Onward We Go

October 8, 2019

Well, actually, backwards we go

15 miles by train, 45 km on bikes

Since the train wouldn’t be leaving until 11:30, we were not in a big hurry to check out, but we did wake up early enough to get a hot breakfast in. Breakfast was included in our stay, but we had found that if we didn’t get down early enough, the eggs were cold – yuck! Even so, they were so so, but we managed to fill ourselves up with what was available and grabbed a couple of bagels and cream cheese for later in the day. By 10:00, we were ready to head out and so brought the bikes, all loaded up, down to the lobby where we checked out. We rode short distance to the train station and pushed the bikes up the ramp where they would be loaded onto the train. I picked up our tickets and we settled down to wait. All of a sudden, Jim jumped up and said “The water bottles!!!”. Oh no! We had done it again!!!! They were all filled up and sitting in the fridge in our room!!!!! Luckily, we had lots of time to spare and so, rode down the ramp and back to our hotel where Jim went up to the room to get the bottles while I watched the bikes. Then it was back to the train station – oh brother! I think next time I’ll just say I’m fine with warm water!

When the train finally pulled in, we were told we would have to unload the bikes as they, and our gear had to be lifted up to the train – no roll on roll off here. The attendant was nice about it though and kindly hauled all of our gear up before Jim handed him the bikes. It’s a pretty high lift – no way I would be able to hand my bike up that far to anyone! Once they were up and safety stowed away, we boarded the train and sat ourselves on the seat across from our gear. This was going to be the easiest 15 miles we had ever ridden – lol!

Getting our money's worth - our bags took up the space of two more passengers!

Bikes all tucked away. Good thing we were first on - they just leaned the others on ours and along the way, the bike on the outside fell over!

Yep, this is going to be a nice 15 miles!

There were a number of other bikes loaded on before the train finally took off. This is a popular thing to do – take the train up to Frostburg and then bike back down. Yep! That would be a fun ride for sure – no work there! But we had already done that bit and so were looking forward to the shorter trip up to the Continental Divide and back down. Our goal, we had decided, would be Rockwood. We had looked at the map and found that if we rode a little further on this day, since a fair bit would be down rather than up, and added more to the next two days, we could get back to Homestead in 3 days rather than the 4 it took us to come out. It sounded like a solid plan and we were happy with our decision. But first, we had to sit back and enjoy the hour train ride up, and it was enjoyable, no doubt about it. The conductor told interesting facts about the countryside that went by us and we enjoyed looking out at the lovely scenery, noticing more and more trees beginning to change colour the higher we got.

At Frostburg, our bikes and gear were the last to come off and we took our time getting everything back on before heading down a little switchback to the trail. This was actually a very interesting little park with sculptures all along the way.

Back in the saddle again, we headed up. It was a bit steeper grade than what we had coming up the other way, but not too bad at all really. It seemed like no time when we again crossed the Mason Dixon line. This time we stopped to read the plaque about how this line got its name. It was really quite interesting. Before the American revolution, two families spent 3 generations arguing about where the dividing line between their land was. Eventually two men, Mason and Dixon, were tasked with using the technology available at that time to set the boundary officially. What is amusing about this is that less than 10 years after the boundary was set, the American Revolution happened and both families lost their land! However, the name remained as the boundary between the two states of Maryland and Pennsylvania.

After the Mason Dixon line, it was another short uphill to the Savage Tunnel where we used our lights this time, making it a little easier to cycle. It is lit, but a little hard to see in places. Once through the tunnel, it was just another few kilometres and we crossed the Eastern Continental Divide once again – gosh, it seems like it was just yesterday when we did it for the first time, lol!

But Jim made it though to the light at the end of the tunnel - thank goodness it wasn't a train! Lol!

Heading down, we had hoped we would be going a lot quicker. We were definitely moving faster, in higher gears and not working as hard, but the gravel surface makes a difference and in total, we were only moving about 2 miles per hour faster than on the way up. Eventually, though, we pulled into the campground just outside of Rockwood and as we did, we met Keemo (not sure of the spelling, sorry). He was on his way to Cumberland and we had a good chat about cycling the GAP. He was very excited about the possibility of working with one of the tour companies out of Ohiopyle. This would be his retirement job, though. He worked for many years with the United Nations on climate issues and actually is good friends with one of the candidates running for Prime Minister of Canada, Elizabeth May of the Green Party! Wow, small world indeed! He was heading to town for dinner and we hoped to meet up at the Millstream restaurant where we were headed for some more chicken pot pie, but I guess we got our directions crossed as we didn’t see him there. We did, however, enjoy our dinner and bought some other goodies for desert and breakfast in the morning. Of course, by the time we both wolfed down our pot pies, we were too full, so the desert made its way into the food bag where I would have to be very careful to not squish them (a piece of blueberry pie for me, a cherry turnover for Jim) along the way.

Oh! A Deer!!! She didn't really seem all that bothered by us - must see a lot of these strange wheeled creatures along here I guess

Back at the campground it was getting dark and really cold, so we quickly got ourselves into our tent where we bundled up once again to hopefully not freeze over night. Tomorrow we decided to make a really long day – our longest yet. We figured if we rode all the way to our first campsite at Round Bottom, we would have an easier last day. However, this would be a 70 km day, which is pretty long for us – we shall see how that turns out!

Today's ride: 45 km (28 miles)
Total: 616 km (383 miles)

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