Last and Final Stage

or, Leucine is Good For You

I'm bailing out of the trip early for several reasons, some of which became clear only this morning.  I decided to turn back in Cumberland, Maryland because I was basically bored.  The canal path doesn't go through many towns, and the ones it does are largely (mostly) hideous Americana interstate strip.  I'd forgotten how blighted our landscape is.  And where you're not in a town, the terrain doesn't vary much.  Pure edge habitat, view over the Potomac River in most places, ducks, geese, woodpeckers so big I took them for grouse; lots of deer.  Beautiful ice patterns on the still water of the canal, assorted abandoned engineering projects like locks and dams, canal water so cold a gulp gives an ice-cream headache.  But I think I've seen enough of it now.  And then this morning I found that the entire tread of my front tire is peeling off; what looked like just cracked rubber is spreading and gaping, waiting for a puncture.  In cyclist slang, "You can see the air through it!"  So I called Steven and he's coming to get me. 

Images from the last couple of days:

• Canal ice.  Even though the canal looks like self-contained long skinny lakelets and streams, clearly the water does flow through it.  You know how sea ice will descend on the tide and the rocks will smash up through it?  (Well, it does.)  Same thing here, with similar effects around tree trunks and along the edges of the canal, with the ice bent and rumpled along the shore.  Maybe the flow is underground here; or maybe just insoak?  There doesn't seem to be any of the reverse going on, where water leaches under the ice and heaves it up.
• Trees, at least some varieties, really don't mind having their feet wet.  They grow ankle-deep in the canal, in some places all the way across.  Wonder if 'too wet' means too deep or too long at a time?  Maybe the trees have to be dry at least once per year, in the heat of summer.
• A canal really is a highway.  One that has to be perfectly level: the Canal du Midi in France actually crosses the road on a special bridge.  Huge amounts of maintenance to keep water levels at the right height, and the tiniest portage dooms the endeavor. Which is why they so quickly got replaced by railroads, as soon as possible: what was it, availability of cheap steel?  European canals were there for centuries; American less than one.  Like railroads in New Zealand basically just had a chance to get completed before they were obsolete: I remember one branch line was operational for only seven years.  Sped-up industrialization.  Like land phone lines had such a brief tenure in Fiji; now everyone who can afford a cell phone has one, and those who don't don't need any phone at all.
• Ice skating.  Ever since reading about it as a kid (Hans Brinker and, unrelatedly, Marvelous Meg) I've wanted to ice skate on canals and frozen rivers.  And of course it doesn't have to be as bitterly cold for a canal to freeze, as a New England kettle pond, which means you have more chance of getting good ice without snow.  There are many long stretches of open water in the canal that you could skate along; a local guy I talked to in Cumberland concurs that sometimes the local kids do skate one such section. 
• Suthunuhs.  Even this far north--the river follows the Mason-Dixon line--you get the accent and the random friendliness.  I should be ashamed to like the southern accent, but it sounds so nice and homey in spite of I know about the vicious ignorant rednecks.  (While the Maine accent, spoken by many nice folks of my acquaintance, sets my teeth on edge.  Not fair.)
• Cold cold cold!  Everything I know about cycle touring no longer applies: how to keep cool, stay in the shade, where to find water, how little clothing you can legally wear.  Getting into Hancock in the evening, I thought my front derailleur was broken: curse moan grumble I've had rear-shifter problems in the past but these are new shifters, wtf. In the morning, less tired, I noticed the derailleur was covered with mud; knocked it off, now it works; rinsed it off with my waterbottle and went inside for breakfast.  Mistake. It froze solid.  Since the motel was at the top of a hill I didn't notice the freeze until I was on the trail; now had to wait for morning coffee to percolate through before I could re-thaw the shifter.  Then furiously shift up and down until it dried and re-froze.
• Of course, I now blame the hot asphalt of Davis, CA where Leo was riding the bike, for ungluing the tire tread from the fabric.  You can't win.

• Hancock, MD is one of the few towns along the canal that is a town in any meaningful sense.  I stayed there on the way up, and stopped on the way back yesterday.  Which brings us to the alternative title: leucine, found in egg whites, is an amino acid that helps muscle growth.  I considered taking pictures of the two slices of pie I had for lunch in Hancock yesterday: lemon cream and chocolate cream, each topped with a wobbling berg of slightly weepy, and thus homemade, meringue.  Everything in that bakery looked like homemade-only-better.
• As is typical of small towns, the bakery wore several hats: it was also a full-service restaurant with counter service.  A diner, of the type you only see in expensive nostalgia places or rural backwaters such as Millinocket, Maine where Stephan and I ate before climbing Katahdin.  Same kind of place: scuffed countertops, immersion blender for making frappes in a metal cup, architectural pies, bottomless-cup coffee-scented water, maternal proprietary fussing over customers.  Middle-aged waitress with some name ending in -lene.   One of the staffers had a birthday, and the others brought in a cake and sang to her; it wasn't one of their own baked goods but a Little Debbie.  Oh the irony.  Insert unfortunate stereotype.
• Downhill does make a difference.  The total altitude change along the canal is about 200 meters in 185 miles; but I do feel a difference to be going down it.  Could just be the occasional bursts of speed at each lock, where the path tilts down sharply.  I once even had to brake!
• Animals along the trail, like back home, don't register that a bicycle is a human and thus don't notice you until you get close.  I mentioned to the guy in Cumberland that someone with a handgun could bag himself a deer from bicycleback, at a range of ten yards, any evening.  Or a turkey, if you didn't mind searching a little longer.  He gently explained that the canal path counts as a road, and thus no weapons within ten feet of it.  Hmm...I wonder if the canal itself also counts?  I bet the deer wouldn't run from a skater, either...
• Beavers.  Gnawed trees, occasional drag marks across the trail.  Even a dam built across the canal at one point, with about a foot of water-level difference.  That's dedication.

  
  

Yesterday was one of the longest touring days I've ever done: 85 miles of unpaved surface.  I credit the pie.




Going through the pictures, I remembered to tell this story:


The 22 miles of towpath that centers on Hancock, MD is paralleled by the Western Maryland Rail Trail, which is paved.  This is a nice break from bumpity towpath and also faster.  However, it dead ends at a state park (Fredericksburg, MD I think) with no clear connection back to the towpath.  I backtracked trying to find a place to get back on the path; could see the Potomac River not too far away, knew the canal's on this side of the river; here's a road crossing maybe that goes through, oh crap it doesn't it just loops around.  Man, the towpath must be right through there, on top of that berm...behind that house...that house with no cars in front of it or lights in the windows...


Bounced across the lawn, crackled through the leaves, leaped off, grabbed the bike, ran up the hill to the top of the berm...OH CRAP the canal!  In some places it's dry, in some others wide enough to turn a canal boat around; here it was fifteenish feet wide.  A log had fallen partway across, with a small rock next to it...I tightrope-walked across the snot-slick log, stepped to the rock, quick-splashdipped one foot, stepped to the far side.  The bike made a perfect handrail.


So be warned: if you take the WMRT shortcut that parallels the towpath, you may have to leave it early to get back on the path at the end.  Start looking for access a few miles before the end.




Addendum #2: I made some factual errors in this and the previous post, which were kindly pointed out to me in the comments.  Here is the gist:

1) The Mason-Dixon line is actually the MD / PA border, and farther east the MD / DE border. It marked the dividing line between States where slavery was legal and where it was not. So, the canal only follows that line very loosely. See a map of  Mason Dixon and the canal.
2) From Fort Frederick State Park there is a direct access back to the towpath. Turn your back to the fort and head down the road that runs between the fort and the park office / souvenir shop. About 1/2 mile (maybe? the point is, it's not miles and miles and miles) on you come back to the Canal.

*On the Vineyard, apparently they sneak up and smear butter on your face.  Thank heaven for November birthdays.