Finally, 2008 is actually here. Allegedly, soon there will be an election and an end to the inane coverage of the current crop of 37 or so candidates. If you live in Australia or New Zealand you'll have a pretty nice eclipse to view in about a month. We will all work an extra .3% this year for free, as 2008 will have a February 29th - with global warming and all, that day (a Friday) may be a great day to take off and go paddling. In any event, 2008 probably can't be any worse than 2007 was - and it may be a whole lot better. To get 2008 off in the right direction, I managed to work in hiking, biking and kayaking across the end of the old and the start of the new year.
Carl and I returned to Maryland Heights to complete the Fort trail loop hike that was derailed by ice and fog last time. For some reason, Carl suggested (and I agreed) that we would start at the base of Weaverton Cliffs where the Appalachian Trail meets the C&O Canal Towpath, which meant we would have about 6 miles of towpath hiking and 5 miles of climbing up and down Maryland Heights - basically 3 miles flat, 2.5 miles up, 2.5 miles down, 3 miles flat. The weather here is on one of those seven day cycle where every Sunday is gray and rainy, so from the stone fort at the top of the mountain (at about 1400 feet elevation) the view was muted but still pretty impressive, as was the evidence of all the damage from the icing. The information signs talked about how they pulled 10,000 pound cannons up to this fort but I will bet they never once actually hit anything from up there. It rained and sleeted for the last two miles of the hike on the Towpath but doing an 11 miler was a good way to close out 2007.
I had missed out on a CPA paddle around Eastern Neck Island, so on New Year's Eve day I snuck in a paddle on the Potomac from Jack's Boathouse in Georgetown. Frank the proprietor was there and let me launch at my peril, since the big floating dock had been pulled up and only a small dock with a powerboat using up most of the space was left. I managed to get into the kayak (looking like the Michelin Man in my dry suit) without going swimming and paddled a little over 2.5 miles upstream almost to the Chain Bridge. The water was pretty high and the current was noticeable - I thought I was way out of shape until I turned back and then my speed jumped from 5mph to closer to 7 mph. A lot of swirls and eddies in the water, as well, making paddling a bit more work than at lower water levels. Back at Jacks, I helped Frank move a boat as some payback for being able to launch and headed home.
Carole and I started the New Year with our odd "go to Starbucks and drive around looking at houses" tradition, after puzzling over the Washington Post's annual In and Out list for a while. The older I get, the fewer of the pop references I understand - that's probably a good thing. The weather was decent, so I decided to head over to the Baltimore Annapolis Rail Trail and bike from the Earleigh Heights restored train station to Annapolis. When I left it was in the forties and sunny, but by the time I started it was cloudy and had dropped into the thirties. I biked into Annapolis, where it appears they are doing major construction on the city dock area - it was a mess.
On the way back, rather than just take the B&A trail back for the standard linear 22 mile out-n-back, after crossing the Severn River I detoured onto old Baltimore Annapolis Blvd and then out to Greenbury Point where the old Navy antennas used to be. From there I headed onto St. Margaret's Road, eventually reaching Rt. 50 at Cape St. Clair Road. This is a nice stretch of road, with a few short ups and downs and lots of great scenery - interesting houses and occasional water views. I took College Parkway against the freshening wind back to Jones Station Road and back to the B&A trail - the detour added almost 7 miles for about a 29 mile total. If you look at the track of the ride below, it sorta looks like a crude drawing of Snoopy, no??
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