Biking the C & O Canal

May is a tough month for mountain gardeners. First it's warm and then it snows and all it does all month long is tease you... Do what I do: run away.
Maryland is zone 7 - temps are warm and everything is blooming!

There are no mile markers on the road to self-discovery. Sometimes it feels like a super highway. Other times, a dead end.

Right when I think things are going just fine, I bump into more potholes and detours.... Days when I'm not quite sure where I'm heading... Or, even if this is where I should be, once I arrive.

It's these feelings, of being slightly lost, that have plagued me for a couple of months, now.

Good thing BK was in charge of the map.

Pretty soon I'm gonna have life all figured out. (And, when I do, you'll be the first to know.)

What I do know, for certain sure, is that when life becomes tiresome there is only one place to go - far, far away from where you are right now.


We pedalled up the C & O Canal.

Where Bluebells outnumber dandelions.

Pink Dogwoods wildly bloom, in defiance of the forest canopy covering our trail.


We biked 184 miles in 3.5 days!

(This does not include the side trips which were uphill in every direction.)


Swallowtail Butterflies danced along the trail, keeping pace with our bicycles.



We were... attacked by a goose, threatened by snakes, glared at by a hoot owl and mocked by a beaver.


We learned that booking lodging at a hotel called 'Hill Top' might not be the wisest choice if you're on your bicycle.







We determined that negative people have a leg up on us happy gals when it comes to the 4-petal dogwood flowers predicting romance.*




And, we found that there are some truly heroic B&B owners who will drive through the backroads of West Virginia to pick us up in the pitch dark, in the middle of freakin' nowhere, when we had most definitely run out of steam.


"I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realized that the Lord doesn't work that way so I stole one and asked Him to forgive me." - Emo Phillip

There's about a million locks along the C & O Canal, between Washington, D.C. and Cumberland, Maryland. But, after you've pedalled 100+ miles they all start looking the same.

* True love is a slam dunk when it comes to the Dogwood Trees, adored for their consistent, 4-petal flowers. Predict your fortune by plucking the first petal and say 'he loves me not.' The last of the 4 petals will always confirm that he does, indeed, 'love you.'

Uphill Battles

Bevy and I are going on a bike trip. I started my training this weekend.

The fact that I even got on a bike this morning, after yesterday's hellacious ride, is strong testament to the fact I am ready to rekindle an age-old love affair. (Don't get too excited. It's with an inanimate object named Bianchi.

Saturday wasn't half bad. I didn't start swearing out loud until I hit the first high hill. Sunday, on the other hand, was a completely miserable experience though I know it will get better.

While I was flying down the other side of that big hill, I started thinking about the old me. Recalling the days when I loved biking - truly, madly, deeply loved being on my bike. And, how over the years I've allowed too many things to chip away at my confidence and ultimately defeat me.

Sometimes I think I hide in my garden because I'm so damn tired of people passing judgement on me for all the mistakes they're pretty sure I made. You see, maybe those mistakes were intentional. Maybe I needed to walk away from certain things in order to figure out whether I really loved them or not.

If you open the book of my life, I doubt you could start in the middle and really know what's going on. Yet, I think, in a nutshell, that is what most people do to me.

I know getting back into tip top shape will be an uphill battle (pun intended,) but I am thrilled to have become reacquainted with the old me. Because I kind of like that girl. She was a whole lot more fun-loving, and passionate, than the girl I see in the mirror today.