Follow the yellow brick road

May 28, 2022

Washington DC bike day

Yeah, sunshine and blue skies today! Time to take a bike ride.

Don looked on-line and mapped out a route via bike trails that would hopefully take us to the National Arboretum which looked like a neat place to visit. Of course that's if we didn't get turned around or lost!

By 10 we were on Garfield and heading out of the campground. We got on the bike trail that ran along the road in front of the park which took us downhill to our first intersection - left or right? Hmmmm....

This one was easy - go right and stay along a shallow creek that ran through the woods. What a nice trail! I felt like I was in the mountains as the water was clear enough to see the bottom. Not something we expected to see in this huge metro area. The trail was in good condition and lots of people were out enjoying the weather but we couldn't go too fast as we had to go around the walkers.

This trail mostly followed the creek into a wetlands section where there were croaking frogs and lots of turtles sunning themselves on logs. We went by a golf course and into a small park. There were a bunch of people here and some of them clapped as we passed by. Thanks - but what was THAT all about?! It appeared to be some kind of walk/run event that was going on today.

As we continued down the trail, things got a little more complicated as we encountered more and more intersections. I had a little piece of paper in my waist pouch that had directions written down about which trails to follow. But it was confusing at times trying to decide on the turns when we came to a spot where the trail split into several branches.

At first we thought there weren't any signs but eventually figured out the system here which was that each trail had a different color of paint going down the middle of the pavement. That corresponded to wooden posts at key points that were labeled with the trail name.

Of course, that didn't help when we really made a major boo boo! We'd gone past a small airport and came close to a road that Don thought was the one needed to ride on in order to get to the arboretum.

So we exited onto the road but we weren't at a spot where there were any street signs. Don decided to continue up the road a bit until we could figure out what its name was.

There wasn't much traffic on the road so we just stayed in the lane for a couple of blocks until we reached an intersection that was marked. But that didn't help us other than we discovered that this was NOT the road we needed. Just where the heck were we, other than on Campus Drive which was next to the University of Maryland- and not Blandesnburg RD. ?!

We pulled off the road and Don got out his phone to check the map. He said it looked like if we continued a little further up Campus Dr., we would encounter the trail again.

So we did that and found a spot where a trail crossed this road. There was some "minor" disagreement on the tandem when Don thought we should go one direction while I thought we ought to get off and check the map that was posted nearby.

Of course, we tried it in Don's direction but quickly found it wasn't one we needed, so we turned around and went the other way for a short distance. Hmmm, this didn't seem right either, so we returned back to the street and FINALLY looked at the map sign! Sheesh - should have done that earlier as it did clearly show where we were which was in the wrong spot.

Now we had to back track around the airport to where we went wrong the first time. This was about a 2 mile mistake. At least it was a nice day and the riding was good.

We made it back to the airport and saw where the trail we needed forked to our left. This time we stayed on the trail which continued to follow the creek which had become the larger Anacostia River.

Things were going well as we continued past several parks and a lake. Mostly the trail went under the roads but with the rain the last few days, several of these had puddles of water and mud to be wary of. So Don slowed down a lot which didn't help our momentum on getting up the hill on the other side!

We did encounter one more confusing intersection near a road that Don was SURE was the one we needed. There were some other cyclists standing there and he stopped to check his phone while I asked the riders if they knew the way to the arboretum.

Of course, even though they were locals, they had no idea where it was, plus they didn't even know the name of the road next to us?! Although the guy did tell us that if we stayed on the trail, we would eventually get down to the mall. Good information but that was going to be a longer ride and not one we wanted to do today.

Don's phone finally showed us that this road wasn't Bladensburg RD. and that we needed to stay on the trail a bit further. So we got back on the bike and continued to a large park on the river. There were restrooms here so we made use of the facilities and took a break to read some of the historical information signs.

We were at Bladensburg Park where a historic battle took place in 1814 as part of the War of 1812. A seasoned British Army defeated an American force that was poorly trained, ill-equipped and improperly positioned on the battlefield. The Americans fled through the streets of the city allowing the British to enter Washington unapposed where they set fire to many public buildings. It was known as the "Burning of Washington".

President James Madison and several cabinet members had been present at the battle and were nearly captured. They too fled the city. The battle was called the "greatest disgrace ever dealt to American arms" and the most humiliating episode in American history".

Since it was noon and with our stupid wrong turn, we'd already done enough miles for the day, we opted to end the ride here. I was disappointed that we hadn't reached the arboretum but we could do that another day. At least we knew the correct turns to take.

So we turned around and headed back to the campground. This time we had no problems following the trails and easily found our way back home.

The rest of the day was spent relaxing on our patio massaging our tight leg muscles. Trail riding, and all of it's starting/stopping/clipping in and out/walking hills can create issues for us tandem riders. It can be fun, but is never as fast or good as a country road. But it had been a fun ride and we'd seen lots of interesting things.

We plan to do more rides while we're here and it looks like the weather will be good for the next couple of weeks. Although maybe a little warm at 90 degrees!

The first trail we were on followed this nice creek.

The turtles were out today, enjoying the sun after several days of rain.

Not a sign you expect to see in the city! It was explained a short way later when we passed a USDA farm.

If you weren't getting enough of a workout riding or walking there was one trail that had a number of these exercise stations. I did see 2 of them being used.

When we made our big wrong turn, we found ourselves briefly on the former Rhode Island trolley line. This must have been an original bridge.

We passed a farmer's market as we headed home and stopped in to check it out. As typical of many of these markets, only one booth sold produce - all high priced while the rest of the vendors sold crafts or packaged foods. Nothing we needed to buy.

Put your "hand in the hand of the man that stilled the water, ......"

We finally figured out that the colors on these wooden posts corresponded to the painted lines in the middle of the trails.

Today's ride: 22 miles (35 km)
Total: 679 miles (1,093 km)

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