Mindless 50

Today was our third perfect biking weather day. The weather gods are kind. And my Sunday blahs went away after an unusual eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. Lord, I needed that.

There are two theories as to my Sunday malaise. One is Blissful Britt‘s theory that the Five Guys gut bomb I had for dinner Saturday night blew up inside me. The other is John Fisher’s comment that I may have been reacting to the flu shot I had on Saturday, because the dose is higher for people of a certain vintage.

Speaking of vintage, as of mid-August I am now in a higher risk age bracket for Covid-19. Just shoot me.

The Mule and I had nowhere to go so we went to the Mount Vernon Trail to dodge noobs. The trail is packed with people who don’t normally use a bike trail. We took our time managing not to get hit or to hit anybody. To my surprise it wasn’t nearly as crowded as I expected.

I rode all the way to DC when I had to decide where this ride would go. Then it occurred to me that if you don’t know where to go, ride around in circles. I headed to East Potomac Park where Ohio and Buckeye Drives make for a flat 3.3 mile circuit. The road was packed with bikes and other self-powered humans. The lawns along the sides all had picnic-ers and fisherpeople and hammock hangers and such. A few parked cars were blaring music. One van had its rear doors open the better to maximize the boom from a mega boom box.

I stopped a couple of times to pick up stray golf balls from the raggedy course in the middle of the park. I think my summer shag stash is approaching three dozen.

I rode my usual pace and let my mind drift. Every so often I’d ride through a cloud of weed smoke. Too bad I was wearing a mask. I swear I could have had a free buzz if I slowed down.

After 6 laps (20 miles) I headed back home on the trail. After about 44 miles I was starting to flag. I had homemade diner breakfast and it was wearing off.

I could ride the last six miles home in my sleep and nearly did. All told I made it 50 miles.

I could get used to this.

Blahs

After yesterday’s splendid bike ride, I got a flu shot. For dinner we ate mass quantities of Five Guys food while watching the Nationals game. They won. Miracles do happen.

During the game my left arm ached as if someone had punched it hard. I went to bed only to toss and turn all night as the Five Guys re-arranged my GI tract.

I left the bed and slept on the couch hoping the change of venue would bring relief. No dice.

Now it’s past midmorning. The weather is perfect once more and I feel like I have a hangover. No energy. Slight headache. It’s the first time I’ve felt remotely ill since last winter.

Of course, I could have Covid. Ayyyyyyy!

Unlikely.

So I’ll sit on the deck and drink fluids while reading The Martian (very entertaining). At 1 I’ll go inside and watch the ballgame. I’m hoping by 4 I’ll feel up to a bike ride. I’d hate to waste this weather.

Perfect

The heat and humidity left town last night. The gross DC summer has ended. (I hope.) It was time to open the windows and breathe.

After reading the paper, I climbed aboard The Mule and headed northwest. I took the inland route to Georgetown. This uses city streets and lightly used trails and bike lanes to avoid the Mount Vernon Trail. On perfect weather days, the MVT is jammed with people. For some reason the authorities did not inform them that the trail is MINE!!!!!

To be honest, the inland route is a bit hilly in spots but it has its charms. I picked up another free golf ball near Belle Haven Country Club for a start. Then there’s the scenic majesty of the loading docks of the buildings in Crystal City. And let’s not forget the glorious vistas of the massive Pentagon North Parking lot. You can tell we are not at war because the lot was empty on a Saturday.

Well, I made it past all of them and around the north side of Arlington Cemetery. White crosses in row after row after row. Next it’s up the hill past the Netherlands Carillon (which is surrounded by scaffolding these days) and onto Lynn Street through beautiful downtown Rosslyn. (Sarcasm alert.)

I rode across the Potomac on the Key Bridge onto busy M Street. It was the busiest I’ve seen this road since the pandemic started. A right turn at Wisconsin Avenue brought me to the Water Street protected cycletrack. Sadly, the cycletrack ends after a couple of blocks and I had to waltz with the SUVs looking for street parking. The street ends at the Capital Crescent Trail trailhead and next to a boathouse so the SUVs all get to do a 3-point turn in the midst of heavy bicycle and pedestrian traffic.

The Mule and I made our way onto the CCT. The adjacent, unpaved, C&O Canal towpath was a mud pit so I decided to take the CCT all the way to Bethesda.The CCT wasn’t all that crowded except for a group of skateboarders that stretched about a mile in length.

In Bethesda I weaved through the diners and pedestrians who had taken over the city streets and followed the detour signs to Jones Bridge Road. The detour gets around the re-construction of the Georgetown Branch Trail. Jones Bridge Road is a busy thoroughfare during the week as it runs along the Bethesda medical complex. On Saturdays it’s rather calm. Soon I had doubled back across the GBT right of way. I could see where the old Rock Creek Trestle was. This was one of my favorite spots in DC. You could hang out above the treetops which made for a pretty great show when autumn colors arrived.

Crossing the GBT right of way I headed downhill toward Rock Creek Park. A big white SUV passed me with its engine roaring. I yelled “Wow. I’m impressed” into its open passenger side window. A minute later I pulled up behind Mr. SUV at a stop light.

About a half mile later I was on the closed section of Beach Drive, the main road through the park back to Georgetown. It’s insane that such a beautiful park is right smack dab in the middle of a huge city. Beach Drive winds its way down the Rock Creek canyon, crossing and re-crossing the creek. The road has recently been repaved so the riding is just about as sweet as can be.

And the scenery is like this. For mile after mile.

Beach Drive is open to cars and gets a bit hairy nearer to Georgetown. At one point a Maryland driver zoomed passed me honking his horn. I returned digital fire. Then in the interest of self preservation I switched to the side trail. The trail was a mess. Recent rains have caused the creek to overrun its banks. Standing water and mud covered the pavement. I survived.

After passing the Watergate and the Kennedy Center, I entered the beach volleyball slalom. The courts were closed but it was just my luck that the Bikeshare tourists from Oshkosh were in town. They rolled slowly in a sort of mechanical blob for 100 yards or so before stopping all over the trail. One on this side, one on that side, one in the middle, a few off the trail on the left and a few on the right. They then began asking each other where they wanted to go (Hint: the big marble building in front of them was the Lincoln Memorial). I rang my bell and yelled “Coming through!” They said “Oh.” They then proceeded to waddle their bikes all over like the players on an electronic football game or a gaggle of startled geese.

I survived this too. The weather was so good I didn’t cuss or anything. Honest.

Soon I was crossing the Potomac on the Memorial Bridge back into Arlington to reverse course around fab Pentagon North Megaparkland! They should charge for the views.

After clearing Old Town Alexandria I decided to try the MVT for the last few miles home. The first mile was rather frustrating as expected (Okay, let’s assemble the entire family right here on this paved trail while ignoring 30 acres of pristine lawn), but the traffic thinned out and the last two miles were copacetic.

Just before home I stopped and picked up some drugs. The deep discount for my asthma medicine was discontinued. Alas, I am now too old for Big Pharma’s mercy. My glaucoma drops thankfully are still reasonably priced.

I also got a flu shot. It was free. Thanks, Obamacare.

I arrived home after 51 blissful miles. I have now ridden exactly 7,000 miles this year.

It’s time for some baseball and junk food. Perfect.

920 Muggy Miles

It is official: my pandemic boredommeter has broken. I continue to ride nearly every day but my daily average is falling. Doing 80 to 100 miles in oppressive heat and humidity is likely to lead to an evening at the neighborhood trauma center.

My neighborhood trauma center is used to seeing bicyclists. One time many years ago I crash on the Mount Vernon Trail. I had a dislocated left knee cap and my left arm was cut to the bone. There was blood. The first question the triage nurse asked me was “Did you hit yoru head?” I said “No” and had to wait 20 minutes. Later, as I was wheeled to x-ray, a patient in cycling clothing on a gurney was being wheeled out. We said hello and he asked me “How’s your bike?”

He hit his head when he fell.

Anyway, my longest ride this month was 52.5 miles. I nearly got killed doing it thanks to a rumble strip and a pile of storm debris. On the plus side I averaged over 29 1/2 miles per day, even while taking three days off.

For the month I rode 920 miles putting me at 6,885 miles so far this year. I’m still on pace to exceed 10,000 miles for the year, but only barely so. I need to have a big September and October.

My stenosis came back. I reached 17,000 miles on my Cross Check. And I signed up for my 12th 50-States Ride in late September.

On to autumn!

Readin’ the ‘Rona

Well, I’m not exactly burning up the roads of America this year. Other than watching Washington Nationals baseball games, I am spending a lot of time reading. I read National Geographic and Adventure Cycling magazines. Otherwise I’ve been working my way through a pile of books.

This Is Going to Hurt by Adam Kay – the diary of a doctor in the National Health Service in the UK. This is very funny, and sometimes tragic.
Labyrinth of Ice by Buddy Levy – the incredible tale of a multi-year arctic rescue mission in the days before modern communications. If you liked books about The Endurance expedition to Antarctica, this one’s for you.
The Body, A Guide for Occupants by Bill Bryson – This book lacks Bryson’s usual wit (his A Walk in the Woods is the funniest book I’ve ever read), but it will tell you a million bizarre factoids about your bag of bones.
Lie to Me by J. T Ellison – an entertaining novel in the style of Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl.
Sharp Objects by Flynn – ditto.
Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson – a Bryson travelogue showing off his wit as a fish out of water in Great Britain. As you’re about to discover I tend to work my way through books by author
Dark Places by Flynn – Another dark Gone Girl-ish novel
And I Do Not Forgive You by Amber Sparks. The author is the wife of a former co-worker. Well written off-beat short stories that was not well read (as Nick Hornby likes to say).
The Road to Little Dribbling by Bill Bryson. Another witty travelogue.
Made in America by Bryson. A book about the history of the English language. I had high expectations for this one but it wasn’t my cup of joe.
Giving Good Weight, La Place de la Concorde Suisse, Irons in the Firel Looking for a Ship, The Ransom of Russian Art, The Control of Nature all by John McPhee. I loved these on first read many years ago but reading them in sequence got a bit tedious. Still he’s a skilled researcher and writer and they hold up well to the passage of time.

Buzz Saw by Jesse Dougherty. The tale of the improbable march to a World Series title by the 2019 Washington Nationals. I always regard the long baseball season as like an epic novel. This one proves my point.
Table of Contents by McPhee. By this point I was pretty burnt out on McPhee. (I have only Coming into the Country left to read in my McPhee collection.
One Day: The Extraordinary Story of One Day in America by Gene Weingarten. Dang is this book a revelation. Using a day chosen entirely at random, Weingarten reports on events that happend on that date in the recent years. I like Weingarten’s weekly humor column in the Washington Post but he’s cheating us by not writing more books like this.
The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness. A young adult novel in the style of Twilight. Weird times five.
Circe by Madeline Miller. She’s a nymph, she’s a which, she’s a badass. I didn’t think I like this but it’s pretty great. The writing style is unusual but it works.
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles. How about a Russian novel in the style of Graham Greene. Not that I know anything about Greene’s writing.
The Hours by Michael Cunningham. Unless you’re a big fan of Virginia Wolff and Mrs. Dalloway, don’t bother. By page three I was sick of metaphors and atmospherics.
Normal People by Sally Rooney. A rich nerd has an affair with a smart jock in high school in Sligo, Ireland. The story follows them through college in Dublin. Rooney is amazing at describing the nuances of relationships.

Still to come: this eclectic pile. Note that my wife and daughter picked up on my tastes. I read Ron Chernow’s biography of Ulysses S. Grant last year and was amazed. And since I saw Hamilton on stage last year it was a no-brainer to gift me the book where it happened. I loved Matt Damon in the movie about a botany nerd stranded on Mars. The Outsiders is a classic that I’ve never read. And two books by authors I first read earlier this year.

I am saving Hamilton for after the baseball season. I’m not throwin’ away my shot.

It’s been a long time since I’ve read so many books that float my boat.

Let’s Get Ready to Rumble

On Sunday night I stayed up late watching a movie with my wife and daughter. The following morning I awoke after about six hours of sleep. Several cups of coffee later I was driving to Solomon’s Island in Maryland to take on oppressive humidity and rolling hills aboard my Cross Check.

The first ten miles of the ride were mostly along Route 2, a four-land highway and the only major north/south road in the area. I was still a bit groggy from my lack of sleep as I started my ride. The highway had wide paved shoulders which were occasionally guarded by rumble strips next to the right travel lane.

For the uninitiated, rumble strips are sequential cuts in the roadway that run in a line parallel to the travel lanes. These particular strips were about one foot wide. These cuts resembled a tractor track like you’d find on a dirt road. Their purpose is to alert drivers that they are leaving their lane and driving off the road. Properly designed they can be helpful to bicyclists because cars that hit the rumble strip make a distinctive, loud rumbling sound. If you’re riding and hear that sound it’s a really good time to take evasive action.

After a few miles I was getting into a nice pedaling rhythm, bombing along the shoulder at 15 miles per hour when I came to a long downhill. My speed increased quickly. I looked ahead and could see some vegetation obstructing nearly the entire width of the shoulder. This debris was probably caused by recent storms.

I rather absentmindedly started to drift to the left to go around the debris when I found my bike and me shaking violently. I had drifted right into the middle of the rumble strip. I’ve ridden some rumble strips that were no more disruptive than riding on an unpaved trail like the C&O Canal towpath. These strips, however, were composed of deep cuts in the roadway. They were so deep that the bouncing I was experiencing had slowed my speed into the mid 20s.

Even at this somewhat reduced speed, the shaking was making it impossible to control the bike. My butt kept coming off the saddle. The bike started to wobble. Instinctively I reacted by veering to the left. Freed of the rumble strip, my bike accelerated straight across the right travel lane.

I peeked at my mirror and saw nothing coming in my lane but, far behind, a vehicle was indeed approaching from the passing lane. Just as I was about to cross the dashed stripe into that lane I managed to get control of the bike and steered hard to the right, across the rumble strip, and onto the shoulder, well beyond the pile of debris.

This was the closest I’ve come to a high speed crash on a bike in years. It scared the crap out of me. I am very lucky that both travel lanes were empty when the rumble strip ejected my bike and me.

It took my several miles to calm down. In about 30 minutes the route took me across the highway onto back roads. Although these roads were quite hilly, unlike the highway, they were shaded. Temperatures had climbed into the low nineties. The high humidity made it feel like over 100 degrees.

There’s nothing quite like grinding up a series of steep hills in sweltering heat and humidity to take your mind off a homicidal rumble strips.

The Long Slog

If you thought riding across North Dakota and Montana was a slog, try riding during a pandemic. From time to time, I escape the roads near home and go somewhere else. This month I visited Kent County and Talbott County on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Long, level riding is good for the soul.

Closer to home, in a manner of speaking, I rode the 100-mile White’s Ferry Loop. Level ground to be sure, but quite an undertaking. It also confirmed that Big Nellie, my trusty recumbent, aggravates my stenosis condition. (The pain went away after a couple of days.) My fourth long ride of the season was the 52-mile ride to Bethesda with a return through Rock Creek Park.

But mostly my riding has been confined to 30 to 40 milers near home. During my last full year of work I rode to and from the office over 130 times. I am beginning to feel that same level of monotony. It sure would be nice to point The Mule in a direction and ride far but that’s not going to happen this year.

For the month of July I rode 1,033 1/2 miles, taking two days off to refresh my legs. It’s the second month in a row over 1000 miles. I am now 115 miles ahead of the pace I need to hit 10,000 miles for the third year in a row, resting comfortably at 5,935 miles for the first seven months of the year.

Bike to the Beach update

My friends Mike and Emilia don’t know each other but they have each signed up to ride 100 miles in the rain today in support of Autism charities. You can help by throwing some cash their way. Just follow the links. Thanks.

Evening the score

A few weeks ago I drove to Easton, Maryland on the Eastern Shore to do a clockwise ride from Easton to Oxford to Saint Michaels to Easton, using a ferry to get from Oxford to Saint Michaels across the Tred Avon River. As luck would have it the ferry was not operating so I had to back track and take a land route.

The weather forecast for yesterday was promising so I decided to give it a second shot. This time I checked online to make sure the ferry was running. Not wanting to do things exactly the same I decided to ride the loop counterclockwise. This resulted in me riding all kinds of extra miles trying to get out of Easton.

Once on route the way to Saint Michaels was pretty straightforward. Highway 33 is a two-lane, 50-mph affair. The road lacks shade which turned out to be a bit of a problem as the day wore on. The road has huge shoulders with very little debris and the cars kept close to the speed limit.

After checking out St. Michaels, a very cool town with many old residences along narrow lanes, I decided to head further along US 33 to Tilghman Island. After passing a few golf courses there wasn’t much to see. Farms and estates lined the highway. Each had a long straight, tree lined driveway to a posh house. One exception to this style of homestead was a geodesic dome house next to the road.

The only hill of any sort was the ten-foot rise on a drawbridge to get to the island itself. Not exactly Alpe D’Huez.

Waiting for the drawbridge. The woman in front of me was very fast.

Once on the island I kept riding until I reached a gate blocking the road near a U. S. Navy installation. The trip from St. Michaels turned out to be 16 miles. I took a few minutes to check out the Chesapeake Bay and have a snack before heading back the way I came.

After passing back through St Michaels, I turned toward the Bellevue-Oxford Ferry. The ride to the ferry was along a sleepy, windy, mercifully shaded country road. When I arrived at the ferry pier I saw no cars in line, indicating that I had just missed the eastbound ferry. No worries, with no cars in line, bicyclists and pedestrians are supposed to pull a rope to activate a simple signal to tell the ferry that you’re waiting. The signal is a hinged board painted yellow on one side. It opens when you pull the rope. (How they see this signal in fog is beyond me.) As soon as I pulled the rope, a car pulled up. It’s a bit like lighting a cigarette to bring a bus to your stop on a cold winter day.

The ride across the river was pleasant. The breeze off the water felt great. It grew stronger as we went. I looked over my shoulder back west toward the bay and saw why. As late afternoon approached a summer storm was building over the bay. No time to dawdle.

As soon as I disembarked in Oxford, I hopped on the CrossCheck and rode as fast as I could directly toward Easton. This mean I was lopping off some of the route through farmland east of town, but the notion of being out on the road for a fierce summer storm did not float my boat.

Normally, I cruise along at 11 to 12 miles per hour. My ride from Oxford to Easton was more in the 18 to 20 mph range. As luck would have it the road I was on went directly back to where I had parked my car. After getting the bike and my gear configured, I drove a mile to a gas station convenience store. I was inside about five minutes. When I came out the skies opened with cold, hard rain.

The whole ride ended up being 65 miles, considerably longer than my previous ride here. Now that I’ve evened the score with the ferryman, I want to come back and explore some of the side roads in this area.

Reverse Winter

I grew up in the northestern US. I lived there for 28 years. Every winter we’d have a “cold snap”. If you lived away from the coast this meant that for two weeks the temperature would drop below 0 and the wind chill factor would make it feel like 10 – 20 below.

Frostbite in Albany

Over Christmas one year, my brother Joe and I got cabin fever while visiting my parents. We decided to bundle up and go for a run in sub-zero wind chill weather. We picked the 3-mile loop road at what was then called the State University of New York at Albany. I was running marathons in those days and Joe was not. We were doing about 9 minutes a mile when I put my hand up to scratch my ear. Joe slapped my hand down. “Don’t touch it. It’s frozen. We’d better get back to the car.”

I was a more than a little freaked out. I looked over at him and said, “Bye” and dropped the hammer. I guess I did the last 1 1/2 miles in about 9 minutes. No lie. I balled the jack. It took a few hours for my ears to thaw out. The Scotch I drank back at my parents’ house didn’t help much.

Heat Exhaustion in DC

Ever since I have had a healthy adversion to frostbite. Then there is the opposite situation.

Around the same time, I spent the summer in DC. At the time, it turned out to be the hottest summer on record. (It has since fallen to second place.) Like a whole bunch of other government interns I lived in a dorm in Foggy Bottom on the urban campus of George Washington University. I’d go out for runs after work and drop five pounds in sweat.

One Sunday I decided to jump on my ten-speed Raleigh and go exploring. I rode to a bank in Capitol Hill to use an ATM. (Yes, it was THAT long ago. ATMs were a new thing and ten-speeds was the most you could get on a bike.)

After my errand I reversed course and rode over to the C&O Canal. I rode out the canal about 20 or 25 miles. I had brought with me one 12-ounce water bottle because that’s all I ever used when I rode in Providence. By the time I had doubled back 10 miles to Great Falls Park I was wobbling all over the place.

I stopped and bought a (glass!) bottle of Coke at a refreshment stand. Drank it. Then I refilled it over and over and over again with water from a fountain.

Feeling a little better, I jumped on my bike and headed back to GW, a distance of about 16 miles. I honestly did not know if I would make it, but I did. Before going into my dorm, I bought three bottles of ice-cold Gatorade

In my room, I chugged the Gatorade, took a shower, then collapsed on my bed. For 16 hours.

The next day I went to work. I had to do some things at the old Interstate Commerce Commission on Constitution Avenue. In lieu of air conditioning, the ICC used huge fans. After about an hour I became nauseous. I found a pay phone (lord, this was a long time ago) and called the office to tell them I was going home.

Back at the dorm I drank all that I could and fell asleep again for another 12 hours.

In 2007 the 50- States Ride in DC was held in August. It was sweltering. I fell in with three people two of whom looked like they were at death’s door when we arrived in Rock Creek Park at about the 50-mile mark. One of our group decided she had “things to do” and took off. After my experience with heat exhaustion, there was no way I was going to leave the other two alone. One of them dropped out about three miles later as he neared his apartment. The other made it to the finish. As it turns out she was okay with the heat, but her back was killing her.

Reverse Winter

It’s because of these experiences, that I refer to summer in DC as reverse winter. When winter flexes its muscles in the north, you crank the heat up and hunker down with a book and some hot tea, In summer in DC, you crank the AC up and hunker down with a good book and some iced tea.

As I type this, it is 99 degrees here in DC. The heat index is 111. I rode 33 miles in the relative cool this morning. (It was well over 80 degrees when I left the house.) I ain’t going out there. No way. No how. Time to hunker down.

White’s Ferry Loop

One of the long rides I try to do every year is the White’s Ferry Loop. This ride links up several trails in the DC are for a 90-mile circuit. Including the 9 1/2 miles to the loop from my house brings the total mileage to 99. Typically, I add a mile somewhere along the way for the full century.

I chose to ride clockwise because the forecast called for heat and humidity. This would put me on the shaded C&O Canal towpath for the hottest part of the day.

I boogied along for 23 miles taking streets and two trails (see below) before stopping at the Vienna train station building to refill a water bottle. Then I was back on the W&OD Trail all the way to Leesburg, about 47 miles from home. Whenever I could I topped off my water botlles. To be on the safe side, I carried five bottles, two on the bike and three in a pannier. I also brought snacks. Peanut butter on bread, pretzel sticks, and a couple of old chewy granola bars.

I rode on King Street through Leesburg, which had many tempting places to eat. In fact, if you stopped at every microbrewery along the way you’d pass out before the ferry.

North of Leesburg is the sketchy connection to US 15, a busy north south highway. I lucked out as there were no cars coming. The highway has a big shoulder along this part (because bicyclists were hit and killed several times in years gone by).

After a half mile , I turned onto Whites Ferry Road for another 1/2 mile of quiet country road to the ferry. If cars are coming toward you, you can take your time, because the ferry is crossing back to Maryland. I arrived at the ferry and waited in the shade for the trip back. As ferry trips go, this one is pretty calm. It only takes five minutes.

The store on the Virginia side is up an embankment. The exterior of the building has marks with dates next to them showing the high water marks for major flood events. Suffice it to say, Hurricane Agnes did a number on this river valley back in the early 70s.

After some ice cream, Gatorade, and a port-a-potty break I headed south on the C&O Canal towpath. The double track of the past is gone, replaced with an unpaved smooth surface. For five miles, that is, until it’s back to the bumps. Riding a recumbent means you feel every bump because you cannot easily lift your butt off the seat.

Near Seneca Creek the towpath is muddy. I was slipping and sliding but I didn’t fall.

From time to time, I saw deer, squirrels, herons, and large ominous looking birds. Mostly I was just trucking along and enjoying the shade. I particular like the sections where you can see the river with all the large rocks randomly poking above the water line and the places where the canal is filled with water and bordered by ominous rock walls.

After 32 miles I switched back to pavement on the Capitol Crescent Trail. This brought welcome relief to my back. The bumpy towpath was messing with my stenosis and I was constantly dealing with achy feet and an achy butt.

The CCT leads to the nifty Water Street cycletrack which connects to a side path that runs past the Watergate and the Kennedy Center along the Potomac River. After passing the Lincoln Memorial I switched over to Ohio Drive, which is the epicenter of the Cherry Blossom Festival in the spring.

At the Jefferson Memorial, I crossed over the river on the 14th Street Bridge which connects to the Mount Vernon Trail and the 12-mile ride home.

Imagine water well above the treetops. It happens every so often

The White’s Ferry Store serves food and sells snacks.

Here’s a cue sheet. Most people just do the loop starting and ending at Step 3.

Three Miles of suburban streets to the Mount Vernon Trail
Mount Vernon Trail north 6 1/2 miles through Old Town Alexandria to Four Mile Run Trail.
Four Mile Run Trail west 3 miles to the W&OD Trail
W&OD Trail 35 miles to South King Street in Leesburg
Right on South King to US 15 north of town, about 3 miles
US 15 to a right on Whites Ferry Road, 1/2 mile
White’s Ferry Road 1/2 mile to the ferry
Ferry across Potomac ($2)
Go 100 yards up the hill on the Virginia side
Take a right on the C&O Canal towpath and ride 32 miles to Thompson’s Boat House
Switch to paved Capital Crescent Trail and Water Street in Georgetown for 3 miles
Right onto Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway path to Ohio Drive (1 mile)
Ohio Drive to 14th Street Bridge (1/2 mile)
Cross bridge to Mount Vernon Trail (1/2 mile)
Take a right on the trail. Go 9 miles.
Re-trace suburban streets home. 3 miles.

Finally, if you do this ride, bring water and snacks. There are pumps along the towpath but these may be turned off. Also, the National Park Service treats the water with iodine. The store at White’s Ferry has limited hours so I assume it’s closed. On this day it was open.