old post 5

Woke up in another hotel room, man the camping thing went out the door quickly. Went down, Continental Breakfast, and up to the room to pack up the bikes. As we start packing, Jason has 2 flat tires, we have 2 tubes and no patch kits. Awesome. Jason fixes the flats and downstairs we go, into the van and back across the ferry to the trail. We have a short day on the bikes, but we have a time frame that we have to meet, the train leaves at 4, and we have to be on it. The trail is the worst we have ridden on. There is new loose gravel that has the consistency of wet cement, and it goes on for miles. I think we were averaging about 8mph right about now. On the other hand, the scenery was amazing. It was going between fog and mist, but the views were the best since we left Pennsylvania. The trail had some cool historical programs going on, but we had a time schedule. We got into DC around noon. The end of the trail isn't well marked, we had no idea where it ended, but we followed a trail to the street. Now we had to find the Mall. A few little detours and we were ripping it pass the Lincoln and Washington Monuments. Union Station was the goal, and when we got there, I skidded right in the door. Navigating Amtrak was a long drawn out process, but 2 hours later, our bikes and gear were packed, our clothes changed and we were eating pizza waiting for the train to leave. The train ride home was fun, we got to see some of the areas we rode on and by, including the train switching yard we slept next to.