This begins the chronicle of our Great Allegheny Passage (GAP) Cycling Adventure. Having few opportunities for wifi connectivity—either through no service or no time—I’m playing catch-up, here at the tail end of the trip (September 22 – Happy Autumn!).
Apologies for getting this out piecemeal—and you’ll notice there are a few times when I predict the future and refer readers to things that chronologically haven’t happened yet. Still, you’ll get most of the photos, and as much of the trip details as I can remember. There’s a lot to relate.
We’ll begin with Sept. 9 – 11
Rain and more rain caught us as we arrived at Lake Anna State Park (Virginia) on September 9 AND it was a slightly longer drive than we’d anticipated. Hadn’t left home until noon-ish, and as it turned out, rolled into our site #39 (with electric and water) around 5. It was nice to find excellent cell service at the campsite, and very very very few other peeps camping.
Much of our packing for this stage was sparse, as we needed to be completely out of food so we could turn off and leave empty our refrigerator prior to leaving Roomba at a friend’s house while we took our GAP ride. This stay at Lake Anna SP was merely the first stage of a longer bicycling ride package with Virginia Odysseys, the tour group with whom we often travel. We’d see Roomba again for some camping at the end of our travels.
ANYWAY, our dinner was sparse and all cooked inside since we also didn’t want to bring out the grill: re-heated pork loin, rice, and a simple can of green beans. It was warm, despite the wet, so we took our dinner outside, and heard an extremely strange call, nearby and quite loud. At first, we pegged it as a possible owl, but when I searched the darkening tree line for confirmation, we saw not an owl but an adult bald eagle. It was sitting in a high, thin tree across the roadway from us, preening on the tippy-topmost branch, which was bowed under its weight. It preened and watched us for a long time, as we watched it, and then it flew silently away.
This will have to be a great trip with a kickstart like that, huh?
Fog and rain stuck with us through the next day, so we didn’t pull the bikes off the rack to explore what looked like extensive roadways and interesting trails designated for bicycles. I did, however, head off to actually find the lake and took a very nice hike. Unfortunately, the lake itself was quite foggy—but I could easily see a large-ish heron sitting just off the beach area, on a thick pylon, preening and just hanging out. Heron and I spent a long time together, and it didn’t seem to mind my taking pictures of it in the least.
There were also some vultures sitting around trying to get dry in the wet. Good luck to you all!
I also took a wander through the woods around a peninsula, along a trail called the Railroad Ford trail (about 1.5 miles). Got a view of the lake a few times, with some fisher people silently trying to catch their dinners.
Also saw some bone yards — one fish and one mammal — along the path.
By the time I’d gotten back to camp, Jack had been using his robust cell service to find that Hurricane Florence was bearing down on the coast of North Carolina and Virginia, and we began to worry about our niece being at hour house, minding the shop, and enduring the worries of heavy weather while we were gone.
We were also somewhat concerned about Roomba’s weathering the storm in NoVA, in our friends’ yard with tall trees all around.
We discussed what it might take for us to either return Roomba home to his garage while we gave our niece a crash course on operating the generator and then joining the group on our northern journey slightly late; OR canceling the cycling adventure altogether so we all could return to deal with Florence as a family.
We talked to Allen about options; we talked to housesitting niece and Meadows of Dan neighbor John about the home front. We talked amongst ourselves about what seemed practical and what might be over-caution.
In the end we decided, with our niece’s assurances and great promises of help and assistance from neighbors; plus a check on the NoVA forecast from the perspective of our Roomba-sitter, that we would carry on and let the chips fall where they may. Our niece is a tremendously resourceful person, and the clincher was that she did not feel anxious or out of her depth, and so we thought we’d stick to our schedule.
Virginia State Parks, however, had a different idea altogether.
In anticipation of the slow-moving and huge (geographically) category 4 storm that could cause heavy flooding and high winds in the Commonwealth, the powers that be closed the majority (all?) of the state and federal campgrounds in Virginia. We had to leave early.
So on September 11, we dropped Roomba off for his “summer camp” sleepover adventure, and headed to the start point of our ride in Cumberland, MD early.
Due to the storm, about half of our expected number canceled, primarily due to the fact that so many of the group live near the coastlines. So there was no problem getting a room at the Cumberland Fairfield Inn for us at the last minute. By the time we got to Maryland, Florence was still appearing vicious, but was tipping its trajectory slightly away from Virginia. We were relieved to see that, but still concerned for all our NC and SC friends and family.
But we joined our group: 3 couples, plus one single and the tour leader couple. Nine adventurers, one van with Minnesota license plates (dubbed “Minni”), and 8 bicycles (one was a tandem). Let the GAP Odyssey begin!
peregrinations 