Delaware Pennsylvania Delaware Maryland Delaware

 

Chesapeake City Bridge over Chesapeake and Delaware Canal

16 October 2022

Last Sunday morning, Tom led a caravan of Slugs down to somewhere northwest of Wilmington, Delaware for a two-day biking trip. Jim and Rickety carpooled together; I followed by myself in case I had to go straight back to the lab on Monday. Jack H and Dorothy, and Pete, met us at the little park across from the Winterthur estate.

Tom called the route the "Hoopes Reservoir Ride." We did pass a small body of water, surrounded by trees, as we flew down the hill from the parking lot. I made note of the grade so that I'd have enough energy saved for the return trip.

We were close to the Pennsylvania border. The roads were narrow and hilly. The houses were estates. I'd had enough sleep for a change; my legs and back weren't complaining. Yet. 

Pete had his GPS set to tell him how many hills we were going to climb. Garmin has an algorithm that defines a hill. I turned the feature off on my unit. We kept asking Pete which of the six Garmin-defined hills we were on.

Near the Delaware-Pennsylvania border, at mile 8.2, I snapped a photo at the intersection of Cossart Road and "Historic Route 100."

In Pennsylvania, we crossed the Brandywine River at mile 16.7. Several of us stopped for photos.

Our rest stop was at the Northbrook MarketPlace, a farm store in the vein of Delicious Orchards in Colts Neck. I don't know why I didn't take any pictures of the store. Jim did.  The only photos I took were of the field next to the store. 

We were sitting at a picnic table off to the side. I bought two gigantic cookies to save for later. I barely had pocket space for them. The guys were loading up on various goodies from the bakery. If this place were anything close to home, I'd be in big trouble.

A few miles later, we found ourselves passsing, for what felt like miles, the University of Pennsylvania's New Bolton Center. It's part of the veterinary schoool, where they treat large animals. Remember Barbaro the racehorse? This is where he was treated.

I was a tech in a research lab at the vet school from 1996 to 1998. We used to receive donated horse trachea tissue driven up from New Bolton on ice on Mondays. Not every Monday, of course. Euthanasia with donations didn't happen like clockwork. I never knew where this mysterious place was, nor how large it was, until last week.

The hills kicked in again as we made our way back towards the park. By the penultimate climb, Rickety and I had had enough. On the final climb, a white van stayed behind us, passing us only towards the end. "Hey!" the driver shouted. It was Dorothy, doing what every other driver had done during this ride: staying behind us, not honking, and waiting patiently to pass, without gunning the engine. That's how we knew we weren't in New Jersey.

It was mid-afternoon by the time we got ourselves cleaned up at the Comfort Inn in Newark, DE. We reconvened around 4:00 at the Two Stones pub next to the hotel, where we got snacks and beers. Jack H had taken a nap, for which we teased him mercilessly.

At 6:00 we walked over to Smileys' Diner, passing an impromptu party in the Popeye's Chicken parking lot. Like the bar, the restaurant was relatively empty. One server was running herself ragged while the manager scowled. So much for Smiley. Two junior servers were taking their time.

We got the harried server, who explained that the youngsters didn't have enough experience with big parties. She let us in on her crazy shedule and treated us with more attention than we deserved. Somehow, free dessert was included. Big tip. 

Back in my room before 9:00 p.m., I could barely keep my eyes open. I had some spider photo organizing to do on my laptop. I worked at that for a while, then settled into bed to read a book. At 10:15, I gave up and turned out the lights. I hadn't gone to sleep this early since I can't remember when.  

Monday morning started with me brewing French Press coffee in the hotel room. I'd gone downstairs to see what the free breakfast situation was. I grabbed a half-pint carton of milk and went back upstairs. I was glad I'd packed loads of food, some of which I'd already broken into yesterday afternoon. When I opened the refrigerator to fetch the yogurt, the smell of the cookies wafted up. 

At 8:30, we caravaned south to Delaware City. Today's ride would be flat, paralleling the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal from the north side. Tom had done his homework, reading his and Jim's and my blog posts about our 2017 C&D canal ride. I, of course, had not done this and also barely remembered anything. 

Until we got to Delaware City. I remembered the little park at the edge of the canal.

Last time, we'd crossed over the canal on a very busy bridge. We were going to stay north this time. We were two blocks away from the parking lot when Jack H complained that his GPS was telling him to turn one way when we were going to turn the other. "Maybe you mounted it upside-down," I offered. He shot me a dirty look while everyone else laughed.

We headed west on flat roads in a crosswind. Jack H decided to play on my joke and told me that my advice worked. "We're below the Mason-Dixon line," I offered. "Everything is reversed."

Our first real left turn was onto the unforgetably-named Buck Jersey Road. It led us to a gate, beyond which was a dirt road. There were some complaints, but if we don't hit a dirt road or a closed road on a Tom ride, it really isn't living up to expectations. We proceeded down a little hill.

At the end was a large, empty parking lot next to a picnic area and a pond, Lum's Pond.

"These pictures are gonna come up on my slide show at work," I said, "And I'm going to have no idea where I took them."

Lum's Pond. Now I won't forget. Maybe.

A bit past 13 miles, we crossed into Maryland. Tom led us on a short detour to Locust Point, on the Elk River. The residents made damn sure that interlopers like us wouln't get more than a passing glimpse of the river. Knowing this was a tributary to the Chesapeake, I didn't need to look closeley to know that the water would be a thick, brown, brackish muckfest.

We turned south and wound up at the western end of the paved path along the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal in Chesapeake City. We crowded onto a bench and ate whatever snacks we'd bought with us. Dorothy, who had ridden the path from Delaware City, met us there. We wandered around the little pier and took pictures.

In sight was the Chesapeake City bridge, the one that we dared not cross when we were here before. 

It looked to be getting a sorely needed paint job.

Across the canal was where we'd stopped last time, the little pink hut being the ice cream shop that smelled like low tide.

"Did you get the crab?" Rickety asked. I went and got the crab.

With a tailwind, we hammered the fifteen miles back to Delaware City. At one point, we climbed a switchback, not at all welcome after yesterday's hillfest, but there were bathrooms at the top. 

At another point, we ended up above the canal and facing the wrong way when we followed the trail back down. At the bottom was Dorothy, who had stayed at the water's edge the whole time. "I'M SO CONFUSED!" I shouted as we hung a left and pointed ourselves east again. 

Everyone took off down the path. Only Jim and I stopped to take pictures of the Route 1 bridge.

When we got back to Delaware City, everyone went their separate ways. Hungry, I walked over to Crabby Dick's but there was nothing there I wanted to eat. I changed in their bathroom, walked back to my car, and drank the milk I'd taken from the hotel's breakfast bar. I grabbed an apple out of the cooler and walked to the water's edge to eat it. I shoved fistfuls of dry cereal into my face as I drove home. 

I got back in time to shower and get to the lab for half an hour before Jack and I went down to Philly to have dinner with a friend. 

For a two-day vacation, I was exhausted. 

Sourlands Sandy Hook

 

cow reaches for the good stuff

8 October 2022

Yeah, I'm about three weeks behind.

September 17 was the day Blob invited a handful of us to a barbecue at his house. We'd have to ride first, of course. He did a mashup of a couple of the Sourland Spectacular routes, starting from his house.

We went up Dutchtown Zion Road, which I haven't been up in years. At the top, we got a good look at the bridge on Long Hill that, more than a year after Ida, is still out.

Plain Jim noticed that the cement looked fresh. A plank lying across the top of the new culverts looked recent, too. Then again, we'd been in a drought for months; the wood could have been that old.

I took a picture while we collected ourselves at the bottom of Long Hill at Wertsville.

We were zigzaging our way towards Sergeantsville when Blob had us make the left turn from 523 to 539. I saw what was coming and hollered, "Hard hill ahead! Really hard!" Blob had no idea we'd be pitched at 18% for a quarter mile while county road traffic whizzed past us. I dropped into my granny gear. "See y'all later," I said as they went ahead, not knowing what was coming. 

We turned left onto Bizer, where the assembled Slugs had Things To Say about the hill.

The Sergeantsville General Store has competition from the Bagel Barn a quarter mile away. Since the new owners took over a handful of years ago, there have been some aesthetic improvments, but those seem to have stalled. The place feels seedy now, not in a charming, historic-house way.

On Dunkard Church, we all had to stop to admire the enterprising cow who had pushed a section of wire fence aside to get to the good grass by the road.

After we got our photos, she backed out gracefully.

Blob's route took us to the top of Long Hill again, this time from the other side. At the Hollow Road intersection, it's not easy to see the new culverts.

Back at Blob's house, we sat on the back patio and gobbled down the spread that he and Helen had prepared. I didn't stay too long; I had to get over to Newtown to pick up Tuesday's glass work (the subject of a forthcoming blog post, one of these months).

*****

A week later, Tom listed a ride to Sandy Hook that started in a park just east of the center of Freehold. It was the first chilly day of autumn, with the traditional should-I-or-shouldn't-I with the sleeves and leggings in the parking lot. I went with shorts and arm warmers.

Tom chose a northerly route, which took us through hills that I'd sort of knew about generally but had forgotten about specifically. There was some wind too. 

One thing I did remember about this route was that we'd pass by Circus Liquors in Middletown. This is the home of the creepy, drunken clown, about which much digital ink has been spilled.

Welcome to New Jersey. Now get the fuck out.

Most of the climbing was over before our Wawa rest stop. After that, we headed to the coastal section of the Henry Hudson Trail. It was here that the group learned just how much they have to wait for me when things get pretty.

We crossed over the Navesink inlet and turned north. "How much wind are we gonna get?" Eric asked me.

"All of it!" I said, as it smacked us in the face.

We went all the way to the top of the peninsula, stopping at a few beachy turnoffs.

We're not sure if this old building is being reconstructed or carefully destructed, but everyone wanted to see the pictures I'd taken while they got so far ahead of me I thought I'd lost them for good.

I caught up with them near some more delapidation.

The tailwind we thought we'd have on the southbound leg didn't really materialize. Most of the group whizzed right past the prettiest stuff.

We turned off to the eastern shore one more time before leaving the park.

I tried zooming in to see exactly what it was we were looking at on the horizon. There was too much diffraction to be certain. The thing on the right was a ship.

The blocky stuff? Dunno.

I turned back to the beach.

We crossed the Shrewsbury inlet and headed west, into a wind that was somewhere between head and cross.

Rumson.

Little Silver (with a rest stop).

Tinton Falls.

Colts Neck.

Colts Neck.

Colts Neck.

Freehold (finally!).

We had 61.8 miles, close enough to 100 km to call it a metric. 

*****

Last weekend we got the rain we'd been needing for months. It rained for 5 days straight. Up to my ears in work and other obligations, I didn't get a chance to ride outside until yesterday. Sunset is at 6:30 now; I rode home from work as clouds rolled over the last light of day.