Necessary Options  /   Adventure Home  /   Pittsburgh to D.C. Index  /   Ride

Lock, Luke, Paw Paw, Bill$, Roundtop, Chicken Coop, Weavers



Friday, July 16 to Pigman's Ferry (Oldtown, MD)

At the Cumberland, MD YMCA starting at 3:30am, there was an interruption about once an hour - two trains, birds chirping, a crow conversation, another train an hour later, but I dozed until after 9am. The parking lot next to me was filling up, but no human had disturbed me. I collected myself and crossed the street to pay my $10 fee.
      
I told the lady at the desk I wanted to pay for one night of camping. "Tonight?" she asked. "No, last night" I replied. I paid her $10 and she said I was entitled to use the showers. What a bonus!

As I was packing, I noticed some damage to my homemade bar bag - probably made by an unsatisfied freeloader.

Before starting down the 187 miles of the C&O Canal towpath, I had lunch at the Baltimore St. Grill, then went to a grocery a few blocks away. On my way to the towpath start, I heard a man say "You remember me"; it was the janitor that said I could camp at the Y.

My thermometer read 100 degrees as I started down the towpath.

Lock 75 is the last of the 74 locks. If you think that is weird numbering, consider locks 63 1/3 and 64 2/3. They owe their weirdness to the fact lock 65 was not needed. The lock tender lived at the lock. He was required to tend it 24/7, except during the Winter when the canal was frozen. The locks could handle boats 90 feet long and 14 1/2 feet wide, typically carrying 120 tons of coal That's a little more than today's 48-foot long coal car, which can travel 15 times faster and is not subject to droughts.
      

The lock gates were recessed into the side of the lock and the hinges were made with maintenance in mind.       
Each lock was designed to raise or lower a boat 8 feet. This is apparent looking back on the lock. You can also see the overflow channel to the right that allows excess water from upstream to bypass the lock.
Towpath damage was minimal and mainly consisted of puddles and other wet areas I could generally ride around or through.
Saturday, July 17 to Stickpile Hill (Little Orleans) At Pigman's Ferry, there were no pigs or ferry, or even a river in sight. I awoke to cows loading one of their stomachs about 30 feet from my tent, followed by some happy mooing.     
These ladies were riding from New York to Quebec.
   

Luke has some rare disease that has retarded his development, but that hasn't prevented his dad from stimulating his mind with a trip. Mom provides SAG service and picnic fixins here in front of the lockhouse at Oldtown.
I'd planned to have breakfast a couple miles down the canal at Oldtown. I stopped at the Old Schoolhouse Restaurant and ordered French toast. (Ed Noonan used to say it is hard to make bad french toast, as long as they don't put any cinnamon on it.) Well, they did mess it up. It seemed like they had used frozen bread; it was soggy in the middle. One bite was enough. They offered me a substitution but pancakes could have suffered the same soft-center fate, so I left unsatisfied.

The Canal can be boring at times, but there are many pleasant places as well.       
In my research, one account talked about the great meatloaf at Grandma's Kitchen in Paw Paw. The mile across the Potomac River into West Virginia was hilly compared to the towpath, but I would have pushed my bike there for meatloaf.

I quickly scanned the pages of the menu, but found nothing but burgers. The new owners kept the name when they bought the place a couple years ago, but they didn't keep the meatloaf. My burger was, well, OK, but …

The Paw Paw tunnel was the most amazing man-made part of the canal. They dug through more than 6/10 of a mile of mountain rock to avoid constructing along 5 miles of cliffs on the Potomac River. They only missed their two year estimate by twelve years.
As dynamite would not be invented for another 20 years, they had to use the more dangerous black powder, make big rocks smaller with picks and sledges, and haul out the debris by hand. Digging from both ends at once wasn't going to be fast enough, so they dug two 8-foot diameter shafts into the middle down from the top. They lowered crews into the holes so they could be digging in six different directions at once. All the dirt and rock from the middle had to be removed in baskets up through those holes.

This is not a tunnel to ride through. The towpath is very narrow and the tunnel is not lighted. Most of the width of the tunnel is the canal. When I got to what I thought was half way, I looked back and realized that I was less than a quarter of the way through. I was in no hurry as it was a hot day and the tunnel was cool.

The inside arch which represents the walls and ceiling of the tunnel is made of over six million bricks, 7 to 10 layers thick.
At the downstream portal, there is a set of steps to top of the entrance. Each step is made of cut stone and is about 24 inches higher than the one before it. Climbing them was similar to crawling.
At the top, besides the outward view, you may see bees moving among the flowers, and butterflies feasting on the bird poo. Yea, that was my reaction, too.          
Continuing on, I rode a boardwalk until I had to take a narrow trail.          
When I arrived at Stickpile Hill campsite, it was already occupied by a half dozen kayakers. They invited me to camp with them and shared their dinner with me.
As I retired for the evening, I could hear a train across the Potomac River. The canal right-of-way was often the only route through the mountains, and was shared between the canal and the railroads.

Sunday, July 18 to C&O Bicycle (Hancock,MD)

As I traveled along the canal, I had expected to get into the Potomac and get some relief from the heat. But it always seemed like the river was so much lower than the canal. That got me looking for remnants of some kind of pump to get the water up into the canal. I imagined some kind of archemedes screw that was driven by current in the Potomac. I later learned that was not needed as the water level had been raised by a series of dams, some since destroyed, to a level above the canal. As I approached Little Orleans, I finally found more approachable water.     
Eight miles beyond Stickpile, I arrived at Little Orleans and Bill's Place (but I repeat myself). Everything in Little Orleans IS Bill's. Bill is NOT famous for his building that houses a general store, restaurant, bar, and Bill. No, he is famous for the dollar bills on which travelers have written their name and the date they were there that get stapled to the ceiling. I did that, too.

While I was there, a professional photographer not only offered to take my picture with Bill (with MY camera), he also paid for my lunch. Tom was retired now, but he had been the official photographer for 6 Maryland governors. I had begun talking with him as I ate my burger and beverage, and that discussion lasted for about 2 hours. When Bill appeared, Tom took my camera and instructed me to get behind the bar and pose with Bill. Then he said he was paying for my meal. I went from stranger to honored guest in 120 minutes.     
Tom's best photography advice: When taking pictures of people, always take two shots - one right after the other. Often, the second shot will catch them with their face relaxed and looking more normal. Or there may be some flaw in the first shot.

About a mile later, after passing lock 57, I was rounding a sharp curve and felt a cold breeze - kind of like a blast from an air conditioner. If I'd known it would last less than a hundred feet, I would have stopped and appreciated it more. I regret that I didn't turn around and go back as the day was quite warm.

I was supposed to be able to leave the Canal near Cacapon Junction and hop onto the blacktopped Western Maryland Rail Trail, but I was looking between locks, not at a lock, so I never found the connection. It was a good thing or I would have never seen the Roundtop Cement mill, Hancock's largest employer before the Civil War. But getting there was quite pleasant.     
As the Canal was dug, limestone deposits were found west of Hancock. Cement is made by heating crushed limestone to over 2600 degrees Fahrenheit in coal-fired kilns to drive out the moisture. A lot of that cement ended up in the structure of the last 60 miles of the canal.     

The C&O Bicycle Shop and Weavers Restaurant at Hancock were two places I wanted to visit on this trip. Weavers was reported to have two full-time bakers that made the most wonderful pies. I ended up having their pie twice.

The C&O Bicycle Shop, for $10, provided bunk beds with bedding, in sort of a screened-in chicken coop arrangement, and hot showers (including a free towel, soap and shampoo). The mattresses were about a quarter inch of closed foam, narrower than the bunk bed. I tried stacking six of these things and still got no improvement over the bare particle board. Fortunately, I had my Thermarest mattress with me. The Hudsons were really nice people. I'd give this place a thumbs up if they can solve the mattress situation.          


Necessary Options  /   Adventure Home  /   Pittsburgh to D.C. Index  /   Ride  /   Next ->