The lockhouse was actually quite comfortable despite the 1800's proportions to which it was built. I believe even Emma would have had difficulty walking down the stairs to the basement without hitting her head. The night before Jonboy and I walked to the nearest grocery store in Georgetown to grab dinner, breakfast, and lunch food for our last 3 meals of the trip. About $35 later, we had enough food to gorge for 3 meals for the price we payed for one meal while eating out the rest of the trip.
Lockhouse 6.
It was only a short 5.5 mile ride from Lockhouse 6 to the end of the line, but we then continued onto the Rock Creek trail until we needed to do a short jaunt over to the National Mall. Jon had never seen the WW II memorial, which I liked when I saw it previously. Other than that, the Mall was a mess, with the reflection pool drained due to maintenance and construction fences up everywhere. I will admit I was a little underwhelmed due to all the maintenance.
Biking through (below) downtown Geortown.
Mission Accomplished!
"You mean we still need to bike back?"
Carolyn had called the night before stating she was off Friday, so Papa Myers didn't need to pick us up. This changed our pickup time from somewhere close to 7PM to about 1PM. After a quick jaunt back to the Lockhouse to pick up all our gear (we slackpacked into town since checkout wasn't until 10 or 11AM), we headed back up to Great Falls visitor center for pickup. Jon took off before me as I had to realign some things in my pack. By the time I headed west after him he was already out of sight. When I didn't catch up with him in 2-3 miles, I figured he was racing to stay ahead of me again. I kicked it into high gear and got to Great Falls in 30 minutes, with Jon nowhere to be seen. a quick call revealed that he had pulled over about 1 mile west of the lockhouse, and I was chasing no one and was left to wait 30 minutes for him to arrive. We then biked out the exit of the park to avoid Carolyn having to pay the park fee just to pick us up. Days mileage: 24.6 miles.
Overall Jon and I both had a good time. I would say that I will likely never ride the C&O towpath again, except for the area closest to DC. It was just not very well maintained with minimal sights to see for the western most 100-130 miles. I certainly won't ride it in the Spring when the trail is likely to be wetter, but maybe an Autumn ride with the leaves would be nice. The GAP was just much more maintained and marked much more clearly. It also offered a little more consistent scenery, which only improved the farther away from civilization we got, just the opposite of the C&O. I would definitely like to do another bike tour (maybe next year), this time on the rural roads of PA trying to involve stays at multiple State Parks. Not sure that Jon will be up to that given the steepness of the Allegheny Mtns in PA!
Total Trip Mileage: 367.6
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