Day 3 Really?

Day 3

After bearly sleeping at all because of all the fear and worry, the heat, and natures loudness, we decided we would chuck to Paw Paw and get a room tonight.  So about 60 miles was our plan.  We headed out about 7:30 a.m., yeah little bit of procrastination this morning because when we woke up we had ticks, spiders, locusts, ect all over our laundry that we had washed by hand last night at the well pump before night had come and we had hung all our stuff out to dry on our bikes.  So it was not a whole lot of fun to deal with all of that when we woke up. Not to mention we had all that other stuff to pack up, so it was definately a slow start this morning. 

Our bodies were very sore, not sure if sleeping on the ground made it any worse but we were pretty sore.  Ashleys knees were really bothering her big time and my thigh muscles and back were just killing me.  We got about 5 miles in and once again seen some more beautiful scenery.  Guess waterfalls and water by the mountains is just the best thing to me.  It's like you get a little bit of heaven right here.

It was a rough ride though this morning, every minute or less we were getting slapped in the face by spider webs and it is just disgusting and not something you want. Well atleast not me, that's for sure.
The humidity was even making the issue worse because not only can you bearly breathe, the sun is once again blistering down on us, but spiders and spiderwebs slapping you in the face is just horrid. 

At about 13 miles into the trip, a bird decided to take a poo on me.  i was not happy at all and did not have the means to clean it off of me, which made it worse... YUCK what a crappy day.  I had issues all morning with the stupid bag on the back of my bike, bungee cords were breaking it was falling off the bike, it was just a hot mess. I decided when we got to Hancock that I was just going to buy a new set of panniers, because this was not going to work for me today if we had to do 60 miles. We got into the town of Hancock after what felt like forever, but it was a mere 10:50 am, that was almost 3 hours just to do 25 miles not to mention we were starving because we had not eaten breakfast yet, well a granola bar, but hardly what you need when you ride the way we were riding. Our last real meal was yesterday around 2 so that's quite a bit of time to go without something.  None the least, we make it into town and then of course you have to figure out where to go, we of course always seem to pick the first thing we see.   So we ended up at Weavers Restaurant. Our bikes wouldn't stay up on the bike racks, they kept tipping over. when we finally got them balance and headed in the restaurant, we realized we had to sit and wait because they didnt open for 10 more minutes.  So yeah it's 97 degrees I feel like I am going to pass out, I once again wasn't to happy.

They opened the doors at 11 and we got seated immediately, there was also another group of people who were biking, I am assuming they were cub scouts.  So it was a very busy little restaurant this morning. I ordered a turkey club and fries, I wanted a milk shake to, but Ashley said it prob wouldn't sit well since we had to keep on biking and it was so hot, so I went against it and just got water and hot tea.  We sat there a good bit, ate and charged our cell phones.  You never realize how many restaurants have plugs until you go without them for days.. lol  About half way through my meal, which i was eating super slow because my stomach had shrunk, I found a hair in my food.  So there went the rest of my meal out the door.  Oh this is not a good day.

WE finally leave and go outside and find where the bikers could go and catch a shower, we both really needed one.  So as we are leaving weavers my bike falls and it messes up my brakes.. uuurgh this trip is really making me mad, can we catch a break here?  So we go down to the bike shop and i pay for them to fix my bike and ashley gets a kick stand.  They fix it while we take our showers.  Yeah and it was 5 bucks to take a shower it something that looked like a port a pot, but it served it's purpose atleast for about 2 minutes, because the minute you get out of the shower and dry off, you are pouring sweat again.  I felt like what was the purpose of that?

;

The owners of the bike shop were absolutely fantastic, they were so friendly and they asked us where we were headed next we told them to paw paw to the B&B.  Guess what? They told us that closed down last week. Really? Could this day possibly get any worse? the next one that was a good distance away was cumberland and that was over 40 miles away , no way in the world were we going to make it out there.  So we had to settle for the town Little Orleans which was only 15 miles away, but that would put us behind on mileage which we weren't to happy about, but we didn't have a choice.   We headed down to Sheetz to buy another 7lb bag of ice to fill up our water hydrators and our water bottles because the heat was out of this world.  The bike shop told us about a little trail that rain next to the c and o that was paved, so we headed towards little orleans on that.  Ashleys bike started making terrible noises and there was no way we were turning back, the thunder was rolling in and we had to be at the b&B by 3pm.  The ride was much faster and smoother it was so nice to not ride on gravel, we were averaging about 11-12mph on the pavement which on the gravel we were lucky to push 8 or 9mph.  After 11 miles we had to jump back on the c and o the thunder and wind were picking up and my heart was pounding. I was so scared of being caught in a bad storm.  not to mention with all the trees around we were asking for trouble. 

We did make it to the b&b and just in time, we did get wet, but it could of been worse.  It was a nice place, the owner Steve was super nice. The first thing we did was get another shower.  and then got out our little camp stove and cooked our freeze dried food and suprisingly enough it was super good. we went outside and tried to work on ashleys bike to see if we could figure out what the noice was, but it was a hopeless cause.  We had to call jim and figure it out, he made some calls and the nice owner from the C&O bike shop where we were earlier 15 miles back came out and got ashleys bike and said he would have it back before 11pm so that we could leave at 4am.  Wow talk about some amazing and committed people.  But we felt a sigh of relief that her bike would be fixed.

at about 8pm steve brought us some icecream with blueberries and boy way it good!  perfect way to end a horrible hot day.  We decided our goal for tomorrow has to be atleast 60 miles to stay on track. Which means we have to make it to Cumberland then half way up the mountain...So destination for tomorrow is Frostburg...