C & O Shake down tour

by Scott

I suppose it seems we were all out last weekend. I thought I'd share some photos from the
shake down cruise along the C & O canal my wife and I did.

We weren't wanting to put in long distances, just a short trip to test out some fit aspects of Melissa's new bike and some other camping bits.  So what better at this time of year then a little micro adventure on the C & O Canal?

The C & O is a wonderful resource that we have here in the Metro Washington region.  There are free camp sites along the trail, complete with pit toilet and water pumps. This makes for great camping, a short distance from the Nation's capital.

The great thing about so many campsites along the C & O is that you aren't committed to any single one. We ended up riding only an hour or so north of Edwards ferry and camped in a nice spot close to the river. We only had one other person at our site that night, a National Park Service archaeologist who was out hiking the trail. 

We had supper sitting beside the Monacocy Aquaduct, just a short distance from our camp site. The aquaduct is a beautiful example of engineering and resilience, having survived the Civil War and flooding over the years.

We took the trail part way back to our car on Sunday morning, turning off the trail after a couple miles to take the road back along the rural part of Montgomery county.

What did we learn in our little overnight trip? We were trying out Melissa's Camargue and she was very pleased with the fit of the short and shallow bars and the small Tektro levers. We discovered that we should get some ear plugs as nature can be noisy. We also learned that testing out sleeping bags is tough when the overnight low is 73 deg F.