Day 5: The Great Ride to Georgetown

Very early start at dawn packing it up.  On the trail by 7 am and didn't even divert into Harper's Ferry and its many distractions.  Nothing much would be open at 7:30 anyways.   Tuesday morning 7:45?!?!  Holy bejeezus!!   The trip's cutting into the post-Memorial Day workweek now, so I call out of work.

The Appalachian Trail went along the C&O Towpath for a few miles during which we saw some huge, ugly snapping turtles.  Brunswick, Maryland was a good stopping point for breakfast.  We dropped into a small diner called "Mommer's".  Mommer is an old lady who got the name years ago when her son didn't like using the names Mom, Ma-ma, or Mommy.  There were lots of old photos of civil war camps and steam trains on the walls.  We waved Ludik into Mommer's Diner and Chrissy explained the menu to him.  "What is this French toast?"  

Around the corner, and old church had been converted into a cafe.  "Beans in the Belfrey" was  not officially open for business until 10:00 but we were allowed to go in to use the bathroom and admire its unique interior space.   Chrissy was dissappointed that there were no bean dishes on the menu.  We later realized the beans of which they speak are coffee beans!  The place was proud of its past history as a church and thrift store, and had much evidence on display.  They have a bit of a blues and bluegrass music scene here.   The town even hosts a music festival in June that I'd like to get down for.

We were not on the trail for long before getting to the next town, Point-of-Rocks.  This place was very small... even too small for a downtown.   We stopped for an early 11:00 lunch as stops along the Towpath are scattered far and wide.  At the mini-mart, Julia got a soft-serve cone, Willow ate a yogurt, Chrissy managed to swallow down some mediocre fried chicken, and Soren had the most awesome crabcake sandwich.  Ludik showed up at the minimart deli shortly and I talked up the crabcake as a Maryland specialty and showed off the huge lump meat.  Later when he overtook us on the Towpath, he yelled "THE CRABCAKE IS AWESOME!"

We saw the large number of miles to go and my lack of leave available from work, so we called Gordon to come relieve us of the kids and gear so that we could zip through the last 35 miles at top speed.  We made this transfer at White's Ferry which seems like it is the only ferry on the Potomac that is still in operation.  Chrissy had Gordon drive her to get fast food for dinner while I collapsed the bike trailers and chilled in the shade with Willow.  Around 5:00 we resumed our trek with our greatly reduced load, now just 1 spare innertube,  2 water bottles and 2 pockets of energy bars.

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