November 25, 2014 by Bruce Wynkoop
My lady friend, Lee, has gone on many trips with the organization Road Scholars (yes, it’s spelled “Road”), formerly Elder Hostel, and really likes the organization. The tours are well organized and interesting. In fact, she likes the company so much she is now a volunteer spokesperson for them, giving presentations to various organizations who contact her and request one. She has gotten me to go on several Road Scholar trips with her and I also enjoy them and think the company is first-rate. In June of 2011 she and I went on the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal Bike Trail tour with Road Scholars.
The C & O Bike trail is actually a National Historical Park running 184 miles along the Potomac River between Washington, D. C. and Cumberland, MD, in western Maryland. It is also called the C & O Canal Towpath Bike Trail as it runs on the old towpath along the canal. There is a connection to the Great Allegheny Passage Trail which allows cyclists to ride from Washington, D.C. to Pittsburg, PA.
Lee and I flew into Washington, D.C., then drove to the town of St. Michael, MD, on the eastern coast of the Chesapeake Bay, for a couple of days before the start of the ride. We really enjoyed the area—it is quiet and relaxed, the opposite of the western coast, with its crowds and heavy, fast-paced traffic.
We then spent a day and night in Baltimore, thoroughly enjoying Ft. McHenry, the Inner Harbor, and taking the water taxi to Fells Point (where I had a great mac and cheese and crab meat hot dog!).
The video at Ft. McHenry National Monument actually brought tears to my eyes–stay seated when the video ends and wait for the great finale.
On the drive to the start of the ride we stopped in Harper’s Ferry and Antietam National Battlefield, as I am somewhat of a history buff, and decided that we would drive up to Gettysburg, which was only 48 miles from the camp at which we were to spend the week, after the ride.
We stayed the week in a church camp outside the small town of Sharpsburg in western Maryland. Each day we and the bikes (which they provided) were hauled to a section of the trail, put in a full day of riding, with a break for lunch put on by Road Scholar, and, after ending the day’s ride, were hauled back to the camp.
Meals were included in our tour, as were tickets to several historic sites and a ride on a canal boat being pulled by mules, just like in the old days. Several nights lectures by local experts on the area were offered. Road Scholar did a great job and made the week very enjoyable. But enough of that.
The trail, which is not paved, uses, as I said, the old canal towpath, and thus is pretty rough in many places. We had hybrid bikes and I wouldn’t have wanted to use a road bike on the western half or more of the trail as it goes over rocks, gravel, tree roots, and loose dirt in various places. The closer you get to D.C. the better the trail gets. It parallels the Potomac River, which is not navigable north of D.C. (thus the need for the canal), and is pretty scenic. The canal is dry for most of the trail but there are still buildings and locks alongside so you can see how it worked and get a good idea of what it was like while it was still in use.
Toward the southern end of the trail, where the canal is full, there is a museum that includes several buildings, people in period dress, and a replica of a canal boat visitors can ride while it is pulled along the canal by mules walking on the towpath. It was fun to ride the boat and see how it was done back in the heyday of the canal.
The group did a 40-50 mile segment of the trail each day, and on the last day ended in the Georgetown area of Washington, D.C., where the trail was much busier. We were glad to get into the van and head back to the relative quiet of northern Maryland.
The C & O Canal Towpath Bike Trail is rough in places but goes through scenic and historic areas of the state and is well worth the trip. If you plan to go, leave yourself time to see some of the historic parks that are near—a large part of our country’s history was made in this area.
Lee and I did drive up to Gettysburg after the ride and would have liked to have seen more of the area’s many sites, but ran out of time.
We had a great experience as we were waiting to board the plane for home at Reagan International in D.C.
Lee noticed one of Minnesota’s senators, Amy Klobuchar, getting off the plane which we were about to board. Senator Klobuchar, having realized that Lee had recognized her, walked right up to us and said hello. We noticed that she was wearing a shirt with a bike trail logo on it and when we told her how we had spent our week she told us she rides the C & O Trail often. She is very personable (as are we) and we had a pleasant, albeit short, conversation. Talking cycling with Senator Klobuchar was a very nice end to a very nice week.
