Starting at the Beginning-May 27

I spent some time today between writing my introduction and now trying to figure out how to organize my thoughts...First I think it's important to say that writing things down each night has been extremely important for me. It gets me over any homesick blues I'm feeling because I know that eventually I'll be sharing these thoughts with someone and so I feel connected. And I think I have to just start at the beginning...

The first day of the trip I was joined by my entourage, a mix of family and friends--Kat, Loren, Scott, Lauren, Heather, Helen, and Nick--and we rode all the way to Harper's Ferry, WV. Here's a picture I like of me and my roommates:


We took a pit stop with my parents at the Sterling Unitarian Universalist Church and had a wonderful lunch prepared by mom, including the blueberry muffins (with lemon topping) I requested. We split evenly into two camps of those who prefer blueberry muffins with lemon topping and those who prefer them without. In honor of my grandma, who raged in the kitchen, and her muffin legacy, I prefer with lemon.

Here's a rather small picture of me and my mom and dad:


Leaving Sterling we headed northwest through downtown Leesburg, VA and into White's Ferry where two very disgruntled and most certainly dehydrated men operated the ferry that took us across the Potomac River. In Leesburg we passed Rolling Thunder bikers (motorcycles) and tried to show biker solidarity with them, but they were unresponsive. Nick commented on the contrast of us skinny road bikers and the quote "morbidly obese" Rolling Thunder bikers. More on this theme later.

White's Ferry was nice... Scott and Loren showed their manly spirit and swam across the Potomac as we watched from the ferry. Then we got on the C & O towpath along the Potomac and canal which took us the whole way to Harper's Ferry. The adventure had only begun when we rolled into town and met up with Meredith and Adam who had ordered us 5 large pizzas which we all ate ravenously followed by soft serve ice cream. The pineapple pizza was my favorite, as you can see here:

Then we had to find a place to sleep. It was getting dark, we couldn't carry all our sleeping bags and tents and such on our bikes to the remote camping site along the towpath so we had to find a place nearby that Adam and Meredith could drive to. Helen saved the day by 411-ing the Harper's Ferry hostel and getting slightly helpful directions. Adam and Meredith and Heather drove to the hostel while the rest of us set back out on the C & O in the dark to find the path that would lead us to the hostel. I think two of us had lights on our bikes. So at 9 or 10 at night we were on the towpath searching for the hostel turnoff. After about 2 or 3 miles we found a map that was barely useful on the trail. Just as Loren had called the hostel again and gotten better directions, a park ranger drove up to us on the path, and quite casually as I recall, asked us if we were lost. Between him and Loren we made it to the right place, pulled our bikes up a rocky incline, over the train tracks, and up a hill made only steeper by the fact that we had biked 60 miles that day and it was pitch black outside.

The hostel was a great place to stay the night, among Boy Scouts and some Appalachian Trail hikers. We got showers and Kat told true horror stories that made us all sleep easy. An auspicious beginning.

Here's the group sans Helen and Nick, who left a little early. Can you find the differences between these two pictures?