We got up early and finished off our visit with Laurie, Spencer et al. Laurie was kind enough to fix us a breakfast scramble and baked us some cinnamon rolls before we hit the road.
We had planned to rejoin our route near the FDR Memorial in Washington, DC, only to have our plans scuttled because the access road to the memorial had been closed (apparently for some sort of parade). We fumbled around a bit, eventually finding a bus pullout where I could unload and be on my way, leaving Alea to deal with the traffic chaos that was being caused by the road closures.
I managed to get down to the Potomac River to find the Capital Crescent Trail that led to the Rock Creek trail, but three miles into the route I had another rear flat tire (which was not much fun to fix in the cold and damp). The DC segments were narrow, heavily traveled and in poor shape in places, making it very slow going. Things improved once I crossed into Maryland, though recent flooding left a lot of debris on the trails, as well as plenty of puddles and mud. The weather stayed in the mid-50s for the entire ride, making the 29 miles to our rendezvous point an experience that I would prefer not to repeat.
Of course, Alea's drive to the rendezvous point was also a low point for her in our little adventure. The traffic was stop and go, and a bit overwhelming. Travel lanes would disappear without sufficient time to allow her to get in the correct lane, meaning she did lots of looping back to try to get back on track. Nevertheless, she managed to reach the rendezvous point well ahead of me.
From there, we headed north up I-270 to Little Bennett Campground ($41, power only). It was a pleasant enough park, and it was great that we didn't need to make a reservation in order to find a campsite on a Saturday night.
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