old post 4

Day four

Woke up in the motel, looked out the window, CRAPPY. Weatherman said highs in the 40's, with rain all day. This was going to be the longest day of the trip, ninety some miles, and it was going to be a day of sogginess and cold. Off to the motel's "breakfast", and get on the trail. We planned to get an earlier start than the other group, they were stopping after sixty miles, and we didn't want to ride that much in the dark. I stopped to get some food and batteries at the gas station, and off to the trail we were. We had good spirits, we knew that the day was going to be shitty, but we had to make the best of it. We had dressed kind of lightly under our rain gear, knowing that it would be easy to overheat, and that everything would be damp in a matter of miles. I had on my socks, shoes, booties, knickers, lightweight wool shirt with arm warmers, hat, rain gear, and wool gloves, totally forgot my rain mitts. The trail still was that oatmeal, rough, rutted out stuff from yesterday, but the early start got us 30 or so miles in to take a little bit of a rest to eat and stretch. Damn it got cold fast, we stopped under a bridge and ate. Here comes something different, a re-route of the trail. The trail had been washed out, so they have you ride your bike on the road for a little bit, with hills. Man this trip makes you loose your fitness really quick. Back on the C&O, we decided to eat lunch in Harpers Ferry. We rolled under the bridge into town at 1:00 pm, sixty miles under our tires. Getting the fully loaded bikes and trailer up a wet steel spiral staircase is not much fun, but riding next to the train tracks and looking down onto the river was pretty cool. We ate at the first place we got to, a small little diner with a leaking ceiling. After ordering our food, we tried to warm up and eat. I was shivering so much that couldn't get my hot chocolate in my mouth. The lunch was good, Jason changed into dry clothes, and I went outside to reserve a hotel room. After getting back across the bridge, and down the staircase it was a little after 2:30, and we had thirty more miles to go. The miles went fine, as long as we were moving we were warm, stop, and you get really cold. Dark started to settle in at around 6:00pm when we got to Whites Ferry, a place that has car ferry across the Potomac River into Fredricksburg. It was cool to be on these bikes with a bunch of people in cars. On the Virginian side, the hotel's van came and picked us up, got us to the hotel. Up to our room, showers, warm clothes, mexican food and beer, then off to bed. 92 miles, no problems, and only 35 more to go.