The morning started off with 18 miles of beautiful, leaf covered bike path. As I twisted and turned on its friendly corners, I dreamed that it went all the way to Florida. Unfortunately it doesn’t, but we did get from D.C. all to way to Mount Vernon. This is where George Washington lived in a huge mansion/estate.

From there we made what turned out to be a big mistake. Our goal for the day was to get to Fredricksberg Virginia. At 2:30 pm, on Highway 1 we passed a sign that said it was 32 miles away, a straight shot into town. A very realistic goal. I voted for this option. But Scott and Evan wanted to follow their ‘Adventure Cycling’ Maps and take a route that seemed to be less trafficked but would add another 20 miles. I was worried about this option but went along with it. 50 miles is a lot to cover at 2:30pm and my experience with these routes is that they are very complicated and we get lost a lot. We did get lost, and the bummer is that the streets weren’t much safer.

So at 5:30pm, we lost our way back to Highway 1. We now passed a sign that said we were 22 miles away from Fredricksberg. This means that we had just taken a 20 mile, 2.5 hour detour and it got us in pretty much the same place.

We rode on Highway 1 in rush hour traffic as the sun went down. Not too safe. Scott called his family friends and they came to rescue us in their pickup. Once again we cheat, but it was the only safe option.

Related Posts

• November 8, 2007 -- Taco Bell Rules!
• November 6, 2007 -- Deeper we Go
• November 3, 2007 -- Charleston with Billy
• November 2, 2007 -- Smiling Faces, Beautiful Places.
• November 2, 2007 -- A Good Man