Janice and Fedelma smile after many long days.After two delicious days of low miles while at Pendle Hill, a 77-mile, 3-state odyssey of a day, and a final lap through cold, wind and rain, we have landed safely in DC!!
After much fretting about the route on Friday, I (Janice) decided to take us the “direct” route on Saturday from Swarthmore, PA to Chestertown, MD– which turned out to be 5 miles longer than the “indirect” route which had been suggested to us. We glided through Swarthmore, Chester and Wilmington, and had done almost 20 miles by breakfast, and 45 miles by lunch. Feeling quite cocky and proud of ourselves, we decided to dine in Chesapeake City, and even – gasp – backtracked a bit to go to the perfect lunch place which let us sit right on the water in the 78-degree weather. While the unseasonably hot weather did remind us of impending climate disaster, we still managed to enjoy ourselves immensely, and even celebrated with a mid-day glass of champagne and toasted our 45-mile accomplishment. Predictably, we would come to regret this choice and our early optimism in the next couple of hours, as we struggled through a strong headwind throughout Maryland. We were on route 213 for the remainder of the day, where the mile signs which consistently poked holes in our fantasies of almost-doneness. We stopped twice in the final 10 miles to refuel, gulp the remaining gorp, and to visualize this evasive doneness. When the end finally came, we were met by comfy couches, our staple athletes’ diet of fried cheese and potatoes, and free popcorn at Andy's bar and restaurant in Chestertown. I went to see my former clients at the Kent Center, and Fedelma became one with the couch and her book for a couple hours. After a lovely dinner with old friends, we yet again landed at a warm, welcoming house – though since we got there late, we got to spend much less time with Ford and Marilee than we would have liked. We were there just long enough to infer from the Grateful Dead and “potters for peace” stickers, the amazing views of the Chesapeake bay, and the cozily eclectic house that we would have liked to stay much longer.
My friend Andy picked us up early the next morning and transported us over the Bay Bridge, where we remembered promptly that this biking thing could be hard work. After deciding to willfully ignore the weather forecast - our mutual internal narrative must have gone something like: “low of 44? that can’t be right. looks warmer. yesterday sure was warm...” Doh. It was cold, and our misplaced cynicism forced us to repack our bags in the pouring rain as we began our final day of pedaling. After 15 miles, we decided to take an early lunch at Subway...and then after finding ourselves unready to leave the warmth and comfort of food and heat, we walked next door to another restaurant, sat for another hour and ate some more. Finally on the road again, the hills mercifully returned and allowed us to warm our cold, wet selves on the final leg of the trip. We rolled into DC around dusk, and were treated to a hero’s welcome at my friend Alyssa’s house, where Fedelma got to use the upstairs steam shower while Janice soaked in the downstairs jacuzzi.
Today we met with aides to Janice’s Representatives: John Kerry, Edward Kennedy and Martin Meehan. The meetings were infinitely less stressful and more productive than we both supposed, and I am looking forward to more tomorrow, and also to joining Renato Areiza, a leader from the peace community, who is in DC. We are having an event at Provisions Library - here are the details for any DC folks that would like to come:
Date: Tuesday, November 14th
Time: 6:00pm - 8:00pm
Location: Provisions Library
1611 Connecticut Ave. NW
Washington DC, 20009
202-299-0460
Hope to see some of you there!
