Pittsburgh to DC, on a bike.

A while ago I decided I would bike to DC and I made a blog about it. Here is the link to that blog

That will explain the intro pretty much.
So now I will just jump into it. (Pictures will be in spoilers and I don't know how to flip the ones on the side, trying to write a lot of this before I go to bed since I just got home from the bus and its 5am -_- Actually just clicking on the picture shows it upright...)

Monday, June 11th. Roughly 10am.

I wake up and realize that today is the day I am starting my bike trip to DC. I start packing my backpack of things I think I'll need like my tent, a set of spare clothes, toothbrush/toothpaste, Ipod/Iphone and charger, five zip lock bags of protein powder with three servings in each, and a small towel. I rush to the bike store and buy a pair of padded shorts along with a mount on my bike for my water bottle. I soon arrive back home and my friend is there ready to pick me up. I load up with my bike and backpack while we go to my moms work so I can say goodbye to her. After saying my farewell we head to south side, where I would start the GAP trail.

We get there at about noon and it is a pretty nice day out. The sun is shining and its not extremely hot along with a nice breeze. So I say goodbye to my friend who drove and I start pedaling. I followed the trail without much problems at all for several miles. I continued to pedal and eventually I got to McKeesport. It was nice going from a city to a trail, then back to a city. It keeps the settings and backgrounds changing and makes the biking seem not as long, especially since I was doing the trip alone. So I leave McKeesport and head to the next closest town, West Newton.

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How the trail looks between McKeesport and West Newton

A clay waterfall on the way to West Newton

The Youghiogheny River that was always by my side

I get to West Newton and it is a very small town. I end up going into Fox's Pizza Den and ate half of a stromboli and saved the rest for later. I was unchaining my bike when I met a middle aged man who I will later find out his name was Adam. We exchanged a few words and it was clear we both were doing the same thing. Riding the GAP and C & O Trial, alone. I originally had planned on doing the whole trail in five days, sixty miles a day. After talking to him and hearing that he was doing it in four, I changed my mind and decided to do it his way. Also in doing it his way he said he would do sixty the first day, eighty the second, ninety the third, and one hundred miles the fourth. So we said good luck to each other and I got back to the trail. After leaving West Newton I realized I had come a little more than halfway. Halfway was thirty miles. I had about thirty more to go.

It was hot, bugs engulfed you the second you stopped for a break or to take a drink, and even the sun wasn't forgiving on the parts of the trail where there was not a lot of shade. An understatement would be saying the trail is rough. I was about forty miles in and hated it. My butt was so sore from sitting on the seat and carrying around what felt like a fifteen pound backpack that I had to take a break often. And by often it meant every other mile. My pace came to a crawl. Seeing the mile posts go by, one by one, was disheartening. It makes you realize how slow you really are going when it takes you upwards to ten or fifteen minutes to bike one mile. I came to a clearing where there was a field on my right and just the river on my left. It was very nice but I got a feeling in me. One that I thought I never could have had. I felt like I wanted to quit, just give up and forever be lost. This feeling hit me for about five seconds but I can still clearly distinguish it. I threw that to the side and put my backpack between my handlebars and set off for the last few miles.

After those final miles I had finally reached my destination, Connellsville. It was about a sixty to seventy mile ride. At Connellsville I paid 12$ to sleep on the property and take a shower. It was another 3$ for laundry, I didn't mind.

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My first ever Tent I set up in Connellsville

I took a shower, did some laundry and charged my phone/Ipod while I waited. I then drank a protein shake since I had an abundance and laid down to try and rest. This is around 8:30 pm. I got about an hour nap in and when I woke up it was slightly raining. A good thing was I pitched my tent under a tree. A bad thing was I didn't have any sleeping bag or long sleeve shirt or anything to keep me warm. So its approaching midnight and I still can't sleep. This is the first time I have ever gone camping, I'm slowly getting wet and its cold. I throw all my clothes on, get under the towel, and curl up and try to sleep. I get another hour in, and wake up. It's like that all night.

Tuesday, June 12th. 6am.

It was hard to sleep. I constantly awoke during the night and may have only gotten about 5 hours in. And on top of that, I was freezing cold. Most of me being cold was because I was Ill prepared for the camping. No sleeping bag, no cover, nothing. Also the tent itself would get very wet on the inside due to condensation. So I would shift my position that I was laying and I would hit the roof where it was wet, making me more wet and cold. I got out of the tent, put everything away and was on the trail again. It was about 6:30. I was actually a few miles outside of Connellsville, at least the campsite I stayed at was. So when I got to Connellsville I stopped for breakfast, at Sheetz. I got two sandwiches, one for now and later and was once again back on the trail.

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I saw this sign right as I was leaving Connellsville.

Seeing that sign helped me keep going a bit. I saw how much I had done. It also made me realize I was going to be riding about 80 miles since my next destination was Frostburg MD, ten miles before Cumberland. I continue to ride and it is a very long, perilous journey. I had been riding for about an hour, and it started to rain. I figured it would so I kept going. The rain was also blocked out a lot on the trail since it has trees on either side covering the trail. It was raining pretty hard but it was only mist by the time it got to me. This continued for about ten minutes. By this time the rain kept getting harder and the trees had stored enough/held enough of the water on the leaves so it was a full downpour. Nothing I could have done so I just kept riding. I was drenched. The trail become very muddy and eventually so did my bike and I. I saw a bench with an awning and I took shelter under that for about forty-five minutes. Every single thing on me was soaked. So I took all of my clothes off except my compressed bike shorts and boxers. Like if someone where to have passed me while this was happening, I would have looked like the biggest fool ever. While I set those drenched clothes off to the side, I put on my second set of clothes when I dried. After the forty-five minutes and it seemed like the rain had completely stopped, I was once again back on the trail. I went across a bridge and looked around and really enjoyed the view.
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A few miles outside of Connellsville

I kept pedaling for hours and hours. I eventually passed Ohiopyle and then Confluence. Then another ten miles after that I was getting close to Rockwood. So I had about another thirty miles to go. This was also where Adam had caught up to me. We said hello again and such and we talked even more than the day before. This was when I found out his name. We rode together for about seven to ten miles then he went off alone again. His pace was much greater than mine. It was great seeing someone on the trail after hours and being able to converse. But not only was it nice in that aspect but seeing him go and ride inspired me. It kept me motivated just like that first day when I was a few miles away from Fox's and he caught up with me. For some reason when I saw him ride, it made me want to ride even more, so I did. However I had to stop often again. This time I was either stopping to give my butt a break since it was so much more sore than the day before. Or I stopped to give my feet/legs a rest. Or i would stop to wring out my socks of water since my shoes were still soaked. Essentially, I was stopping every thirty minutes.

Eventually I got to Meyersdale. This was where I was going to stop and find a place to sleep in the first place. But after meeting Adam I still had twenty-five more miles. So I stopped at Sheetz once again and got a few sandwiches. Something was going on with their pipes or whatever so I couldn't order anything of the touch screen. Which made me a little upset. I eat a sandwich, saved the rest and went on. About another ten miles later, I had hit the peak of the mountain. Since the trail was uphill the whole way till now.

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This was the highest part of the trip

Another picture showing how high I was and the distance left.

Seeing that was a huge turning point. That was about the first one hundred and twenty miles. Very bare, hard, and unforgivable. It was also downhill for about twenty-five miles from that point which was awesome. So things started looking up a bit. A few miles downhill and I hit a tunnel. I read about it and wasn't sure what to expect until I saw it. It was called the Big Savage Tunnel. It is more than half a mile long.
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Entrance to the Big Savage

Inside the tunnel

I was about to just ride it again since the light above where enough for me when all of the sudden all the lights went out. it was pitch dark. I was in the middle so if I looked back I couldn't see the exit, nor if I looked forward. I was like what the F***. I took out my phone to use the flashlight app. When I turned it on I could probably see about five feet in front of me since of the heavy fog. I slowly progressed until the lights inside the tunnel came on one by one. When they all lit up again within a few moments, I was on my bike racing to the end. I finally made it out and the next view put me in awe.
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This was the view of the country side on my left

A view of the country side on my right

And this is a close up of the rocks. I have no idea what it is

A few more miles down the road I had hit another uplifting moment. It was going from Pennsylvania to Maryland.
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Crossing into Maryland

Then I went through another tunnel. This one was no where to as big or scary as the Big Savage.
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Finally after all the riding, I had hit my destination again, in Frostburg. It was a nice little town. I got here about 6:30pm and set up my tent. I then went into the town and walked around a bit since I had quite some spare time and got some food. I cam back to the campground and took a shower and finally washed my soaking wet clothes. I had felt renewed. I hung around a bit more and then I decided to go to sleep around 9pm. I slept for about an hour or so and awoke. Once again, cold, wet, and scared. But this time I was scared because of the storm. I was never afraid of storms, until I am camping about 2,000 feet above sea level and it was a huge thunderstorm right above my head. It was about midnight and I was scared of out my mind. I contemplated just going into the room where I had showered and sleep there. I even went down and tried it out. I couldn't so I went back to my tent and by this time the storm had subsided for the most part. I tried getting back to sleep. Then it rained. It was coming down hard and my tent was right out in the open. Some rain drops forced through but I was mainly dry once again. Sleeping was also difficult again. I would sleep for about an hour then wake up. This would happen all throughout the night.
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A cool train shifting thing, right by the campsite.

Where I stayed

Pittsburgh to DC, on a bike.

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