D2 NE Rural Ride

The Red Roof Inn in northern Baltimore necessitated our buying an air freshener. Fortunately, the dog barking in the nearby room stopped before I found antifreeze for it. The Inn was a little rough but we look pretty rough after a day on the bikes. The drain in the shower looks more like we’ve washed a dirty car than a body.

After leaving the Inn, we were on some busy streets but quickly moved into the country where the “other” people live. And they appear to live quite differently. There were lawns the size of football fields – and that was just the front. There were houses the size of hospitals – but much nicer looking. Apparently owning all that stuff doesn’t mean you are independently wealthy – they were all driving into Baltimore. Good thing we were riding out of Baltimore so the traffic wasn’t too heavy.

The ride was monotonous for much of the day, but not in a bad way. It was just persistently beautiful. There were incredible trees of all sizes. We saw river after river that looked like those in the west, except surrounded by greenery. In between the natural beauty, were really pleasant green fields of soy (I think) and seven foot tall corn. It was nice.

There were two parts of the route today I was worried about – 1. a reservoir not far from our start and 2. a dam on the Susquehanna river. I wasn’t sure if there was sufficient shoulder on either for us to cross safely. The first turned out to have a walkway which made it safe and pleasant. The second we wouldn’t know till 40 miles into the day, but then a funny thing happened.

We saw a group of three touring the opposite direction and stopped to talk. One was a warm shower host locally just riding with the other two for a few miles. He’d been over the Susquehanna dam many times and said it was narrow but people were used to bicyclist and it wasn’t a problem. The other two, that were touring, were from Colorado Springs riding the length of the east coast – small world.

Our new local riding friend was right, there was no shoulder. Gratefully, he was also right about the cars. The Maryland drivers were pretty amazing – we are now back in Delaware – and slow down on two lane roads waiting to pass until it is clear the other direction. Even on the dam they waited, slowly following us, not honking, just waiting for the other lane to clear – amazing! Gloria almost felt safe.

The Susquehanna was also fun to see due to its religious importance for us. Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery were baptized in the river, albeit quite a ways up stream. Perhaps we’ll get closer when we make our lengthier pass through Pennsylvania in the coming weeks.

We decided at the start of this trip, to only buy from local eateries – no chains. As we approached our final destination, Newark DE, for the day we stopped at a little sandwich shop. It was literally at the border of Maryland and Delaware. There we learned the 3rd lesson of the day.

BTW the first lesson we learned was that the east coast is not flat. We wished it were, but we found out repeatedly today that it wasn’t. It also appears that there is little or no snowfall in this area – or why would they build the roads going up the hills so steep?

The second lesson we learned, sort of a repeat of yesterday, is that there are a lot of people living on the east coast. Or maybe there aren’t that many people, but none of them have jobs and just drive around all day. There really was very little time – over 65 miles down “back roads” that we didn’t have cars passing us. Thankfully, we had good shoulders on most of the roads.

Finally, the lesson we learned at the sandwich shop is that there is a drug worse than heroin on the east coast. It is almost immediately addictive. It threatens your health and life. And most terrifying of all, it is legal. They serve french fries with a crab and cheese sauce on them all along the Chesapeake Bay. They are deadly and if I lived here I would die, weighing 400 lbs, with a crab/cheese sauce fry hanging out of my mouth and plate in front of me.