Day 5 A Hot One!

We awoke in a thick mist about 6. It is taking us about 1 1/2 to get up and get everything prepared to leave, cooking our first breakfast of coffee and oatmeal. This sort of breakfast got us through the first 2 1/2 hours of riding. The thick, thick fog remained and seemed to hold a force field of resistance against us and teamed up against us with big longish hills (probably only fractions of what is to come, but we are still in 'training' right?) and then, when the fog begain to clear, the oppressive heat set in, by 9:20 in the morning we were already chomping at the bit for some inside time and another meal, 2nd breakfast like a good Hobbit would have. I think we ended up eating off of rt. 23 in a place called Madonna House, which sounds exotic, but is really just at the tail end of a strip mall. Biscuits and gravy, western omelet, we definitely did not hold back. We are smearing everything with all the condiments in site too. I know I've been eating wheat too because my head is totally going nuts.

With our new calorie boost, we were able to enjoy the scenery a bit more, and the riding was very pretty, lots of small farms lined with trees, and fortunately for us the hills seemed to be rolling predominately downhill for us. I couldn't have imagined going the opposite direction at that moment. We made it down by Monkton where we got on a great trail NCR (Northern Central Railroad) that runs along the Gunpowder River. We were on this for maybe 10-15 miles. Stuck our feet in the water to try to cool off, a friendly dog ate my socks (which were probably at the ideal dirt/sweat saturation level) but fortunately the owner and I were able to get him to return them with only 1 hole.

My head is still really hot from the day. I can't believe that I haven't cooled down by now. We are wearing sunblock but still getting a little fried, especially my left hand which is left exposed and random parts of my left leg. I have some fears that nature and pavement and our own physical limitations will prevent this awesome journey from happening. But mostly these thoughts come and go.

However we are safely stretched out on Claudia and Bill's couch, who we haven't even met, but fixed us a delicious tea and left us a fruit salad (with mint, it was so good!) and opened up their entire house to us. Some people are amazing. (Including all of you beauties who keep our spirits up with your comments! We miss you!) We met these folks through http://www.couchsurfing.com/ which is a network of people who let each other travel via the others 'couches' or whatever flat surface they have available. Their house is charming and lived in and we seem to have similar interests in food.

Getting here was a bunch of hot asphalt after we left our nice trail. We stopped at a Chili's and had bottomless flavored ice teas for about 2 hours because we just couldn't continue in the heat. We had already stopped for 1 hour under some nears near an office park, but I made the mistake of asking a geared up passing biker for directions (it turned out that I was not getting very accurate energy readings from the people I asked for help this day). He came over and gave us some befuddled directions, but then he began to tell us his most intimate life story, beginning with how he had been a widower for 6 six years and peaking with his past addiction to internet, um, stuff. Hopefully our encounter was of some help to him, because it totally sapped us of all our reserves of energy and sympathy. So we probably only were able to do 50 miles today. We've been averaging a little over 60.

Tomorrow we hope to get through Baltimore through DC to stay with my oldest friend Christie in Alexandria. We will try to leave super early to get out of the heat as soon as possible.