mason-dixon, more than an imaginary line

Much to cover since I left Jerry's. I followed the elk river for some time and ended up in the small town of clay. I wasn't sure where to head from there so I inquired at the local dollar general how to get to the Monongahela national forest. They pointed me back to a small bridge telling me that crossing it would put me on a road that would go directly to Summersville, one of the larger towns outside the forest. I followed the road for hours finding it was not as simple as they made it out, it was a beautiful route, a winding back country road leading me up and down mountains. There were several intersections with no road signs or indication of direction, I asked some cops in a speedtrap which way to town to discover I had taken every wrong turn and was about 30 miles off course. I rode a little longer before giving up and snoozing alongside the road. Getting up the next morning I ended up just being a few miles short of a little town, I got directions and headed for the forest.

The ride through the national forest was beautiful, I experienced the first real mountains since New Mexico with incredible views over the wilderness, and long windy downhills into quiet towns spotted with horse farms and beautiful old houses.

I decided to stray from the route Jerry had mapped out to make it up to a music festival in Terra Alta (a small town in the very north of wv near the maryland border) that a guy in a coffee shop had told me about earlier in the week and began my way up north. I picked up a great trail in Elkins that was not suited for my bike at all. It was a 35 mile rail trail of gravel going slowly uphill for the entire ride, but it was a beautiful path. It went back through the national forest and had waterfalls every few miles that seemed to get progressively bigger and more beautiful. While riding I looked to my right and saw a few plants that caught my eye. A few days earlier some locals told me about the wonders of ramps, ramps are a small onion like root vegetable that grow wildly this time of year in west viriginia and I had just come accross the motherload. The hillside was covered in their leaves coming from the ground and I took a break to dig out a shopping bag full.

I got off the trail in Thomas, a cute riverside town filled with empty shops with 'for sale' signs in the window, signs of the recession were everywhere in west virginia. From there I headed north, passing by a huge windfarm and down a huge mountain that brought me speeding into the small town of silver lake. I got directions and a cup of cocao at the convenience store and met a guy named Josh who told me that I missed the 'hippie fest' by a week. I insisted that I saw it on the website as that weekend and continued on the country road as night creeped in. It was much further then I expected, the road was long and windy and it was well into the darkness of night by now. I kept pushing on with the thought of a music festival in my mind. Cars zoomed by every once and a while shining their highbeams in my eyes, my front panniers kept falling off and getting stuck in my wheel, I was cursing everything about the night when a jeep pulled over emitting a bunch of slurred unintelligible yelling. I thought I was about to get beat up by some hicks when I saw Josh get out of the jeep, explaining that they had just gone to the festival grounds to find that there really was no festival, but that I should get a ride with them.

I was happy to accept and with the help of my new drunken friends we bungeed the bike to the roof and zoomed back to silver lake while they passed me beers and told me I should stick around for a bit and they would show me a good time. We ended up at Dans house, a retired oil worker/musician, we stayed up late into the night listening to Dan play song after song, he's like a jukebox of classic rock. I ended up spending a few days in silver lake, the community there is very tight and I felt like family with them, the town is basically a small lake with cabins and trailers all around it with people coming in and out of Dan's house all the time. I played music with Dan, and got to know Josh and Dylan 'pickles' and the rest of the group over huge cookouts and beers.

I rode out of Silver Lake a few days later and made my way into Oakland Maryland where I got online to discover I had become a missing person while in Silver Lake. Since I had no reception in town and no computer at Dan's I didn't have a chance to check in with my parents or anyone, which caused much more panic than I could have anticipated. I called my family, Anabel, and Julia to assure them all I was alive and to call off the missing persons report.

I set out the next day going east hoping to make it to Keedysville in a few days and trying to avoid the rain that was coming down all weekend. I found an old 3 story farm house alongside the highway to sleep in one rainy night with a tall brick silo next to it. I decided to have a fire inside the silo and was cooking some rice over it when I saw some metal rungs near the entrance of the silo leading to the top, I couldn't resist the temptation and climbed to the top to take in the view of rolling hills and farmlands.

I made it into Cumberland a few days later and decided to check out the downtown where I came accross some signs for the c&o canal trail. After asking some locals about it I found that it was a bike route going from pittsburg to DC and would get me pretty close to Julia and Corey, I got on and rode along the lovely canal under the still gray sky. After about 20 miles of riding I saw a dog come out accross the trail, he was skinny and whining, I tried to call him over but he seemed very hesitant to let me near him. I threw him an english muffin which he promptly took into the woods and buried next to a tree, after giving him some more bread and my last bit of cheese I gave up on gaining his trust and decided to lay out for the night under a bridge close by.

I woke up to the dog walking by me and whining, I loaded another piece of bread with peanut butter, tossed it to him, and went on my way. A few miles up the trail I came into the paw paw tunnel, this thing must have been a mile long and was pitch black, I slowly made my way through and rode for a few more miles before stopping to catch my breath, turning around and seeing the dog running not far behind me. I thought I had finally made the canine companion for my trip that I've been dreaming of, I thought of different ways he could travel with me while giving him more food and failing to pet him. He followed me for another 15 miles or so keeping a surprising pace but sadly I lost sight of him by the time I made it to Hancock. In Hancock I took cover at the grocery store while rain poured down, I was told it would last all night, luckily I heard of a bike shop in town that offers shelter and a hot shower for 10 dollars so I made my way there.

The set up was really cool, they had a long lean-to style bunk house with wire on the front, some outdoor showers and portopotties, in a nice yard behind the shop. That night while reading on my bunk I saw someone fumbling with the gate lock and came out to help him, he told me he was very drunk and went right to sleep. He woke up a half hour later to use the bathroom and stayed up this time to talk at the little table set up in the bunk house. He was 70 something years old, retired from the state department because 'all the classified stuff wasnt for him' and spent his time travelling by foot. He showed off his walking stick with medals of all the different hikes he had done and rambled on about his time in the military and his current trip on the canal trail. He asked me about my trip at least 4 times, every time I told him about it it seemed like news to him. I don't think he remembered any of our conversation the next morning and I made my way out.

I got off the trail in Williamsport and was happy to be back on the road after 100 miles of rough trail. I was riding on rt 34 questioning whether I was headed the right way when I heard a car pull over behind me and honk. It was Julia and Corey on their way back from Frederick! There was much rejoice and hugging and struggle to get my bike in her 2 door saturn before we headed over to Corey's. There we had some lasagna and I took in Corey's house which was very much as I pictured it, cozy, cluttered and with knick-knacks on every shelf. We walked to a nearby creek after dinner and caught up with our post umass/simons rock lives next to a fire.

I had a wonderful time with them, Julia showed me nearby Shepardstown, a cool little college town with the best coffee shop I've been to in a while. I also got to come to her yoga class (which I really needed) and ceramics where I made a little snail while everyone rushed to work on several pieces at once, I never knew pottery could be so stressful. We spent nights hanging out in Corey's room listening to music eating copious amounts of freeze pops, and making absurd faces We went to Harper's ferry, a historic little town on the Shenandoah and met with her friend Devin then we three went to crystal grottoes to get the cave tour from Corey. Corey gave a great tour, it was obvious he has done it enough to have it memorized well, the cave itself was beautiful. After the tour Devin took us all out to Indian food which was delicious but a quick meal as we had to rush to make it to Julia's sisters play. It was a series of one act plays and made me feel very nostalgic. It brought me back to the Massachusetts drama festival, some of the plays I had actually seen performed in the festival years earlier. Saturday Julia was busy with a paper and I accompanied Corey on a cave clean up with his caving friend Sean and his wife. This cave was incredible, it required some squirming in certain spots to get around and truly difficult climbs in others, for one part we had to anchor a rope and inch our way down a precarious drop. I had no previous notion of what caving was like, Corey really showed me how beautiful and interesting caves can really be. We went to Julia's for dinner where I got to listen to her mom's extremely German accent some more over a wonderful meal, we then headed out for contra dancing. I couldn't think of a better way to spend my last night, we spent hours in the hot muggy room folk dancing and sweating our asses off.

Corey and Julia gave me a ride up to Gettysburg, PA the next day and we said our goodbyes. One of the saddest partings yet of this trip, I feel I really got to know Julia on a deeper level than I did at school and enjoyed her friendship even more, and I rarely got to say more than a few words to Corey last year but really hit it off with him this time around, he's a very funny genuinely good person and wise beyond his years, I shall miss them both (Julia may be moving to Cambridge this summer though so we'll see).

I got held up for a while in Gettysburg at a light waiting for a make a wish truck parade to go through, it seriously took at least 20 minutes for all these trucks to go by, then headed out with home on my mind. Its been a very big change since leaving Maryland, its starting to feel more and more like the northeast I know, the roads are getting busier and I'm starting to see Dunkin Donuts everywhere. The past few days have been nerve-racking, riding on route 1, a highway following 95, has had me riding next to speeding cars through congested areas. I've ridden through Philadelphia Newark, and Jersey City.

I almost ended up in nyc yesterday, I was at the G.W. bridge about to get on the pedestrian path when some cyclists asked me about my trip. They were very kind and started offering different ways to go and handing me energy bars, they weren't sure the best way to go so they called out, in a very new york accent "eyy Mikey, this guys tryin to get to Mass, ey this guy knows the route like the back of his hand, he'll point you in the right direction." then a muscle bound pony-tailed cyclist came over and, also with the thick new york accent, pointed me down the road on a route that would take me all the way to mass without going through the city, I gratefully shook his hand, waved goodbye to them all and set out along the Hudson.

I was riding for about 10 miles when I saw a "welcom to Piermont' sign. I couldn't believe it, I had ended up in my aunt Adele's town without planning on it at all, I rode down the cliff of a hill that leads to downtown piermont and went to my aunt's without calling her and surprised her at the door. She took me in with welcoming arms, I got a much needed shower and got picked up by my cousin Molly, a month away from me in age, and her boyfriend Kevin, and we went to see the new Freddy movie.

I'm spending another night and heading out tomorrow morning, with about 270 miles to go, my trip is in its last few days, it will have been about 4000 miles when I get to Cape, and the greatest experience of my life. It's been amazing but I can't wait to get home, see you in a a few days Falmouth! I'm going out for a cup of coffee and an incredible view of the Hudson.