Day 47, Gettysburg to Clarksburg, 53 miles.

Best: The first 35 miles of the road were on beautiful roads.

Worst: (future projection) The rain through the later day and night.

Most Unexpected:  Somehow we had over 2300 feet of climbing in Maryland on flat roads.

Yesterday we visited the Gettysburg battlefield with Lisa's friend Jack as our tourguide.  There were 11 of us in Charlton's van, and we had a great time.  Fortunately Jack did not know all of the 1400 memorials on the battlefield, but was an excellent story teller.  When I drove the van, I did not wreck it which was a great success on my part. Dinner was at the Pub/restaurant on the corner of the square, and then we walked to Mr. G's last night for an ........ Ice Cream.  Based on expert reviews, Mr. G's and the Cannonball Malt Shop were similar in quality.  

We got to sleep in today and loading the truck occurred at 7:30.  I was on breakfast crew and we did a bad job.  The bagels were moldy, and we didn't boil water due to certain circumstances, so the coffee drinkers were going into withdrawal.  Cathy to the rescue as she went across the street and bought coffee for the twitching prone bodies on the ground.  We rode though Gettysburg past the National Cemetary, and headed out on a most bucolic ride. Beautiful landscape and well paved roads, the birds were singing, and everyone was riding together for the most part.  We rode on these beautiful roads until the City of Damascus where bikes were definately second class citizens. 

I arrived at our campground in Clarksburg just after 12:00, and immediately set up my tent expecting rain.  It is 2:15 and the rain hasn't hit us yet, but it is impending. I am racing to get this blog done before everything shorts out.  We are going out tonight for our farewell dinner at a surprise location; this campground is a new stop on the Big Ride. We will be driving because it will be raining, and it is expected to rain for tomorrows ceremonial ride into the nations capital.  I can't wait to try to dry out my tent in my hotel room tomorrow. 

Oh, and we crossed into our last state today, Maryland.

From yesterday, just to prove I did something other than sleep.

Bucolic yes?

Should have gotten a building permit.

There have been a ton of houses with stars for decorations.  Since this is my next to last day, I thought I would take a picture of one.

Look at all the traffic.

A small estate.

Really busy road, and so is the next picture.  We rode for miles with no traffic.

This is a residential subdivision we drove through.  These houses were huge, humongous, large, jumbo, collosal.  Sounds like sizes of olives.