Three and out!??

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Ann: I'm being forced to write today's entry because I feel asleep in the middle of writing last nights entry.
Day 3 was the shortest ride at 31 miles and the roughest one. The ride started in Cumberland, MD and ended in Pawpaw, WV. ( Yes, that is a real place. We've also seen places here that are called knobs and hollows.) We biked along the C&O Canal tow path, which is the path the mules walked on to pull boats down the canal. It was more like a goat path than a bike path. Lots of rocks, roots and mud causes lots of dodging, bouncing, and jiggling.
It was beautiful country and we were riding right between the C&O canal and the Potomac River. Lots of wildlife sightings - deer, groundhogs, rabbits, heron, eagle, and groups of turtles sunning themselves on logs in the canal. Fun fact - a group of turtles is called a bale or a nest.
At the end of the ride was the PawPaw tunnel, which is 3300 foot long tunnel. It consists of a three foot wide mud path between the mountain side and the canal in the pitch dark. It looked way too creepy and luckily it was closed due to a mud slide.
One last group lunch and group picture and we are on our way back to our starting point for the ride home. Yip-pee-ka-yay!

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Photos

Day Three
The bikes and the riders are ready to roll out early.

The path today
31 miles of bouncing and dodging

A bale of turtles
Sunning themselves on a tree limb

Pawpaw Tunnel
Built to bypass the mountains by going right through.

Pawpaw tunnel
Way too creepy to walk inside. Pitch dark, dripping water, dank Canal, narrow path deep inside a mountain. Future crime scene.

Yippee-ki-yay!
The Finish line.

Our new friends
All our learned doctor friends (who originally met at Harvard) are deep down just biker buddies with a love of good whiskey and a great sense of humor. Nostrovia!

We made it!
Three days and over 100 miles later, we did it! And It was a blast !