Alone in a Crowd: Montour/GAP/C & O Tour, June 2009 - Part 3

Sunday morning I got off to a very late start. I had an unexpected reaction to the niacin I take for my low HDL count. For about an hour and a half I didn't feel well enough to ride. So while most of the other folks pulled out about 8:00 AM or so, I didn't get underway until 10:00. I was joined by JAGraham, a Bike Forums poster who was riding parts of the trail with us. We rode to Dravo Cemetery, the free campsite six miles south of Boston. I had considered going there the night before instead of staying at the Yough Shore Inn, since I'd done that back in August 2008. My bonking and muscle cramps deterred me from attempting the additional miles, and my decision was a prudent one all things considered.

I knew from a discussion with the organizer that we were to meet another member of our group that morning at Dravo, but I figured he'd have been picked up when the main group went through a couple of hours before. Imagine our surprise to find Chuck sitting on a bench waiting for the group. I was startled that the group would blow past someone they knew was meeting them. 

As I said goodbye to JAGraham, who was riding back to her car at Boston, I turned to Chuck and suggested he might be able to catch the main group if he dropped the hammer. He said he wanted to ride with me instead. I warned him I'm only marginally faster than a glacier, but he said he remembered my riding and could keep 'down' with me. 

I'd met Chuck on my previous trip - he and Spinnaker had ridden with me for about 30 miles on the Montour Trail in August. Chuck is behind Spinnaker in this photo, riding his self-built bike - that's the Nashbar touring frame, incidentally. 



We headed out to the trail from Dravo, after I visited the adjoining cemetery for photos. 



We stopped in West Newton, a town about 15 miles from Boston, for lunch. While there we saw a sign advertising the Movable Wall, a touring half-size replica of the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial in Washington, DC. After getting directions from a resident and discovering the display was only a mile away, we set off for it. After some fearsome hills and lots of motorcycle traffic we came to the park with the Wall:





Once back on the trail I had as good a time riding with others as I'd ever had. Chuck and I had many of the same interests, read the same books, and possessed the same 'gift of gab.' We stopped at every historical marker, even ones I'd read on my two previous trips. At one of them Chuck and I discussed wild edible plants, and he went foraging on the banks of the Yough. He came back empty handed, however.





At Cedar Creek Park, south of Boston, JAGraham took my trailer from me. While I could have pulled it, I was still very worn out from the previous day and the problem with medication that morning. The 'side effect' this caused made me better able to keep up with Chuck. 

We arrived at our campsite, River's Edge in Adelaide, about 5:00 PM, three hours after the others. I set up my camp, went swimming in the pool, and received a campsite cooking lesson from JAGraham. In the second photo, that's my MSR Pocket Rocket and pot on the left. The pizza and beer were another camper's. 



I crawled into my tent about 9:00 PM, as the bugs began to bite.