My world as I see it

So it’s been awhile since I’ve written about this, I hope I haven’t forgotten any details.
Everything was great in the morning, we saw lots of wild life, lots of turtles, deer, insane rodents. You know, the usual. One of the highlights of the day was the tunnel we had to go through. We though because we could see straight through to the other side that it wouldn’t be too bad, wouldn’t be too long. Oooh, were we wrong. I started out going through on my bike but after I hit a couple of invisible pot holes I decided to walk. Let’s see, how can I describe the tunnel. It was dark, cold, wet, dark and full of pot holes. And it was dark. Stepping through to the other side was great, yea for sunshine. Yea, also, for the large black snake sunning itself on the path just outside the tunnel.
It was about four miles from Hancock, MD that we ran into our first problem, a spoke on Alyce’s tire popped out. We spent a good chunk of time rigging something and then hobbled into Hancock. It was a great moment because just along the path was the bike shop. No searching required thank god. Alyce got all fixed up and we then bought ourselves some t-shirts that had the trail on them. Got to have a souveneir. Once we were back on the trail we were directed to a paved path that followed the trail. That was a nice eight or so miles of smooth sailing with only one mile on the gravel path and then we were at our campsite. We managed to get our tent up before the rain began but we had to cook our dinner (prepackaged Indian food) in the rain. I believe it was around 7:30 when we climbed into our tent and got settled for the night. This is when the real crap started to happen. Thirty minutes after entering our tent the rain started coming through the roof, right along the seam of the rain fly. So we spread a poncho over top of our sleeping bags and tried to go to bed. Right, like either of us could sleep with all the rain falling on us. Oh, and the fact that my feet were in a puddle of water, also my head, and everything else. You can imagine how happy and rested I was in the morning. I think it was eight when I dragged Alyce out of the tent to try to get a start on the day. We ate our oatmeal in the rain - with water from my water bottle because the hand pump at the site wasn’t working. it was not warm outside, it was not dry, I had lost my rain coat the previous day and yet we were still biking. We made it 15 miles in about three hours, that was pathetic considering the day before we had made 68 miles total. The trail was a mess, one big long puddle. Our gear was soaked through from being in the tent and the rain just kept coming. Alyce and I tried to keep up each other’s spirits but it didn’t really work. We pulled off in Williamsport and stopped at the visitor center where hey helped us out, let us store our stuff there while we went to find food.
This is the part where I admit how much of a weakling I am because while we were waiting for our pizza to arrive I called Chris and begged him to drive to Williamsport to pick us up and haul us back to D.C. so we wouldn’t have to slog through that awful rain anymore. And he did! I will always be so thankful he came and hauled our butts away.
Funny thing. While waiting for Chris, a group of six guys came in and they too were biking the trail. In fact, they had stayed at the same hotel Thursday night and had been about an hour behind us each day. Amazing that we didn’t meet up before. They really boosted our morale because instead of deriding us for quitting they were begging to come with us. It made us feel good that if they could have, they would have quit too. Sadly for them, they had pulled in guys from three different states for this trip and giving up was not an option.
By the time Chris came to get us the rain had stopped and we were kind of feeling like we should be back out on the trail but that thought soon left our minds. As we drove south to D.C. the rain picked up and continued the whole way down. We would have been biking right along with the storm. Ew.

Well, that’s my trip. Alyce and I plan on finishing it sometime in July so that we can honestly wear our t-shirts that say “I did the C&O bike trail.”