Today the kids had a day off school for a student free day for the teachers. Sam spent the afternoon at a friend's house helping him with a Playstation Star Wars problem.
The girls and I went for a ride on a new (for us) bike trail, along the C&O (Chesapeake and Ohio) Canal. The canal parallels the Potomac and was built to bypass the falls (including Great Falls), connecting the upper reaches of the Potomac (Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia), with the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic. Much of the canal has been preserved.
The girls and I went for a ride on a new (for us) bike trail, along the C&O (Chesapeake and Ohio) Canal. The canal parallels the Potomac and was built to bypass the falls (including Great Falls), connecting the upper reaches of the Potomac (Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia), with the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic. Much of the canal has been preserved.
We started from the Roosevelt Island car park on the George Washington Memorial Parkway in Virginia, and crossed the Key Bridge into the District of Columbia.
Once across the bridge we worked out how to get down to river level again and found the canal and track. During tourist season, they run towed canal boats up and down this section. It's still a bit early in the season and today was a very ordinary day, cool and slightly drizzly. This kept the crowds down and we had the path mostly to ourselves.
We stopped here hoping for an ice cream, but again it was too early in the season!
As you can see, the ride is flat and smooth. It was quiet and tranquil and we saw lots of wildlife (ducks, squirrels and the like).
We rode the path as far as Maryland, thereby riding through 2 states, plus the district.
Finally back on home turf, a pleasant 11 mile ride.
