Days 38 & 39: Pohick Bay Regional Park, VA

We had a brief chance to learn a bit more about Paul and Jen before they set off yesterday morning.  Most of what we knew about them came from Paul's website, so I won't try to regurgitate that and get the facts wrong.

Jen & Paul with their recumbent bicycles.

But even with that disclaimer, I'm likely to get something wrong.  I believe they are nearing the end of a spring concert tour, and they have plans for a summer tour in Europe.  Needless to say, Paul has talent as an independent musician and that seems to give them the freedom for their active and inspiring lifestyle.  It would have been interesting to spend some time traveling with them both, as they had some interesting perspectives on things.  Perhaps a little more time with them would have helped some of that rub off on us?

The one thing that we were curious about was how Paul's guitar stays in tune when they are traveling.  With all the potholes and rough road surfaces we encounter, we imagined that he could be spending as much time tuning it as he does performing with it.  The answer is that his guitar is made of carbon fiber, so as long as the tuning pegs don't get bumped or jostled too much in transit, it rarely requires much tuning, since it is not affected by heat and humidity the way a wooden guitar would be.  And of course he cushions it as best he can while transporting it on his bike trailer, in order to isolate it from the worst of the road shocks that they inevitably will encounter.

We had a great time with them, as we appreciate the many challenges presented by self-supported bicycle touring (though we are glad that we no longer face those same challenges).  Many a time while solo touring decades ago, I would have loved running into someone that had some inkling of the same difficulties that I had faced.  Just offering something cold to drink, or offering to share a campsite in a place that wanted to charge me as much as a big fifth-wheel camper, would have created some Red-Letter-Day moments for me.  So, yeah, when we are lucky enough to cross paths with self-supported bicycle tourists (of the sane variety), it gives us a lot of pleasure in sharing some time with them and helping them out in any small way we can - offering some pre-measured bags of laundry detergent, giving them some extra plastic bags (so they don't have to buy a huge wad of them), or offering them some wine and snacks.   It all helps make the traveling a little easier.

Today (Thursday) never really warmed up.  I was pretty well chilled to the bone when Paul and Jen bushwhacked their way back to the highway, but it was a long enough drive back to our starting point that the warm van had me feeling nice and toasty before it was once again my turn to hit the road.

I rode a short 24 miles to Lorton, VA, before we left our route and drove down to Pohick Bay Campground ($42.43 per night with tax, power and water and VERY hot showers), where we will spend two nights.  We are a short distance from the Potomac and some awesome views.  But the weather was sort of crappy, so we spent the day making shopping and sightseeing plans for the next couple of days.

Telegraph Road - our stopping point before heading to Pohick Bay.

We discovered that we lucked out in the rain yesterday at Prince William Forest.  If we had gone the short additional distance north to Pohick Bay, they were having hail that was the size of golf balls, and that lasted for about 20 minutes!  (Wouldn't that be fun in a tent?)

We met our first cyclist who is also headed along our route all the way to Bar Harbor, ME, which is our final destination before starting our journey west for the summer.  His name is Robert Montgomery and he was using a 2007 Adventure Cycling map to navigate through DC, suggesting that he has toured a fair amount in the past.  It is hard to say if we will see him again, given our relatively short daily travel distances.  But once we leave DC we will have a few longer travel days and will then spend several days near King of Prussia, PA.  So perhaps, if he isn't setting too ambitious a pace, our trails will cross again!

We decided that Alea would ride a 28 mile segment of our route this morning to Arlington National Cemetery, as it gave us a chance to do some shopping on the way back to Pohick Bay.  We hoped that it would also give us a chance to visit her parent's grave there, and it sets us up for a shorter day's ride once we leave D.C.  But what a zoo at Arlington!  Tour buses everywhere and near gridlock traffic!  We were going to brave the long wait in traffic, but a guard waved us to the exit, probably thinking we just wanted to get out of the mess.  We came around to make another pass at getting in, but got on an exit ramp by mistake.  At that point it was no longer worth the effort to keep trying, so we headed back south.

The forecast is for one more day of cold and wet, and then we'll finally be back under sunny skies!  Whether that means that we'll be pushing into a headwind remains to be seen...