Season 2 Episode 13 (9/27): That’s some Damn Dam. West Chester, PA to Forest Hill, MD

Season 2 Episode 13 (9/27): That’s some Damn Dam. West Chester, PA to Forest Hill, MD –

60 miles. 3,599’ climbing. 

After leaving our bikes Thursday night at our friends’ house in West Chester, PA, I’d like to say we had a relaxing 4 days off after cycling over 800 miles in two weeks. However, we drove over 1,000 miles as follows: 

(a) Thursday night back to Larchmont from PA;

(b) Friday night to Montreal with our daughters Sydney and Jamie (after their work days) to visit our families for the Rosh Hashanah holiday and to celebrate my mother-in-law’s 87th birthday; 

(c) Sunday afternoon back to Larchmont to celebrate Rosh Hashanah Monday with friends in our community; 

(d) Tuesday morning back to West Chester, to pick up our bikes and resume cycling to Maryland. 

I’m exhausted recalling it!

But while not relaxing, it was wonderful, connected family time. Each 6 hour drive, to Montreal and back to NY, passed quickly as Sydney and Jamie are energetically entertaining and funny. We laughed a ton with them. 

With so much family and friends time, and sleeping in our own bed (yet again mid trip), Heather and I both felt this bike trip could be over and done. We were mentally challenged to leave home again, and the car drive to Pennsylvania felt like starting over to Maine all over again. We needed to get into a cycling rhythm again. I wondered how many days it would take or would we just fall back into it. 

After the 3 hour drive back to PA to the car rental company, and then a transfer to Vik and Joan’s to get our bikes and suit up, it was 11 a.m.when we started cycling. With this late start, Heather expressed her needs of me: “No layering or delayering more than needed, meaning none at all. Put on what you need to wear for the day and that’s it. We ride 5.5 hours and take only one stop for lunch.”

We figured out why Heather thinks a day’s ride should be without stopping. It’s how she trained for the two Ironman triathlons she has completed. In those, one cycles 112 miles straight with drinking and eating while still riding. We are working on her re-orientation to bike touring. 

The first two thirds of the ride was beautiful through horse country.

We then pedaled on US 1 for about 21 miles. It was busy with fast cars, but we felt safe due to the wide shoulder.

The scenic highlight of the day was crossing over (literally!) the Conowingo Dam that spans the Susquehanna River just west of entering Maryland. It was built in 1926-1928 and was the 2nd largest hydroelectric dam in the USA at that time. (Per Wiki, the rising water from the dam would have covered Conowingo Bridge, the original U.S. Route 1 crossing, so now US 1 crosses over the top of the dam.) Riding across the dam, we could see water levels high on our right at what felt like road level. On our left, we could see the water level was far lower. It’s a dam, duh!  It was nerve wracking to cross as it's one lane each way with zero shoulder. So we basically “took the lane” which means just that, and we did NOT bike far to the right which might dangerously tempt a car to try and pass us. We could feel the pressure of the growing traffic building behind us that we saw in our mirrors. 

We arrived in Forest Hill, MD. This commuter town is about 35 miles northeast of Baltimore and the home of our WarmShowers hosts for the night. Steve greeted us and is an instantly likable, gregarious host. He’s the cyclist of the two and on his own cross country ride, his wife Frann was his support driving about an hour or two a day for what it took him all day to pedal. Steve was eager to please and even apologetic that he could not get Berger Cookies as the bakeries he went to were all out due to supply chain issues. We were not even aware of this apparent iconic Baltimore dessert of a soft vanilla cookie, topped with a thick fudge-like frosting.

Their welcoming home is appointed with so many warm touches and quotes expressing their values. 

Heather was taken with their values being expressed

They are the type of people who give to WarmShowers without taking. Meaning they’ve hosted cyclists for 13 years, but have never been guests. They also let us know that in addition to us, they were expecting another trio of cyclists that night. Though they’ve never hosted 5 riders at once, they couldn’t say no. It turned out the trio didn’t arrive and texted that one of them tested positive for Covid. I guess we got lucky by a day not spending an evening of exposure, and fortunately for us, it meant the double batch of Frann’s rich and delicious homemade brownies needed more of our help to be gone. They were so good, who needed Berger cookies!

Our generous hosts inspire me to be even more available with our own hosting, even if at times it’s inconvenient with our schedules.

© Copyright Mark Segal 2022