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Ghost Road

May 3, 2020 (Morning)

Exercise Type: Run

Weather: 60s and some light rain

Comments:
I've been pretty disciplined over the past month not to run with people from outside my household, except when I haven't been. Recently, I've been allowing myself about two runs per week with others while mostly keeping a few meters away. Today, I couldn't resist the invitation to run with the Mustang and we decided the best use of our time would be to explore the original route of the former Washington County farm road call Milkhouse Ford Road. http://greatergreaterwashington.org/m/post/29230/2015s-greatest-hits-hidden-clues-reveal-an-old-road-that-disappeared-from-dc/
I drove to Matt's and we set off at 9:30am. We finished up a few minutes before noon. Run time was around 1:25, but I may have forgotten to start my watch a few times after our various pauses. We may have gotten sidetracked with a few tangential explorations, but on the whole we feel confident that we were following the old road's route effectively and while I had explored much of this with Zach the Yak Needell a number of years ago, I felt this was a much more accurate and thorough study. Matt was a more-than-willing accomplice or I should say companion. He even convinced me to ford the creek at the site of the former ford and in turn I convinced him we didn't need to jump a wall into the what would have been the waiting arms of a security guard. We'll see if we come down with poison ivy rashes, but I think we'll have escaped with nothing more than disapproving glances from a golf course manager, some briar scrapes, and a quizzical encounter with said security guard. Once we unknowingly overshot the intersection of Milkhouse Ford Rd with Rock Creek Church, we doubled back along Gallatin and eventually cut through Carter Barron and down Morrow Road and up Bingham and Rittenhouse to Matt's home (on the very road we'd explored.) My legs were pretty dead for the second half of the run and I'm nice and tired as I write this in the mid afternoon. It was a lot of time on our feet with some quality running mixed in, kind of like a Saturday at a cross country meet. Now I can spend the rest of the day examining the old maps which helped inform our route.