Day 5: Wrightsville, PA to Owings Mills, MD
May 21, 2011

Pennsylvania redeemed itself a little today. After a great night’s sleep in the Harvey barn we packed up, stopped by the Harvey house for a quick goodbye and rolled off for our first RAIN FREE day. We had gentle rolling hills through beautiful farm country, roadside stands of Mennonites selling baked goods, and no rain! Today we felt a lot better too. Tired muscles but the good, exercise-induced feeling of tired, rather than the I’m-broken-in-10-places kind of sore. Maybe it was the shorter day yesterday. Maybe it was the dry skies. Maybe it was the milkshake and chocolate raisins at lunch in Jarettsville. Either way, things were much better today. We also arrived at our destination in a relatively lucid state. We spent the night with Harry, our friend’s brother, who fed us a giant feast for dinner. Thanks for the hospitality, Harry! And a big thanks to Krista, our official Googler! Starting point:

  • Wrightsville, PA
  • Ending point: Owings Mills, MD
  • Slept: friends house
  • Miles: 75.38
  • Average speed: 10.2
  • Notes: Andrew ate an entire pig’s worth of ribs

Day 6: Owings Mills, MD to Washington, DC
May 22, 2011

We got an early start and rode through more Baltimore suburbs which were surprisingly wooded and green. The hills were gentler than yesterday and flattened out as we got closer to DC. We had a tasty picnic lunch in Rock Creek Park (photo below is mostly to demonstrate that we do, in fact, change our clothes). We rode the Rock Creek Trail most of the way in and a kindly biker Ray led us in for the last bit to get to Logan Circle. We stopped by a bike shop to clean our chains, which were super dirty from 4 days of rain. It’s kind of fun going into a bike shop with our loaded up bikes–everyone wanted to know about our trip and they even threw in some free chain oil. Tonight we are staying with David and Joanna, who kindly offered to host us again despite arriving empty-handed (yogurt containers are a bit bulky for panniers).

  • Starting point: Owings Mills, MD
  • Ending point: Washington, DC
  • Slept: friends house
  • Miles: 62.21
  • Average speed: 10.5
  • Notes: average speed back in business