Lake, the Biker Chix grabbed their water bottles, made Carl take off his helmet and then started staring at me and humming some kind of Druid chant, so I hopped on my bike and pedalled away at high speeds. Carl has not been seen since.

That night we went with Jim and Jacqui for a great tapas meal at Jaleo in Bethesda, where after a mere two pitchers of Sangria we learned very interesting things about the pre-married lives of those two. Then the four of us were first nighters and saw Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris" - entertaining, much better than the last 20 or so Woody Allen movies, but I think you have to be an art history major to really appreciate the movie.

 

On Monday, Carole and I took the boat out for a jaunt across the Chesapeake Bay. We got to the marina at about 0930 and it was already 85 degrees and humid - August has come early in the mid-Atlantic. We gassed up and on the way out passed a Coast Guard patrol boat - which is when I realized I hadn't put the new registration sticker on the boat. We did some serious evasive maneuvers and then headed across the Bay to the Bloody Point Lighthouse on the southern end of Kent Island and went a bit further into the Eastern Bay area. It was so hazy you couldn't see very far, but we were only a few miles from the Wades Point Inn we had stayed at last year. The winds were low and the Bay was relatively calm.

On the return we decided to head up the South River and since Memorial Day in Nauticalese translates to "take out your yachts and cabin cruisers and celebrate the unofficial start of summer by throwing up 6 foot high wakes" the South River was way rougher than the Bay - seriously disturbing Carole's horizontal sunbathing/lounging. That boat above is one of the smaller ones that were out.

I also managed to get some radio-nerd action in over the holiday weekend, making a little over 500 contacts in the CQ WW WPX contest. Carole and I then closed out this international dining themed three day weekend with dinner at El Andariego with Jerry and Marie. All in all a great holiday weekend, but keep watching Carl's Facebook page to see if he ever recovers from the Biker Chix spell.

Random Pictures and Posts

If it's not one thing, its another. Between work travel and weather and parent's day at my daughter's college, my outdoor activities have been a bit limited. Plus, I'm now blogging on my company's corporate blog - all these factors have combined to dilute this blog. But here's some pictures and short posts on some of the outdoor time that did happen:

Carl and I have done a lot of biking, including just about every stretch of the C&O Canal towpath from Shepardstown to Glen Echo, MD. This picture is at Whites Ferry, I think this is an old 1800's vintage store. The white pattern on the right hand wall looks like a dog chasing an ATV to me.

I haven't gotten a lot of kayaking done at all since the Wye Race. Right before Wye, I did get a paddle in on the Severn River, starting at the 450 bridge at the Jonas Green Park boat launch. This is part of my efforts to get more time on textured water but at first I didn't think the weather would cooperate. At first there wasn't much wind at all and it looked like it would start raining at any moment. However, I launched anyway and started heading upstream. The wind picked up quite a bit and there were a good number of big yachts and working fishing boats cruising up and down the river - I got to take some decent waves on the side. I ended up doing about 9 miles and exploring some nice coves on the northern side of the river.

Carl and I also went back and repeated one of the nicest sections of the York County Heritage trail. We saw some rail car enthusiasts motoring along on the tracks and revisited the tunnel were we sought shelter from the near-tornado conditions on our earlier ride:

Bucolic Biking After Hanna Harrassment

Saturday September 6th was supposed to be the annual Civil War Century bike ride, sponsored by the Baltimore Bicycling Club. However, Tropical Storm Hanna had other ideas and the ride was postponed to Sunday. The BBC did a great job of moving a very big event - the registration had been capped at 1,600 riders and it looked like most of them showed up on Sunday. The one negative was that we would not have the last rest stop at mile 44, as the Barlow Fire Department parking lot was being used for some kind of antique car show. That meant there would be about 32 miles between the last rest stop and the end, so I made sure I had extra water and food.

The day after a tropical storm comes through is usually beautiful and Sunday was no exception - not a cloud in the sky, slight breezes out of the north and low humidity. After the traditional 7-11 coffee and a muffin for fortification, I was on the road leaving the Thurmont start location by about 0730. The ride has 100, 77, 65, 53 and 25 mile options -  I decided to do the 65 mile metric century. After a bit of neighborhood road biking, the route follows Hessong Bridge Road and about 8 miles in goes over the Utica Road Covered Bridge, which as we all know is the Original Burr Arch Truss Bridge. Seven miles later you come to the first rest stop at the Loy's Station Covered Bridge, which is, of course, the Original Howe Truss Bridge.

On the way to that first rest stop, I passed a few people and a few people passed me. My goal is only to have skinnier people on skinnier bikes pass me and that was pretty much the case. The ride heads north from Loy's Station on beautiful country hills and then crosses to the west of Rt. 15 and heads through beeyootiful downtown Emmitsburg. The ride starts to head uphill here, passing Dave and Jane's Crab House, and heads towards the Ski Liberty slopes - this was the only place I had to talk to granny.

The reward for all the climbing is reaching the town of Fairfield, PA and the final rest stop at mile 32. This rest stop always has the best thing ever - tomato and mayo sandwiches. I don't know why, since I would never eat such a thing the rest of the year, but after 32 miles of biking in September nothing tastes better than fresh tomatoes slathered with mayo and slapped between two slices of bread. Since this was to be the last rest stop, I stuffed a few of those down, refilled my water bottles and grabbed some snackie things for the final 32 miles of the ride.

The rest of the ride cuts through Gettysburg National Park with some short steep hills but great views of the monuments. Once we left the park and headed east on Taneytown Road, the resourceful BBCers had found a way to have an impromptu rest stop at about mile 42 but I was feeling strong and just kept going. Here I was passed by a skinny guy on a skinny bike but by about mile 50 I had caught up to him and we chatted for a while. Somewhere along here we passed the final covered bridge - the Sach's Covered Bridge, which is nice but doesn't seem to be an original anything.  The other guy was real erratic in his speed so at one point I pulled away from him and he actually drafted me for a few miles - that is almost unheard of. That seemed to energize him and with about 5 miles left in the ride he accelerated and left me in his dust.

At the 64 mile mark, I pulled back into the starting point, enjoyed a free scoop of ice cream from the Antietam Dairy truck (excellent Loose Moose) and then headed home. Another great ride put on by the BBC and I guess my last long one for the year since we won't be doing the Salisbury Century this year. Googley map of the ride:

Save The ICC Bike Trail

The Intercounty Connector is a controversial new highway initiative where I live in Montgomery County, Maryland. TMALSS, or yada yada for the Seinfeld generation (though if you go to that link you may be less of a Seinfeld fan,)  construction has started and there was supposed to be a contiguous bicycle path along its entire length but now the state and county folks are trying to back out, claiming environmental impacts and budget constraints. Instead, there will be some sections of new trail, then routing onto surface streets, and so on. Not a big deal for experienced cyclists, but guaranteed to be an impediment to the general population and just a plain old stupid idea. Let's see: gas is at $3.70 a gallon, so let's discourage bicycling...

The Washington Area Bicyclist's Association is lobbying to fight this - if you would like to weigh in, go here to send email to the county bumblers officials. Thank you and have a nice day.

Save on Taxis - DC SmartBike Sharing Program

Today you can already bring a bicycle on Washington DC's Metro subway system, except for commuting rush hour between 7-10am and 4-7pm weekdays. If you don't have a bike, or don't want to risk your bike on DC's mean streets, or if you want to use a bike from a Metro stop during the times when bikes are banned from the trains, DC now has the SmartBike program. Essentially sponsored by Clarchannel advertising, for $40/year you get unlimited use - not a bad deal.

Let a Tunnel Be Your Umbrella

When I was in 5th grade, my science fair project was about weather control - how in the future we would use satellites with lasers to basically have rain fall where it was needed and not fall where it wasn't. Forty years later it appears the Chinese are giving weather control a shot for this year's Olympic games. The Chinese even have a Director of Weather Modification, who knew? I think in the US the closest we have in the National Weather Service is the Director of Throwing Darts at a Weather Map. With that in mind, Carl and I should not have trusted the forecast for Sunday: clear with slight chance of scattered storms after 2pm. But being fools, we did.

We decided to do a 30 mile out and back on the Heritage Rail Trail from Glen Rock to York, PA, allowing us to complete the entire North Central/Heritage Rail Trail duopoly this season. This section is very rural until you start nearing York, has lots of interesting old structures, one of the few bike shop-restaurant-day spa-WiFi hot spots you will see on a bike trail and the oldest continuously operational stone arch tunnel in the world, the Howard Tunnel. The trail is slightly downhill going north, so the return trip is slightly uphill but the weather was gorgeous and we made good time after a few false starts actually finding Glen Rock.

Lots of people out on bikes, including several Boy Scout groups. Everywhere you look along the trail new facilities are popping up, including a rest stop with bicycle sculptures. As we headed north it started to cloud up a bit and as we hit the 11 mile mark and started entering the greater York metropolitan area, we started to hear some rumbling that sounded like jet planes (to Carl) or cars going over a metal bridge (to me) but once we reached the end of the trail in downtown York, we realized there were no jets and no metal bridges, just plenty of really dark clouds moving in from the west. As we headed back, Carl looked at the dimples in Codorus Creek and noted that the fish must be really biting - until I pointed out that those "dimples" were from rain drops, not fish.

As we continued south the rain drops got a bit bigger, the thunder got a lot louder and the wind really picked up. The time between the lightning and the thunder kept decreasing until we saw the crack and heard the boom pretty much simultaneously - and it began to just pour down in a gutter gushing deluge. We were about a mile away from the tunnel, so we just slogged it out until we got there and joined about 20 other weather refugees inside the 170 year old structure. After about 20 minutes, the rains slowed and we prepared to head out - until the rain picked up again, and we waited some more. It finally slowed again, and we headed out - but of course it started pouring again. Being manly men, and soaking wet already anyway, we just kept slogging southward, towards the sound of more thunder. There were many tree limbs down along the trail, and when we finally reached Carl's Jeep and tuned to the weather frequency we found that the area had been under a tornado warning.

Later that night I checked the NOAA weather reports and York County had gotten 2.65 inches of rain, pretty much from that one storm we rode through.  Where are those satellites and laser beams when you need them?

Memorable Memorial Day Mileage

I've never been a big "let's go drive somewhere over the three-day holiday weekend" kinda guy, and with gas at $4 per gallon, a stay-at-home Memorial day weekend sure makes a lot more sense anyway. The weather gods smiled on the Baltimore-Washington area for the holiday, with blue skies, temperatures in the 70s and not a drop of rain in sight.  The movie gods also cooperated, with some good opening night opportunities for evening activities.

I started the weekend with a hilly 32 mile bike ride through Montgomery and Howard counties, stopping at the new "House of Flavors" in Highland for an expensive coffee and a bagel. I did the Haviland Mill hill both ways for my first granny gear test of the year - I could do the hills in 3rd gear, so I'm starting out the bicycling year a little bit ahead of last year anyway. Though, 7 miles an hour isn't much faster than 5 mph. This route passes by about 7 different coffee shops (only one of them a Starbucks) so some day I will map out a tour de java where every 7 miles or so you get another jolt of caffeine.

I followed that up with an 8 mile kayak training run on Rocky Gorge Reservoir, where I concentrated on trying to do every stroke the right way. Lots of herons and turtles out, and the one bald eagle, to watch me as I tried to keep both hands high, both upper arms bent, both hips rotating, both lower arms straight, both paddles fully in the water - oh, and sit up, and forcibly stab the paddle in the water, too. I made some progress - without really trying to push it, I got my standard time of 1:28 (5.5 mph average) down to 1:24 (5.8 mph). Maybe I will make some progress in doing less thrashing and more actual boat propulsion. That put me in a good frame of mind as Carole and I joined some friends to go see the new "Indiana Jones" movie (many thumbs up if your thumbs like Indiana Jones movies, which they probably do) and a really good dinner at the Aida Bistro in Columbia (many tongues up if you are one of those who eat.)

Sunday morning was the standard "bicycle with Carl" day and we decided to check on the Gwynns Fall Trail which had opened a new segment from the Park and Ride lot at I70 and the Baltimore Beltway. This is a very odd trail, mixing in new paved segments along the river with riding on abandoned roads with riding on dirt paths through the woods with riding on open heavily trafficked streets through urban Baltimore. It goes all the way down to the Inner Harbor, but we only did the northern, more rural part. The new northernmost section includes several switchbacks and lots of brand new landscaping - it will be a good looking trail section when that all matures.  About 5 miles in some fire trucks up on the road were spraying their fire hoses over the trail into the river, for some reason - this created a mini-waterfall that had us puzzled for  bit, but they stopped spraying as we sat there deciding what to do.

We went as far south as Carroll Park, home of the Mt. Clare mansion that dates from 1760. The Gwynns Falls route beyond that is basically mostly on streets, except for a few sections of paved path that get you under the Baltimore Beltway. It is a fun way to bike into Baltimore's Inner Harbor, if you are so inclined, but it ain't scenic - nice view of the Greyhound bus station, though. On the way back, we detoured to do the abandoned road section to beeyootiful Dickeysville, MD - a town that seems to have been isolated in time and remained unchanged for 100 years. Even though there is a tree down across the trail, it is well worth the 2 mile detour. We then headed back north and chugged back up those new switchbacks, for a ride total just shy of 20 miles. You can stretch this out to about 35 miles round trip if you go all the way to the southern end.

Later that night, Carole and I (along with Jim and Jacquie) did another dinner and a movie night, seeing "Son of Rambow", a weird British movie. Half a thumb up, if you like oddball movies with lots of kid actors with British accents using all kinds of British slang as they do all kinds of things you hope your kids never do.

The next day it was back to paddling. Jerry and Marie had mapped out a paddle on the Monocacy River, starting at a launch ramp north of Frederick, MD (essentially in the parking lot of a WalMart!) and ending at at Pinecliff Park, 6.7 miles downstream. With all the rain we've had in May, the river flow was about 50% above normal which gave us a nice downstream assist. We saw lots of herons and other birds, and one river otter - a first for most of us. The river is largely isolated from development, but you do go past the discharges from a few water treatment plants and you get to experience that nice minty fresh smell. At this water level you hit a few small rapids, probably Class I at best, which added a bit of fun. I lead the way through many of them and cleverly lead Carole and me to run aground at one point after passing under a bridge. However, we quickly moved on and enjoyed a nice float, er paddle down the river. A quick (but huge) bite to eat at the breakfast buffet at the Four Seasons in Mt. Airy, and a quick viewing of the fancy bicycles at the Mt. Airy Bicycles shop and a very nice Memorial Day weekend drew to a close.

The Googlefied map of the paddle: