A great day! Beautiful weather, partly cloudy, breezy and in the high 60s. Washington DC to Brunswick MD- 63 miles total today. We are finally heading West!! It was a chore to find Mile Marker 0 on the C&O Canal trail. But found it we did. It is by the Thompson Boat Center. You have to actually go in the Boat Center- it is where they store Crew rowing shells for rowing groups that use the Potomac. There is a small plaque by this first lock which marks the beginning of the Canal. After that, it was a bit difficult to get on the trail itself because they were doing construction and the first part was closed off. So after wandering around on surface streets in Georgetown trying to follow the detour signs, we finally got on the trail and started to make some good time. It was nice to get out of the city- it is amazing how quickly the city disappears, to be replacing by the bright green of spring with all the newly leafed trees and spring flowers popping up all alongside the towpath. We stopped at Great Falls- a magnificent system of gorges where the Potomac falls dramatically 76 feet in less then a mile. You can see why they had to build these canals- the Potomac is not navigable at all upstream of DC.
The trail was in very good condition- there has not been heavy rain for awhile so it was dry with no big potholes or muddy spots as it was when I did the trail back in 2019. We got to White’s Ferry at 12:15 where we had lunch. By that time the trail was smooth as asphalt. It continued that way for the last 20 miles to our campsite in New Brunswick. It is right between the trail and the Potomac, and unfortunately right next to the New Brunswick rail yard, and the rail line that runs along the Potomac at this point. Hopefully the trains stop running in the evening. As I recall from past experience, it seems they keep the engines running in the yard all night- I’ll let you know how I sleep tonight! I did bring my earplugs.
Forecast for tonight is mild, in the 60s and no rain, same for tomorrow so we are looking forward to a good day tomorrow- 77 miles ugh!
Total mileage for today was 63 miles at a leisurely pace of 12 mph. It was all fairly flat but we are slowly gaining altitude as we make our way to Cumberland. The trail was fairly bumpy and rough until after Great Falls so we were going rather slow at first, but the pace picked up after that. But no one is going for speed anyway. We will stop if there is something interesting to see, and we have all day anyway to enjoy the sights. That is except those who are assigned cooking duties for the day! They need to do the shopping as well as cooking for the evening and the following breakfast, so they need to make sure they get to our camping area at a reasonable hour! My first cooking duties are Friday.
Biking across the USA with Mike 
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