Journeys: Almost A Century

On Wednesday, November 21st, I drove to Berlin, MD with my fixie affixed to my Onward Tacoma to meet Steve and Mariana for the beautiful 100 mile View Trail road ride on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. When we left a random parking lot in Berlin at 1000, we could not have sacrificed a chicken, or dog, for better weather conditions. Temperatures in the upper 60's provided the comfort necessary to properly enjoy the scenery of the Eastern Shore farmland, which included the distinct smell of chicken poo mile after mile after mile. Oh, and hellacious wind all the way from Berlin to Pocomoke City too.

Our first rest stop was approximately 25 miles into the ride at Public Landing. Chicken poo farms were to the west, blue ocean waters were to the east.

Chuck by the sea!
Photograph by Steve Garrett.

After the Public Landing rest stop the ride started going down hill, and I am not speaking in literal terms. There are quite a few turns onto quite a few small rural road during the ride and we were able to miss no less than four, possibly five of those turns, and constantly found ourselves riding across the border into Virginia. In fact, we were so inept in our navigation that we were forced to slice off a portion of the mapped route south of Pocomoke City, MD in order to compensate for the added miles.

Steve and Mariana enjoy the fall foliage.
Photograph by Chuck Bolte.

After Pocomoke City we turned north for the return leg to Berlin. The wind was much calmer on the way back and the final 40 miles of the ride seemed easy, almost too easy. We rolled back into Berlin just as the sun and the air temperature were on the descent. At the car, it came to our attention that we had somehow over compensated for our slicing of the route near Pocomoke and shortened the ride too much. 12 miles too much. For us, it was the View Trail 88. Almost a century.

After post ride nonsense with Aunt Jen, we made way for Waterman's "all you can eat seafood" restaurant, where Steve turned into a never before seen crab consuming animal beast of a thing.

I swear, if you could have seen the fire in his eyes...