Y’All Crazy?
We pulled out of Washington DC on a bright, clear Sunday morning to resume our journey south. Well fed and rested, we were eager to get back on the bike. While we enjoyed our interlude in the nations Capitol, somehow we missed the rhythm of riding. After nearly 30 straight days of waking up and getting on the bike, it felt odd in a way to spend four days away from the routine we had grown accustomed to. We’ve heard stories about long distance cyclists nearing the end of a trip, only to find that they just wanted to keep going. In the back of our minds, we wonder if the same will happen to us.
We rode along the Capitol Crescent trail through Georgetown, and by the Kennedy Center, crossing over the Potomac River on the Arlington Bridge into Virginia. At that point, we were on the Mount Vernon trail, which is a 14 mile route that takes you all the way to Martha and George Washington’s plantation. The trail was being well utilized, filled with Sunday joggers and bicyclists. We passed Regan Airport, and realized you could actually bike directly from the airport to the heart of the city without worrying about traffic. In a way, it reminded us of cycling in Holland. If there is a country on this earth that is designed for bicyclists, it’s Holland. The Dutch have integrated cycling into their transportation system and their lives, and have developed a nationwide system of paths, trails, and byways that allow you to go virtually anywhere without worrying about high speed traffic. The DC trail system also gives you the ability to bicycle safely through the urban landscape, meandering along the river, through marshlands, and periodically running parallel to the freeways...but separated from traffic. On the whole, we enjoy traveling and sharing the roads with auto traffic, but once we reach the city, the bike lanes make it much less stressful, and a far more enjoyable experience.
We stopped in Old Town Alexandria for a quick snack. As bicyclists passed by, we invariably had people stop to ask us questions about our bike, our trip, and what we are doing. Traveling with Olga and BOB sure make it easy to start a conversation with strangers. We left the bike trail a few miles short of Mount Vernon and started our journey through Virginia. Leaving DC, we were still skirting the Potomac and the Chesapeake Bay drainage. The landscape was a mish mash of shopping malls and new housing developments, interspaced with a few quiet roads. As mentioned previously in this blog, getting in and out of urban areas is no fun. In fact, it took us nearly two days to get beyond Washington DC’s grip. The official state bird of Virginia is the Cardinal, but if you ask us, it’s the Ccrane…the Building Crane that is. Construction was going on at a feverish pace. Everywhere we looked we saw more malls being built, and new housing developments popping up in forests and fields. We could only surmise that this part of the “Old Dominion State” was being swallowed by the Washington DC metroplex. We passed developments announcing that new homes were available “starting in the $800,000”, or that they were “active adult communities.” We wondered if we qualified as active adults. The roads seemed in good shape, and we found them to be remarkably well signed. However, for reasons we cannot comprehend, there were virtually no shoulders to ride on. Every once in a while a separate bike path would appear, and simply disappear after a few short miles. Also, we periodically found ourselves on a separate bike lane on the road way itself, which was a wonderful way to navigate through urban congestion, but they were few and far between. The other curious thing we noticed is that Virginia, by far, has the most roadside liter that we have encountered to date. Road signs proclaim that it is illegal to liter, but they obviously don’t have much of an impact. When we discussed this with the people we meet, all they do is shrug their shoulders and agree that it is an issue, but no one has an answer.
Getting a few miles away from the Potomac, we noticed a decided difference in vegetation. New types of trees dotted the landscape…white oak, pines, hickory, sycamore, holly, and others that we simply were not familiar with. We also passed through some swamp lands or bogs, with the road bed built up to navigate through them. The route took us around the border of the Quautico Marine Corp reservation towards the Rappahannock River and Fredericksburg. Along one section we could see the Blue Ridge mountains far off to the west. It was a beautiful fall afternoon, with temperatures in the 70s and little humidity to speak of.
This part was quiet and rural in appearance, although traffic was heavy for a narrow two lane road with no shoulders to speak of and a modicum of hills to contend with. As we neared Fredericksburg, the housing developments reappeared. Even though we were 50 miles from DC, this was still within the commuting zone, and the country roads were simply not designed to handle this volume of traffic. Our goal that evening was a campground…frankly, the only campground we could find, on the outskirts of town. The map directed us to turn east and travel approximately five miles off route. It didn’t tell us that we would end up on a road filled with rush hour (at 4:30 PM) traffic and high speed gridlock in every direction. Cars were moving alright, but were right on top of each other, and everyone was trying to get where they were going with almost total disregard to two people on a bike. We really had no business being on that road at that time, but as we say in Montana, it was “time to either fish or cut bait”. We either were going to keep going, or…well, there was no “or” option available. Pausing at one of the traffic lights, a fellow next to us in a pick up truck eyed us rather curiously. He rolled downed the passenger side window and hollered out “Whereya goin?” “Florida” was our reply. He looked at us quizzically, shook his head and proclaimed “Y’all crazy or somethin’?”
Yes, we were certainly crazy to be riding on that road at that time of day, that’s for sure. But crazy to us is people living 50 miles away from their job, commuting back and forth each day in white knuckle traffic to live in look alike homes “starting from the $800s”. Crazy is building one look alike mall after another, for what end and what purpose. Crazy is being in bumper to bumper traffic and noticing that virtually every single vehicle has only one occupant. Crazy is all relative. Yeah, we are probably crazy, but we wouldn’t have it any other way.
We never made it to the campground that night. We spyed a Super 8 motel and quickly bailed out of the traffic, which was one of the best moves we made that day. We ate supper at a Mexican restaurant, enjoyed a good night’s sleep, and awoke recharged to tackle the day. This time, we knew enough to not get out on the road until after 9 AM. The traffic had abated, and it was actually an easy, enjoyable ride onto Fredericksburg.
We rode along the Capitol Crescent trail through Georgetown, and by the Kennedy Center, crossing over the Potomac River on the Arlington Bridge into Virginia. At that point, we were on the Mount Vernon trail, which is a 14 mile route that takes you all the way to Martha and George Washington’s plantation. The trail was being well utilized, filled with Sunday joggers and bicyclists. We passed Regan Airport, and realized you could actually bike directly from the airport to the heart of the city without worrying about traffic. In a way, it reminded us of cycling in Holland. If there is a country on this earth that is designed for bicyclists, it’s Holland. The Dutch have integrated cycling into their transportation system and their lives, and have developed a nationwide system of paths, trails, and byways that allow you to go virtually anywhere without worrying about high speed traffic. The DC trail system also gives you the ability to bicycle safely through the urban landscape, meandering along the river, through marshlands, and periodically running parallel to the freeways...but separated from traffic. On the whole, we enjoy traveling and sharing the roads with auto traffic, but once we reach the city, the bike lanes make it much less stressful, and a far more enjoyable experience.
We stopped in Old Town Alexandria for a quick snack. As bicyclists passed by, we invariably had people stop to ask us questions about our bike, our trip, and what we are doing. Traveling with Olga and BOB sure make it easy to start a conversation with strangers. We left the bike trail a few miles short of Mount Vernon and started our journey through Virginia. Leaving DC, we were still skirting the Potomac and the Chesapeake Bay drainage. The landscape was a mish mash of shopping malls and new housing developments, interspaced with a few quiet roads. As mentioned previously in this blog, getting in and out of urban areas is no fun. In fact, it took us nearly two days to get beyond Washington DC’s grip. The official state bird of Virginia is the Cardinal, but if you ask us, it’s the Ccrane…the Building Crane that is. Construction was going on at a feverish pace. Everywhere we looked we saw more malls being built, and new housing developments popping up in forests and fields. We could only surmise that this part of the “Old Dominion State” was being swallowed by the Washington DC metroplex. We passed developments announcing that new homes were available “starting in the $800,000”, or that they were “active adult communities.” We wondered if we qualified as active adults. The roads seemed in good shape, and we found them to be remarkably well signed. However, for reasons we cannot comprehend, there were virtually no shoulders to ride on. Every once in a while a separate bike path would appear, and simply disappear after a few short miles. Also, we periodically found ourselves on a separate bike lane on the road way itself, which was a wonderful way to navigate through urban congestion, but they were few and far between. The other curious thing we noticed is that Virginia, by far, has the most roadside liter that we have encountered to date. Road signs proclaim that it is illegal to liter, but they obviously don’t have much of an impact. When we discussed this with the people we meet, all they do is shrug their shoulders and agree that it is an issue, but no one has an answer.
Getting a few miles away from the Potomac, we noticed a decided difference in vegetation. New types of trees dotted the landscape…white oak, pines, hickory, sycamore, holly, and others that we simply were not familiar with. We also passed through some swamp lands or bogs, with the road bed built up to navigate through them. The route took us around the border of the Quautico Marine Corp reservation towards the Rappahannock River and Fredericksburg. Along one section we could see the Blue Ridge mountains far off to the west. It was a beautiful fall afternoon, with temperatures in the 70s and little humidity to speak of.
This part was quiet and rural in appearance, although traffic was heavy for a narrow two lane road with no shoulders to speak of and a modicum of hills to contend with. As we neared Fredericksburg, the housing developments reappeared. Even though we were 50 miles from DC, this was still within the commuting zone, and the country roads were simply not designed to handle this volume of traffic. Our goal that evening was a campground…frankly, the only campground we could find, on the outskirts of town. The map directed us to turn east and travel approximately five miles off route. It didn’t tell us that we would end up on a road filled with rush hour (at 4:30 PM) traffic and high speed gridlock in every direction. Cars were moving alright, but were right on top of each other, and everyone was trying to get where they were going with almost total disregard to two people on a bike. We really had no business being on that road at that time, but as we say in Montana, it was “time to either fish or cut bait”. We either were going to keep going, or…well, there was no “or” option available. Pausing at one of the traffic lights, a fellow next to us in a pick up truck eyed us rather curiously. He rolled downed the passenger side window and hollered out “Whereya goin?” “Florida” was our reply. He looked at us quizzically, shook his head and proclaimed “Y’all crazy or somethin’?”
Yes, we were certainly crazy to be riding on that road at that time of day, that’s for sure. But crazy to us is people living 50 miles away from their job, commuting back and forth each day in white knuckle traffic to live in look alike homes “starting from the $800s”. Crazy is building one look alike mall after another, for what end and what purpose. Crazy is being in bumper to bumper traffic and noticing that virtually every single vehicle has only one occupant. Crazy is all relative. Yeah, we are probably crazy, but we wouldn’t have it any other way.
We never made it to the campground that night. We spyed a Super 8 motel and quickly bailed out of the traffic, which was one of the best moves we made that day. We ate supper at a Mexican restaurant, enjoyed a good night’s sleep, and awoke recharged to tackle the day. This time, we knew enough to not get out on the road until after 9 AM. The traffic had abated, and it was actually an easy, enjoyable ride onto Fredericksburg.
posted by Matt and Mary Ellen | 7:25 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home