Greg & Camille Go Bike

It was cold last night and neither of had packed the right camping gear to keep warm (especially Camille) and temperatures dropped to 43 F. Greg just had a sleeping pad & light summer sleeping bag (which he offered to share). Camille had only a sleeping pad and sleeping bag liner. She supplemented by wearing almost all of her clothes. Not a great night for either of us, but we were treated to a beautiful sunrise over the water in the morning and a full choir of interesting and varied bird songs. The campground owner, Lori, briefly passed through in the morning and waved us off.

With the forecast calling for awful weather Friday through Sunday, we were concerned about getting stuck on this side of the Potomac/Chesapeake with minimal options for where to sleep or access to wifi. We decided to push for a longer day of biking to get as close as possible to Crabbe's Charter Fishing with the goal of crossing Thursday morning or night. That meant it would be a 50-ish mile day and we needed to manage around Camille's work schedule.

We started the day with a morning ride from the campground to Art of Coffee in Montross. We spent much of the ride on calm, low-traffic roads through wooded areas and with a short unpleasant stint back on route 3. At Art of Coffee, we set up in their comfy, but noisy outdoor seating and stayed there most of the day. In the early afternoon, we briefly moved indoors for Camille's meeting. We had both breakfast and lunch here and stayed until they closed up at 3 pm. Camille stopped work a bit early for the day and we got on the road around 3:30pm with 40-something miles to go for the day.

While Camille was working, Greg connected with Captain Crabbe to confirm his availability tomorrow and discuss potentially ferrying over the Chesapeake to Crisfield, MD instead of across the Potomac. We were considering biking up the eastern shore of Maryland to get back home. Based on cost (more than dobule), the longer distance (+100-ish miles) and concerns with Camille's knee, we ended up deciding to just cross the Potomac and stick with the original route.

The rest of the day was a bit grueling with a constant strong headwind and a fair number of hills. Thankfully, we largely continued on lower traffic roads through farmland and especially enjoyed the many beautiful fields of vibrant red and yellow flowers. We took a pit stop at the gas station. Greg got some ice cream! Near the end of the day we stopped again for groceries at Dollar General. Camille was jealous from earlier and got ice cream too. As we were considering getting on the main road, an older gentleman asked "Are you biking on the roads around here? You have more guts than I do." We stuck to the back roads most of the remainder of the way to the Bay Motel arriving just a bit before sundown.

There were some folks relaxing in the parking lot chatting and they seemed interested in our trip and impressed that we'd biked from DC. For some reason, travelling from DC they seemed certain that we must "have that good weed." Expecting an early morning, cleaned up, ate some dinner (cous cous, broccoli, tuna, tortilla, almond butter, ice cream) and settled for bed.