| Ride 4: C&O Canal Trail | Saturday, March 20 | Distance: 32 miles |
I have Supreme Court Justice Douglas to thank for today.
It seems like the Douglas man left a greater kind of historical legacy
than his involvement in the Supreme Court. We call it the C&O
Canal bike trail. It seems like Ole Man Douglas was a nature lover
with a penchant for mobilizing the masses. Back in the 1950s, the
old Chesapeake and Ohio Canal waterway was just sitting there, a casualty
of railroads, steam engines and neglect. Closed in the 1920s to presumably
never be used again, it eventually became the object of lust for developers
seeking to construct another road connecting the outer suburbs with Babilonia-on-the-Potomac.
Douglas, defender of the birds and bees that would lose their natural habitat
jumped in to protect their privacy. He mobilized
a crowd of opinion swayers and law makers on a 185-mile nature hike, convinced
them that there should be no road interfering in the relationship between
consenting marigolds and ladybugs. He eventually had the C&O
Canal National Historic Park dedicated in his honor by the Presidential
Georgian whose bedroom behavior never became the subject of a Supreme Court
ruling. Today we biked along 15 miles of this dusty, gravelly trail between
Georgetown and Great Falls Park in Maryland.
| I decided to bike to the gathering spot that morning,
braving the Custis trail. I knew it would mean I'd have to bike it
back up to my house from Rosslyn. It being mostly downhill to Georgetown,
I arrived with good time and good spirits. For most of the trip there I
was in the leading pack of 5 bikers. The fact that I have a hybrid
bike made a huge difference-the C&O trail is not at all friendly to
thin tires. There was this cool lesbian on a mountain bike biking
right ahead of me who was dodging rocks and gullies like a pro. I
found the pack of cigarettes on her back pocket a particularly striking
touch.
There were some great sights along the way. Somewhere inside the Beltway near the DC/Maryland border there is a water pumping station that is a stunning example of some of the best in 1950s industrial design. Right outside the Belt that holds up the pants of our Capital city there was an intriguing construction called David Taylor Model Basin. It stretched for quite a distance and seemed like something Stalin would have held up as an example of industrial functionality and efficiency. I found out from Det (my former project manager at work and currently high on my list of People Who I Wouldn't Mind to Be Like When I Grow Older) that this is a giant artificial pool in which the US Navy conducts tests on scale models of ships. I've tried two times to get a good picture of this, and have failed both times. Other sights along the river were unexpectedly beautiful given the proximity of one the country's most congested highways. |
Did I mention the ride makes for great postcards? |
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