Thursday, June 18, 2009
3: Night Ride
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| Stoker's Log Day Three |
| 6/18/09 |
| From Lancaster, PA |
| To Frederick, MD |
| 80.3 miles |
| 9.3 avg mph |
This morning we left my childhood home for our current home in Frederick, MD. The weather couldn't make up its mind, but I suppose that's better than downpour or heatstroke all day. Near the beginning of the ride we had a steep climb into Columbia and then crossed their impressive mile long bridge.
We then made a stop at a curiosity that I used to drive by at least once a month and yet never visited: The Haines Shoe House.
Five stories tall and featuring shoe-themed stained glass, the house was built in the 1940s by Mahlon Haines, "The Shoe Wizard" and a master of self-promotion. He built the shoe house to boost sales, but he also let newlyweds honeymoon for free there, a tradition that I wish continued today! We elected to pay for the $4.50 tour; no doubt reflecting all of the bad jokes that she's heard over the years, the tour guide's first bit of information was that "No old lady lives in this shoe; I may be getting old but I don't actually live here." Even though the inside turned out to be less interesting than the outside, the family running the house was very friendly and it was nice to learn about the house and eccentric Mr. Haines. Apparently after a falling out with his fiance Haines packed his things, got on a bicycle, and rode across the state until it broke down. (Hopefully it didn't give Kyle any ideas...) After the tour we bought icecream and enjoyed it outside by the shoe dog house and shoe bird house, and it was all very charming and amusing.
Other sights of the day included a ridiculously large horse farm, a dentist's office with two creepy Ronald McDonald statues on its front lawn, a row of painted parking meters, and a gnome surrounded by other oddities for sale.
Also wheat fields. Turns out I really like wheat fields.
Kyle also liked the wheat fields, though he was less excited about taking photos of them.
It sounds like a pleasant day, and in part it was. The problem was that after that steep climb into Columbia the hills just kept coming. The beautiful rolling farmland unfortunately didn't make the twisting climbs any less exhausting. We found ourselves creeping along at an average of 8 mph for much of the day. It didn't help that we were sore and beaten up from the day before; our knees ached and creaked and my always problematic feet were killing me. The miles crawled along and suddenly the sun was setting, which was picturesque but problematic.
We never thought the ride home would drag on so long, but there was nothing to do but keep pedaling. We strapped on headlamps, turned on the bike's flashing red lights, and headed down the road looking even more like a carnival attraction than normal. Thankfully we finally caught a break: flats with a slight tailwind. It felt like we were flying compared to the rest of the day. We still didn't make it home until 10:30 at night though, which is just no good at all. We don't want to be riding in the dark for extended periods of time and we'll usually want to be asleep before 10:30 since we're planning on many early mornings. Luckily we had already planned to take a day or two off in Frederick to recuperate and get things together, so we could crash -- finally -- knowing that for once we could sleep in... ← 2: Rainy Day | Home | 4-5: Home Sweet Home →
| posted at: 07:02 |
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