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Tuesday, May 5: Well, I’m writing this on Thursday, May 7 because we’ve just been so fast-forward that I just have not had a chance to get on the computer to do the blog. So let me go over the past three days to get everything caught up. So we’ll start with Tuesday, which was an off day really because I had to wait until Wednesday morning to catch the sail across the Chesapeake Bay from Cambridge to Deale. 


So the first thing we did was to redo the last portion of the bike because I found out from Shawn Martin, my sailboat captain, that he had to dock at a different dock than I had ridden/hike-a-biked to on Monday. Needed to reconnect the dots such that I had my track going to the proper destination. Now the change was actually more to my benefit, had I of know that on Monday. But, it is what it is. We rode from our motel, but to where I had done my gnarly rail section into downtown Cambridge, but went on a newly plotted course I had reconfigured on Monday night when I found out about the dock change. 


From the old RR line I got on this grassy berm/farm field riding along Bucktown Rd for about  two miles to Rt 50, bike walked across Rt 50 and then got on this crushed clam shell trail that went into the Hyatt Regency and the marina down along the Choptank River. God, it was a piece of cake really with wooden bridges and this crazy crushed clam shell trail all the dag gone way. Shawn had told me he’d be coming between 4 and 8 PM, so as soon as we completed the chain of my trek to the marina, we got back on a bike-hike trail that led into the old downtown of Cambridge and I rode with Judy for a while so she could get some riding in. I mean the riding has been so nasty that she had just NOT had any opp to ride with me - the tracks have been so awefull I wouldn’t even think of recommending that she do any of the riding with. 


Matter of fact we were doing this one section of boardwalk pedestrian trail in the old district of Cambridge along the Choptank River, which for me felt like GOLD, but to Judy, she though it was a bit bumpy. Yea, bumpy!!!!! So I suggested that she ride on the grass berm along the wooden walkway, and by God she couldn’t believe how hard it was riding on the soft, sandy-loamy ground compared to the boardwalk. That’s when I told her “welcome to my world!”

Hell, after riding stretches of old RR ballast, ridden on God-awefull berms of mud, sand, gravel and grass, weeds, pine cones, branches and garbage on 45-degree angles, that boardwalk felt like paradise. 


Went back to the Hyatt Regency complex marina later in the day after our ride to meet Captain Shawn Martin, sometime around 5:30 PM. And let me tell you this place is crazy freaking expensive. The rooms must go for 3 bills a night. I mean it’s glitz galore! I couldn’t believe that they even let us pull my ratty old van in the place. So we parked and just rambled around the complex a bit looking at the pool area and keeping an eye out for a sail boat crossing under Rt 50 and sailing into the marina. Took a stroll out onto this floating dock that ended at an observation gazebo that juts out into the river. And I saw this dude with long hair just getting out of a sail boad right at the end of the dock near the floating gazabo. Got up to the guy and he kind of gave me a doubletake look, so I said “Shawn?”. He replied “hi Pete”. And there we were, my captain had just arrived. We sat and chatted with Shawn for a bit at the gazabo as he was munching on a sandwich, then he invited us to the boat to take a look. He had sailed in on a 23-foot boat, with a cabin area below that contained a bow and stern sleeping area, a very small head, a small sink and some sitting room on each side of the main compartment. 


Shawn invited us to stay the night on the boat, and we did consider it for a bit as we walked back to the van at the marina office to get our sleeping bags etc. Somewhere along the way we kind of decided to just stay in the van for the night rather than stay in the boat - partly because of Judy’s claustrophobia and the rocking of the boat all night as the tide changes. Went back to let Shawn know of our change, in addition to bringing a couple of beers  back to his boat so that we could chat and drink a couple cold ones. Shawn works for the South River Boat Rentals company, and right off the bat I have to thank Nancy for giving me a discount on the sail across the bay due to my American Dirt mission. They were very kind to me and I’m very grateful for their assistance. 


Anyway, Shawn is a 48-year old guy who loves sailing as much as I love cycling, and he has the demeanor  and disposition of a laid back So Cal guy. Turns out he actually live in San Fran yrs back when he was a graphic designer. He’s a very cool, good natured dude who just loves the water and the whole mystique of sailing and maritime navigation. I was rather amazed at how similar our values and beliefs were. He, like me values time, travel, people, and adventure more so than just working your life away to bank a ton of money for retirement - and then travel. So I felt a kind of kinship with him right from the get-go. Well, we decided to shove off at 6:30 AM on Wed. Went back and spent the remainder of the eve sitting on a picnic table with Judy watching the sun set to our left over the mouth of the Choptank River. Was just a stellar evening. Hit the hay around 9 PM. 


Wednesday, May 6: Woke up at 5 AM to the sound of the garbage guy empying a big bin that was in the marina parking area. Went to get some coffee and breakfast sandwiches outside of the complex at this gas station and then went back inside where Judy dropped me off close to the floating dock and Shawn’s boat. He was ready to roll and we were off the dock and in the middle of the river by 6:37 AM. Shawn had told us the night before that the trip could take anywhere from 8-12+ hrs depending on the weather, the tide, the current of the Choptank, and several other factors that I cannot remember. Well, about 1/3 to 1/2 of the trip is just getting out of the Choptank and into the Chesapeake Bay. I mean this bloody river is so wide and so long it’s just amazing. It almost feels like it the bay itself. Figures that I’d pick the very widest stretch of river/bay to cross over to the western shore!


And you might ask me why the hell did I do it this way? Answer’s simple - Xing by sailboat would save me days and days and days of route finding, and distance. There’s just damn little in the way of gravel roads out here, so Xing by boat would just make this trek much more realistic. Plus, once I get to the western shore in Deale, MD I’m darn near straight line due east of where I need to be to make it west down to the Potomac to X the river at Fort Washington where the river is much more narrow. So logistics dictated that I X the Bay exactly at Cambridge. 


So we had to use the boat’s outboard motor to get us into the right channel of the river. The weather….it was so darned calm that the river was like glass. Shawn said that was pretty unusual for this time of year. So we had just about no wind, breeze, or even puff breath to deem the jib and main sail be put into use. This translates into…we had to use the motor of the boat to make any kind of forward progress. And this lasted the 3-4 hrs we were working our way west out of the Choptank River. Another weird thing was that this massive river is about 2-5 feed deep in most places, which really blew me away. I mean there are places that you can wade through mud for a mile out into the river. This I found out as I watched Shawn use this marine gps app on his I-pad that pretty much gave him the proper course down the river within the right depth of water. I was actually pretty entertained by watching the depth, mph, course, track and buoy lines on his I-pad as he navigated down the river. And he really did keep me engaged by explaining what he was doing and what we should watch for as he steered the boat with this hand rudder down the river. 


By the time we actually got into the Chesapeake a very, very light wind had begun to blow, and it was coming from just the right direction to. But when Shawn turned the engine off, unrolled the jib and main sail, we actually slowed down to a paltry 2.3 mph - that compared to our 4.3 mph with just the jib unrolled and the engine on. So I looked at him and kind of asked in a defeated tone, “so how long will the Xing take if we just go by sail.” “Probably up into dark,” he responded. Well, having Judy wait at the Deale marina for 6-7 hrs was bad enough, but projecting that for 6 more hrs, till sunset or beyond….I didn’t think that was a good idea. And he asked me whether I’d like to go just sail or sail plus motor? “Let’s do both,” I answered. I just couldn’t let Judy sit there for that long. And that was that. 


Now a year ago I wondered out loud if I could paddle across the Bay. My cousin Sue said that was nuts to try to paddle across the bay, and the more I thought about it, and the more I read about it I kind of agreed with here - I mean the weather out there could get treacherous if a storm popped up. But on this day, Shawn said I could have had the opp to do it …realizing that the paddle would have taken me at least a full day to complete the 32 mile trip! 


Well, we made Deale in just about 8 hrs. Met Judy at the docks, and Shawn met his wife Lynn there to. Lynn had driven down to meet us and spend the eve with Shawn on the boat as he had to sail it another 6 hrs up the bay to where the South River Boat Rentals is located the next day. While Shawn was moving the boat to it’s mooring I just had to get out there and put together just a tiny porting of the trip such that I was at least “trying” to catch up to my projected schedule - which by this time was like 3 days off. Rolled out of the marina on through a gravel maze of roads and onto the berm of Deale Rd. The first portion I was able to actually do on the edge of these fallow farm fields that abutted the roadway. Then I had to ride some nasty, skinny sections of gravel, grass and stick/branches/limbs berm. But within 40 min I’d gotten to where I was hoping - a gnarly bushwack hike-a-bike section down along Lyons Creek to it’s jcn with the Patuxent River. Yea, I’d save that killer section for tomorrow!


Went back on roadway to the marina where we all hung around Shawn’s boat - Harmony - for a good hr drinking some cold beer and just shooting the ship. Ended up going to dinner with Shawn and Lynn at the local watering hole just outside the Deale marina to finish off the day with a pretty sweet evening. The food was just awesome, especially the local specialty - breaded oysters - wow!


Jude and I did another van sleep at the Deale marina and that was a wrap for Wednesday. 


Thursday, May 7: Up at 6 AM, bid goodby to Lynn and off we went to begin another gnarl-ass day. Now last eve, having done the berm/farm field riding I considered changing the hike-a-bike down along Lyon’s Creek through swampland, to another shot at riding along fallow farm field and crap berm to a place that was just before Lyons Creek met the Patuxent River. This would accomplish another puzzle - saving Judy from driving all the way to my canoe put-in by herself where I wasn’t sure if he van could get all the way down to the water. So I just had her drive ahead of me a couple miles at a crack such that we could hit that put-in together venue together and I could figure out on the spot where we had to have the van with the canoe on top. And my decision really turned out to be on the spot - the berm/field riding was not too bad.


At this point when I say not bad, I’m talking like 3-5 mph in the tiny cookie in the front and usually one of the easiest gears in the back. It’s slow, laborious riding, but not killer nasty like the stuff up in DE. So we got to this last section, where the road was a dead end that just stopped at a point to where the creek met the river. I’d told Judy to wait up the road while I did the recon down to the end of the road just in case this road got nasty and unnavigable in the van. I hadn’t actually done a recon on this exact area back when I did recon up here last year. Kind of took it for granted that we could make it work. Well, got to the end of the road just when a school bus was picking up a little girl. The road kind of did this T and it looked like private drives on both sides of the T. So I asked the young mom who had been with the little girl boarding the bus, if this area was all private, or if I had a way to access the creek or river. She told me it was indeed all private creek/river property. She kind of looked at me inquisitively, so I told her why I was inquiring about the water access - with my American Dirt story. 


That’s when she invited me to launch my canoe from her family’s dock down on the mouth of Lyons Creek. Couldn’t have had that situation turn out any better. So I phoned Judy, told her she was good to drive all the way down the road and told her where Lori lived on the left side of the T. So in the meantime Lori, a veterinarian, mother of two, and a super kind lady got me a cold glass of water and directed me to where they launch their kyaks and canoes behind the house. Once Judy arrived I got the canoe unlashed, prepped my water gear, took out my bike-in-a-bag and we all headed down this little wooded hillside to the water. Literally just toted the canoe down this leafy trail to water’s edge. Was in Lyons Creek in no time. What really felt good was that Lori told me that my decision to abandon the hike-a-bike down the totality of Lyons Creek and do the bike on berm/field to the put-in was definitely the right call. And looking at the Lyons Creek valley I felt pretty damn good on that one. It was just a boggy, marshy mess for miles and miles upstream. That would have been the bushwhack of the century!


Once on the canoe didn’t take but 10 min and I was out of  Lyonn’s Creek and into this massive, broad slow moving river - the Patuxent. Now the Patuxent is a very popular river here in MD for recreational paddling. It’s flat, slow moving and really out in the middle of nowhere - feels like some real wilderness. It’s a quiet paddle in this massive protected watershed area. Took me a bit to paddle from the south side of the river over to the north side where I needed to put-out. Now this river is so big at this point that I just couldn’t see where the river went on the other side. It’s got hundreds of yards of water lillies and in places and when you’re at nearly water level, well, your vision is pretty limited. Just continued to paddle and sure enough, beyond the water vegetation, off to my right I could see the main river channel do a slight curve. And from there I could see Shelby’s Landing - my put-out point. 


Now as I was paddling I had a phone call, which I assumed was Judy. But having all the electronic gear in dry bags, I just wanted to wait until I put out to pull the phone dig into the dry bag. Once I did get the phone out it’s just what I’d expected….she could not find the landing where I was at. It’s truly a maze of roads in this area, and getting to an out of the way spot like the wildlife area can be a real challenge. So as I was pulling the canoe out of the water I was trying to give her directions to where I was, yet she really didn’t know where she was. This guy who was fishing off of the dock tried to help give her directions, but this dude appeared to be a few bricks shy of a full load. He was just hemming and hawing about the succession of roads for her to take, kind of drawing a road map in the air with his index finger as he was going through the progression. 


Finally we got a few nuggets of info from him such that Judy could find a couple landmarks. I eventually pulled all my gear up out of the loading zone at the pier while the guy went on and on talking to me…and soon to himself saying “yea, we’ll get her here, we’ll get her here”. It was goofy. Judy did indeed make it, we got the canoe and gear back on the van and off I went on the next section - a bike on trails, berm, farm fields and RR ballast. This pup was only about 8-10 miles but it took over 2 hrs. Just a really tough go on some of the berm sections, where again I was in the absolute easiest hear I had. 


Actually the RR part, with me riding down the middle was the fastest. And again, we had a coordination glitch where once off the RR Judy nor I could find what appeared to be this little town of Cheltenham. The toughest part of the day, a bike down this powerline trail, was just a pure ugly grunt.  And to make sure Judy knew exactly where to end, I had her take me to the end point of the powerline ride from our last end point at the RR so I could ride back up to my prior ending point at the RR. This made it way easier for her to just drive as I did the navagation to the powerline start. Once I got going on the powerline trail, I knew it was going to be tough. I mean the dbl and single track which I assume was created by ATC and ATV riders NOT the powerline company, was often loose, slippery, rounded quartz gravel, and some of the climbs and descents are just stupid steep. I had to bike walk up these things and then back down the other side. Some of those slopes had to be over 45-degrees. And the stuff I could ride was just rutted out such that the ruts can catch a wheel and just toss you in the opposite direction. The descents I did do were just hair raising, what with that loose, rounded gravel - the wheels would just wash out at the slightest lean or twist of the bars. 


And then I came to this section through a swamp, where the track appeared to go way, way off of the straight line track of the powerlines. So I kind of was at this half way point to where it was a do or die situation. Did a few turns away from that track, and then turned back thinking that maybe the trail didn’t go the whole way (which I’d researched on google maps and saw the whole track). But when I went back to look at going straight along the powerline, well, it just looked like a complete mess, with about a half mile of bog. So I decided that maybe the trail went way around the bog area. And that’s what I did, taking the trail and veering way off to the north hoping that the thing would swing back around to track west with the powerlines again. 


Still had to ford a few streams, push and pull the bike through mud holes and traverse piles of broken branches and dirt and sand. My shoes were just these big clods of muck by the time I made it through the boggy stuff. Then there was more bike hiking up and down some of these wicked hills. I swear, one was so steep I damn near could not even push the bike up it - the shoes were slipping as if I was on ice. But I did make it, and when I hear the traffic of Rt 301, which was my endpoint, I felt elated to be finished with that little 5-mile section. By that time it was 3:15 PM, with my next section being an ugly hike-a-bike with the bikepack along that same drainage where the powerline trail ended. I’d reconned this section last year, hiking it for several hrs and it’s indeed nasty. So I was ready for the day to be over at that point. Doing the hike-a-bike would be at least 3 hrs. Save that pup for tomorrow. 


We got rolling south on 301 and found a motel where I could wash the mud off my legs, pick the ticks off my legs, and where I could just stand in a hot shower for a half hr. Ended up washing my cycling kit in the tub, then hanging the laundry out on my van. Dried the cycling shoes off by putting them on the windshield to sun dry, then I smacked them together to bust off the dried mud. 


Ok, that’s it. Got to get to work on my real job!