The pavement returned on the other side
of the creek, but by now we were used to gravel roads, so when we
discovered that another road I'd selected was unpaved, we just took it.
The next town was Urbana, where we took break at the 7-11. After that,
we jumped on MD80 which took us down into Buckeystown and the flatlands
south of Frederick.
The Flatlands. The Catoctin Ridge looms in the distance.
Our plan was to cross the Catoctin ridge
at through a gap near the town of Jefferson, but my map let me down and
we couldn't get there from where we were without a lot of extra miles.
The only other option was right over the top on Mountville Road. We
climbed about 400 feet in about a mile, with a pitch of about 14%. It
was unpleasant but we reached the top and screamed down the other side
into Jefferson.
After that it was an up and down ride along MD180 until we plunged down
to the Potomac at Knoxville, near Brunswick. We rolled onto US340 and
climbed for about a mile on the very busy, four-lane divided highway.
We made a left onto Keep Tryst Road and then a right on Sandy Hook
Road, which dropped us back down to the river and parallel to the
railroad tracks and C&O Canal towpath.
We carried our bikes down to the towpath when we came to some stairs
and then rode back to the railroad bridge over the Potomac to Harpers
Ferry. We humped our (very heavy) bikes up the stairs and across the
bridge.
More fun than you can imagine.
A couple of C&O Canal riders followed us up the stairs. I asked
them about conditions on the trail. I figured with all our dirt road
experience we wouldn't have any trouble riding the towpath on our
touring bikes. They said that the trail was pretty dry between Harpers
Ferry and Whites Ferry, which was good enough for us.
We ate at a restaurant in town and then climbed up out of town to the
KOA on top of the hill. While we were checking in, the girl asked us if
we had any pets. I told her we had two oxen.
I don't know about all of them, but this KOA was only a small step down
from a motel. It has a gym and volleyball courts and laundry and a gift
shop and store. Most of the guests were packed together in a small city
of RVs and campers. They were probably closer to their neighbors than
they are at home. We were assigned a remote site in the sparsely
populated tent section. Of course, there were still plenty of people
around but they weren't as tightly packed. We had some trouble finding
our site because there was a fallen tree occupying much of it and other
campers had made off with our picnic table. There was also no level
ground. We expected a little better for $37, so we changed to another
site. This one was much nicer and included a Civil War earthwork in our
backyard.
Note the earthwork in back.
It was about 9pm when we turned in for
the night. It was cool, very windy, and only moderately noisy but I
couldn't sleep. At some point a large branch broke off and crashed to
the ground in the unoccupied site next to ours, about 25 feet away. JT
slept through it all. I think I finally fell asleep early iin the
morning.
