I woke up very refreshed this morning and I am watching the sun rise! The Town Hill Hotel sits at the top of a mountain with a view of three states and the Potomic River. It is run like a B&B, but it has 29 rooms. They are able to cater to the retreat crowd because of their size but also are super bike-friendly. There was only one other couple at the inn last night. The place gets extra credit for having the first feather pillows in a week of traveling and like my internet research promised, the best breakfast you could imagine. Hosts Dave and Donna are really nice. Dave did much of the inn restoration himself.
This picture below is typical of the tow path I was riding yesterday, but less densely forested than most of it. The canal is dry in many places, but where it had water, the water was covered with a heavy carpet of blue-green algae. This made it feel like a Louisiana swamp to me and I spent a bit of time expecting an alligator to appear and then wondering a) if bear mace would stop an alligator and b) if so, where to aim it. What can I say...I had the lions, tigers and bears oh my anxiety going on yesterday. This leg of the journey was the most remote I will face.
This picture below is typical of the tow path I was riding yesterday, but less densely forested than most of it. The canal is dry in many places, but where it had water, the water was covered with a heavy carpet of blue-green algae. This made it feel like a Louisiana swamp to me and I spent a bit of time expecting an alligator to appear and then wondering a) if bear mace would stop an alligator and b) if so, where to aim it. What can I say...I had the lions, tigers and bears oh my anxiety going on yesterday. This leg of the journey was the most remote I will face.
The tow path is interesting because of all the locks you pass. Many of the lock keeper houses are restored. This is the first one closest to Cumberland and it happened to be open for visitors. Isn't the clapboard construction interesting? Only one like that evidently and I think there are about 70 locks.
Part of the ride yesterday included going through the one-mile long Paw Paw Tunnel. This photo shows the end I came out (western end). Interesting to me that they ran the canal through the tunnel, with just the narrow tow path. Fortunately they maintain a handrail on the tow path; it is very disorienting in there, even with a lamp.
The ride on the C&O is indeed rougher than the GAP -- loose gravel, ruts, some tree stumps -- but not too different from parts of the Columbia Trail at home that I trained on. Still, it was a lot of bouncing around and slower in parts. I was lucky that it was dry. From here on out, my hops are shorter and closer to civilization.
Critter report: nothing other than a fantastic heron that posed for my pictures for several minutes.
Critter report: nothing other than a fantastic heron that posed for my pictures for several minutes.