Editors Note: Here's another vintage journal ported over from the "Other Site" for your reading pleasure. This has a bit more meat to it so I'm going to parse it out a page a day to give it a shot at more air time. Thanks for reading!

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The Great Allegheny Passage/C&O Towpath is a well worn journey, perhaps even bordering on being a bicycle touring cliche. It's certainly not the cycling equivalent of Mt. Everest. It is not especially challenging, it's not a route that tests your limits or has been rarely ridden. It's not isolated, or in an especially grandiose environment, or any other characteristic that you might consider exotic.

But people ride it, because like Everest ... "It's There." They are two separate paths, but are contiguous and basically constitute a single route. Although the C&O is not really a bike specific trail, the two in total constitute the longest bike path in the US (as far as my lazy Google search could tell me). A total of 334 miles. There is a copious amount of history along the way, and the idea of riding that far without a single worry of car traffic or navigational issue has quite an appeal. So, when recently rejiggering our cycling Bucket List, Margaret and I looked at each other and said, "We need to do that ride someday."

Someday has come.

Rather, it will in about ten days (whoops, scratch that ... eight days now), and we really should get ourselves organized. Because, reservations have been made and money committed, and if we miss a single step along the way the whole house of cards will come tumbling down. One of the tasks is to get the journal for the trip up and running with the proper level of pomp and circumstance, so here we go. Thank you kind readers for taking even the vaguest interest in our little undertaking here.

Here's the team roster: Mike & Margaret Jamison, husband and wife, married .... uhhhh, 32 years now but closing in on 33 this coming October. Life-long riders and each other's favorite riding buddy. We'll skip the list of bikes and equipment and other stuff because good lord who wants to read through yet another spreadsheet of all the stuff someone is bringing on their bike tour?

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Departure Day is May 28th. That's the day we'll drive to Pittsburgh and spend the night before our first day of riding. We're taking 6 days to ride the full trail, the last day riding into DC where we've rented a place and will play tourist for a couple day. Then we're riding the bikes to a nearby car rental location, packing everything into a mini-van, and driving back to Pittsburgh to grab our car and head home.

We decided to arrange a warm shower and a mattress every night and forego camping. No tents this trip. No sleeping on the ground. We've made reservations at various B&B's, hostels, and motels along the way. We absolutely admit to getting soft in our dotage, but we've ceased to care. We'll let those young cycle touring bucks take pleasure in camping in the rain : - )

As with any good yarn, we'll take a few days to build some creative tension and maybe even a plot twist or two before we leave. For those asking "Where's the pictures!?!" don't give up!! There will be pictures galore, even in the pre-game section of the journal.