Day 9, 81 miles, Monday, August 25, 2008
Hunt Valley, MD to Washington, DC
(my odometer; 83.6 miles, 12.7 mph, 6hr 38min 20sec)
Max speed - 36.2 mph
Up at 5:15; 6:00 breakfast here at Hampton Inn, cold cereal - 2 bowls special K, 2 muffins, Danish, orange juice and coffee; 7:00 load luggage, 7:10 on the road. Today's forecast was for a cold front to move through at noon and with it a 30% chance of rain showers. We didn't get any rain so that was good.
The first part of the day was gorgeous and we had several steep climbs. However, it wasn't as hard as yesterday. There were very few opportunities for photo opps for the first half of the ride, though. The traffic was heavy and most of the time there wasn't a breakdown lane for us to ride in. Our observations were that drivers in MD and DC drive very fast and are very rude and disrespectful of and to cyclists. At about 60 miles, our route sheet cued us to enter a bike path for the remainder of the ride. The path dumped us out right in the middle of downtown DC. We then had a 1/2 mile ride to connect to the hotel. The bike path was very poorly maintained and had many bumps and pot holes, but it did provide a safer route for us to travel.
Our hotel, Best Western Georgetown Suites, is really nice. The rooms are very large and well maintained. I went out to dinner with several cyclists and Paul, Anne's brother took us on a brief historical tour and then to Nick's Riverside Grille down on the waterfront of the Potomac River. This was a very nice waterfront restaurant with tables and chairs outside next to the river. It was a very special to do something like this on my last day of riding. We then came back to our hotel to settle in. I was too tired to complete this journal. I'll send it out tomorrow.
It is now 6:30 AM on Tuesday and I will finish this and send it out now. Maria wiil be arriving in 2 hours to pick me up. We plan to do go to Washington Monument and maybe a few other places and then head home around noon. I'll write one more journal tomorrow to sum up my 2008 Alzheimer's fundraising ride.
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