Another month of aimlessly riding in circles is in the books. Early September brought the usual extension of summertime, but the month ended with day after day of absolutely perfect weather. It was my highest mileage month of the year, clocking in at 1,051 miles. The newly refurbished Big Nellie carried me 598.5 miles. The balance of riding, but for one mile on Little Nellie, was on The Mule.

It took me a while to regain my confidence on Big Nellie. This is normal considering the fork broke off back in June, landing me in a heap along the Mount Vernon Trail. After a while I started feeling like I was part of the bike. I even rode it to a Nats game, to Friday Coffee Club, and on some explorations all across DC. (I am extra careful riding Big Nellie in traffic. Drivers and other bicyclists don’t expect to see me when I am so low to the ground. Oddly, the opposite is true in the country; drivers stare at the weird bike and tend to steer at me. Mirrors are life savers. Caveat Bentor.)

One highlight of the month was my 13th 50 States Ride. As with my two 80-ish-mile rides on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, I did this one on The Mule. The Mule does hills better than Big Nellie. And I wasn’t really keen about driving across the Bay Bridge and its crosswinds with a huge recumbent tailfin on the car. (I needn’t have worried. I once drove back from Indiana with Big Nellie hanging off the back of my Accord.)

Another highlight of the month was the return of Friday Coffee Club at Swings House of Caffeine on G Street NW. I have to work on the getting-out-of-bed aspect though. I am no longer accustomed to waking before dawn.

I did attend three Nats games, the last one with my daughter. I’d like to say these were major league baseball games but the Nats are pretty much a AAA club with a couple of ringers (Soto and Bell). If they had a bullpen, they’d be on the verge of mediocrity. There are three more games against the Red Sox. Despite the fact that I lived in Red Sox Country for 11 years, I am not planning on going to the games.

For the year, I have ridden 7,748 miles, on pace for over 10,300 miles.

Oh, and one last thing, I had a Covid vaccine booster shot a couple of days ago. Other than a sore arm for a day, I haven’t had any side effects.

Get the jab, y’all.

Last summer I found a website with three rides all starting in Chestertown, Maryland on the Eastern Shore. I did the shortest of the three last summer. This past month I went back to knock off the two 80–ish mile rides.

The first ride, called the Historic County Loop actually covers much of the ground of the shortest ride. Still I managed to make a wrong turn or two and stretch an 81-mile ride into 86 miles. It’s a talent.

To be honest the maps and cue sheets are old so it’s not surprising that I got lost. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. I mean your talking about somebody who did the 50-States Ride in DC 11 times and still missed the first turn on his 12th ride.

The roads in Cecil and Kent Counties are in good shape. Higher speed roads have very wide paved shoulders. There’s a bit of truck traffic probably because these routes are close to US 301, a major divided highway running north and south. Most of the roads I was on are marked as bicycle routes so local drivers are used to seeing bikes on the road.

The Historic County Loop travels through miles of farmland and diverts now and then to the Chesapeake Bay. To be honest, I’ve seen better bay views in a dozen other places. The farms appear to my city-dweller eyes to be corn and soybeans. If you spun a Hoosier around they would swear they are right back home in Indiana. If memory serves, Indiana farms are much bigger, but these farms will do nicely for visual purposes.

I did the second ride, called the Pump House Primer, a couple of days ago. This one is a bit more interesting. Once again I encountered corn and soy but over the line in Cecil County the terrain became more rolling and the farms were a bit more diverse. One farm had a stand of hops (they grow on wooden poles). Another had some sheep. The most interesting farms were stud farms for breeding thoroughbred horses. These farms look very much like those in central Kentucky. Unfortunately, I couldn’t manage a decent picture of the horses. They are beautiful beasts.

One highlight of the route is the descent to a drawbridge over the Sassafras River. The bridge connects Georgetown in Kent County with Fredericktown in Cecil County. The drawbridge has a metal grate for a surface so rider beware, especially when it rains.

The northern most point of the ride is at Chesapeake City on the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, which connects the Chesapeake Bay in the west to the Delaware River to the east. Years ago I rode on the Canal trail which is worth doing if you’re in the area and aren’t already mashing out 80 miles on the roads.

The ride back from Chesapeake City makes a small loop. The route then starts another small loop, or so the cue sheet and map say. Alas, one of the roads on this loop is closed. I checked it out and found a barrier across the road and woods beyond. From the age of the trees and underbrush, I suspect this route map is more than a decade old.

Using my phone, I improvised a course correction and managed to screw that up. I back tracked and found a road on the cue sheet. Following the route, I rode 19 miles back to Chestertown, going back over the first 19 miles of the ride. I ended up riding 78 miles with a nice tailwind for the last 14 miles. As it turns out, the part of the Pump House Primer route I lopped off was on the Historic County Loop route so I actually didn’t miss a thing.

I did these rides on The Mule but need to try them again on Big Nellie. Level and gently rolling terrain is what recumbent bikes are made for. All I need is a repeat of the amazing weather I had for these two rides.

If you are interested in these rides, plan to spend some time wandering around Chestertown, Chesapeake City, and Georgetown. They are small towns with buildings dating back to the 18th and 19th centuries.

I took the bill back to the bank where the alert bank manager took one look at the bill and said, “It’s movie money.”

As you can see from the photo, it’s obvious. it clearly says “Motion Picture Purposes” in multiple places and the serial number begins with “MP”. And the motto on the back says, “In Props We Trust”.

Yesterday I took the $100 bill I found on the street to a bank. The tellers gave it a close inspection and said that it was fake. So I took it to a second bank. The teller there reached the same conclusion. From where I stand it was a pretty good fake printed on paper that seemed legit.

I asked the teller what to do with the fake bill and she said to google the U. S. Treasury Department. I already knew from a rather crazy incident in my grad school days that the Secret Service is the branch of government that deals with counterfeiting. I found the number for the nearest Secret Service office in my state and called them. They told me to turn the bill over to a bank and have the bank call them.

It’s a bit troubling that the person I talked at the Secret Service didn’t seem overly alarmed by the fact that I had found a counterfeit $100 bill. And there was no urgency to her instruction to take it to a bank. It’s also a bit troubling that neither bank knew that they were suppose to confiscate the bill and send it to the Secret Service.

I’m going to the bank tomorrow to turn over the bill. We’ll see what happens. There’s still the remote chance that it is a legitimate bill that was damaged by being out on the road.

Ever since my running days I have found things during my daily jaunts either on foot or by bike. When I was running I’d pick up a dollar or two each week in coins. My theory was that when people reached into their pocket for their car keys they’d pull out a few coins by accident. Most of my runs on the city streets in and around Providence were along parked cars so inevitably I’d scoop up some laundry money. The most I ever found back in my running days was a $5 bill. For a starving grad student this was a big windfall.

DC may not be such a great place to run (way too hot and humid) but it’s fantastic for roadside treasure. My most frequent finds are golf balls. This is especially true in early spring when the ground is hard and the golfers are rusty. Errant shots hit the hard ground and bounce clear off the golf courses. I have found as many as a dozen balls in a single 30-mile ride. I have a bag in my shed with over four dozen balls in it and that’s after giving away a few dozen over the last two years.

Every so often I find something else of use. I have a pretty nice pair of garden shears, a pair of pliers, and a phillips head screwdriver, all from bike rides.

From time to time I find cash. Not the change of my old running days but currency. Once again I figure this is the result of someone reaching into their pockets for keys or a phone and inadvertently pulling out a few bills. Six years ago I was shocked to find $140 – two $20s and a $100 bill – on the street in front of my house. It was garbage day and I suspected that one of the workers on a garbage truck dropped the money. I had no way of reuniting the money with its owner so I held on to it. Eventually I donated it at a fundraiser for the daughters of a woman named Rose who was run over and killed on Del Ray Boulevard in Alexandria.

It’s been a long time since I’ve found money lying around. This morning I went to the bank. After I was done I spotted a dime sitting on the chair I had been using in the waiting area. How strange, I thought. I don’t carry coins these days. I pocketed the dime and laughed. It’s my lucky day.

After my bank errand I went for a ride on Big Nellie. We were making our way along Fort Hunt Road heading for Alexandria city. I stopped at a red light. Big Nellie isn’t the fastest accelerating bike on the planet so we were only going about 5 miles per hour after we crossed the intersection on the green light. I noticed what looked like a dollar bill on the paved shoulder. After passing it, I hit the brakes and duck walked the bike back to the bill. It wasn’t a dollar. It was another $100 bill.

This is a test right? I mean who the heck finds a $100 bill in the road even once? Unlike the previous bills this one was pretty beat up. Maybe it had been there a while. Then, again, maybe not. After all, in a weird coincidence, today is garbage day.

What the most unusual thing you’ve found on your walks, hikes, or bike rides?