Mt. Vernon leads in the irony department

October 16th

We're ducking jets on the other side of the Potomac River.

This morning we enjoyed a nice breakfast from Chef Jon. To our surprise, he offered us some creatine to go.

"I would think you need all the help you can get," he said.

We all chuckled a little bit. Sylvia too was skeptical of Jon's creatine consumption. If we had known how little nutrition we would get throughout the rest of the day, perhaps we would have reconsidered.

We bid farewell to Jon, Sylvia and Job and headed towards the mall won final time before crossing into Arlington, VA. Once we crossed the river, we were able to ride on a bike trail all the way to George Washington's home of Mount Vernon. On the way, we stopped in Alexandria. In lieu of lunch, we went for ice cream at Ben and Jerry's, assuming we would find a place for a more nutritious meal once we returned to the bike path.

Life's just upside down once we get into Virginia.

Unfortunately, that never quite happened. We rode all the way to George Washington's home of Mount Vernon before we realized our mistake. It was almost 4:30, giving us a mere two hours of daylight remaining. If we wanted to get to any campground before daylight, it would be best to just keep pedaling and cook one of our freeze dried meals after setting up the tent.

Not far from George Washington's home was his semi-restored grist mill, complete with gift shop where one could purchase corn bread from said grist mill. That sounded exciting, until we ran into an unforeseen (and unbelievable) obstacle: the gift shop staff and the Mount Vernon police.

"We're closing in five minutes," said the period-piece dressed woman standing outside the gift shop. "It's too late to walk the grounds." Standing next to her was an armed police officer.

I guess things get a little rowdy around here.

"That's fine," I said. "I just want to go to the gift shop."

"You can't go to the gift shop either," she said reflexively," we're closing."

"But you're not closed." I said

 "Yes we are."


I could see this conversation was going nowhere so I hopped back on my back and turned around. It was a curious business model: If you see customers shortly before you close, get the law involved.

We rode for another hour before we fond ourselves racing against sundown to get the campground. There were signs everywhere that said, "camping this way." We followed them until we see a state park.

"I wonder if the campground is here," I said.

"I don't think so," said Nicole. "Look at the signs: they don't say anything about camping and they look like a waterpark."

Good point. We decided to keep riding and follow the signs. It was a mile and half before we got to the road to the park, then another half mile ride to the main gate.

"Do you have camping here," I asked once we got to the gate.

"No," said the man slowly. "We used to, but we don't anymore."

He assured us not to worry.

"We have camping at the other park."

Ugh!

We turned around. The sun was setting, and it was dusk by the time we finally got to our campsite. By the time I had the stove ready, it was already dark out. Exhausted from frustration as well as a day's ride, we ate packaged food (mostly peanut m & m's) and went to bed.