Pikesville, MD 10/10/2011

And then there are those days.

We were up early with plans to grab a bite at the motel and hit the road at first light.

Well, the motel restaurant was not open and no continental breakfast was available, so up the road we went to the first restaurant. It opens at 11. And that was the story of the morning. We grabbed a cup of coffee at High's, the local chain of stop and robs at gas stations. I passed on the hot dogs on the rolling grill and I am guessing the expected crowd never came in after the game on Friday night so the dogs were still there. Asked a guy working on a house about a restaurant; so down the road we went, closed until 11. Ok, people don't eat breakfast on our off the beaten path route. After 30 miles plus and another stop at a Highs for a "breakfast sandwich" we made it to Butler, MD and discovered a little country store that sold everything and had a deli, but was a far cry from Jim Towns in Alexander Valley. We had a roast beef sandwich and sat on the front porch with the honey bees and chatted with Mark, the owner of Misty Farms, just down the road. A steady stream of locals filed through picking up something from the deli as it is apparently the only place for miles. Interesting people including a couple of potential banjo players from Deliverance.

We hit the road and rode through some nice hills with beautiful farms. This is horse country and we saw a couple of riders in fancy riding gear and heard the bugle of the group on the trail of a fox, we assumed. Tally Ho! We saw a couple of white tail deer running through the woods along the route as well as another deer who never quite made it across the road.

Our route crossed a rail trail and we asked the first jogger where it went but she was plugged into her music and never heard us or just ignored us. Another pair of joggers came by and we determined the trail would take us off course to far. They were training for the US Marine Corps Marathon in DC and we chatted about our ride and their jogging.

Our little black caterpillar continues to make great time and we saw him a couple of times on the road today.

We made good time and stopped in Reisterstown for a sit down lunch of chicken Caesar salad and I tried to locate a motel further down the road on our route with no luck. Not a problem as I was thinking Reisterstown, a town of 25,000 might have a motel. How silly of me. We spoke with Tom, employee of Martha's and Mary's where we were eating. Oh, no problem, lots of motels down by US 40 on your route. Name one. No luck. Tom makes inquiry of others in the store and reports back, No, problem, go up 140 the corner by the gas station, turn left one block and you will find a small motel. Great, we follow the instructions and no such motel. I stop in a dress shop and the ladies there said there is no motel for miles. So, our choice is go forward on our route and hope for the best or go off route a few miles toward Baltimore and stop at what we find. We finally opted to head toward Baltimore on Route 140 as I had determined there were hotels on I695 around Baltimore. Solid business for 8 miles, a representative of every type business known to man, but not one motel until we found a Ramada and a Hilton just inside I695. We opted for the Ramada which was next to an Olive Garden. Cheaper motel than last night and the early dinner special at Olive Garden was good and cheap. Route 140 was full of drivers in a big hurry and we were honked at more today than the entire trip.

A good shower, a good meal, thoughts of the nice scenery and good people of the day.

Tomorrow we will be at Martin and Megs in Bethesda. Martin is my wife's cousin and has consented to housing our bikes until the spring when we come back to finish our ride to Florida.
So, one more day of riding and then home again.

54 miles in lovely weather.