32. Bike to Mt. Vernon

There is an amazing trail that runs from DC to Mt. Vernon and though I have biked part of the way, I’ve never biked the entire trail. So I’m doing it this year! I talked John into coming along and doing it with me, and we planned to make the trip on July 4th when Mr. Vernon is doing a bunch of special programs for the 250th.

And of course it had to be in the middle of an unbelievable heat wave when it was going to be legitimately dangerous to even be outside (heat index of 115!), much less biking 20 miles in the hot sun. But John and I decided to make a go of it anyway, albeit with significantly more planning. LOTS of sunscreen, electrolyte chews and Gatorade, lots of frozen water bottles, bananas, an ice chest, snacks, first aid kit, and bike repair kit.

Georgie had (tragically) broken her leg on Wednesday, but Ariel said she would help watch her, so after John and I packed everything I dropped Georgie off at Ariel’s house and we got the bikes loaded and on the road. It hadn’t gotten too hot yet, so the ride was relatively easy and we enjoyed ourselves. The path follows the river and on the way you get amazing views of the monuments. People were setting up at Gravelly Point to watch the fireworks later in the day, which was amazing because there was no shade and at 8:15 am it was already blazing hot. The path continued through Alexandria and was mostly paved but had several segments of very frustrating boardwalk, which is miserable on your arms.

We stopped at a few of the great “comfort stations” that Virginia has placed along the way, but about a mile out from Mt. Vernon, a giant bug hit me in the face and while I was flicking it off, I got my handlebars turned and immediately smashed into the pavement. Which…hurt. John was riding in front of me and quickly turned around and got me out of the path and administered enough first aid that I could ride the rest of the way to Mt. Vernon.

John’s rear bike camera recorded the entire stupid incident. Enjoy me being dumb.

We parked the bikes and their staff quickly got me into their first aid station, the cleaned and wrapped up my arms and legs, then John and I could walk around the grounds.

My left arm definitely took the worst of it. Gross.

After the med station we availed ourselves of the selfie station. Memories!

They were having lots of demonstrations and to start off we stopped by the Mt. Vernon bakehouse and got something to eat after our bike. I got two slices of oven toasted bread with bacon butter and John got the Washington Ration they added trout, cheese, and bacon. It was amazing.

We walked (I hobbled a bit) around the grounds and John got to see the gardens, Washington’s tomb, the slave quarters, and the view of the Potomac before we decided to head back to the bikes and start back. Due to my unfortunate incident we were starting back much later than planned, which was going to make the ride back much hotter.

John about to commit an act of banana cannibalism.

We decided to try and stop every five miles so that we could rehydrate and make sure that my knees and arms held up, but because of the heat we needed to stop more frequently after the first 10 miles. We got all the way back to Georgetown and things got significantly harder because of how steep the hill from Georgetown to the Cathedral. We had made it 19 miles into the 20 mile return trip and I was starting to feel like I was overheating. After stopping a few times we finally made it back, bruised and bloody (for me) but otherwise in one piece.

We both had a lot of fun and the ride (except for the crashing bit) was great!