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These are getting long...

July 24, 2020 (Morning)

Exercise Type: Bike

Weather: 80 and humid, mostly overcast, but some sun and a rainstorm

Comments:
Matt come over at 8:35 and we set off down Reno and Conn, past Black Lives Matter Plaza and across the mall. Zig zagged down to Anacostia River and crossed. Some trails, some highway, a good climb up Malcolm X and a decent along MLK got us to boundary stone SE #7. Dipped into PG County and forded a pair of creeks, eventually moving through spaces where we weren't encouraged... concrete factory, police training grounds, more creeks, piles of discarded asphalt, Blue Plains impound lot... those sorts of places.
Matt spotted SE8 among the bulrushes (like the baby Moses). Some backtracking and disrupting of a line of police cadets who were being dressed down by their sergeant, got us into Oxen Hill Park. We got off our bikes, locked them to a tree and tromped through varying degrees of underbrush on what was unfortunately a fruitless search for the SE9 boundary stone. Too much highway in the way and despite crawling through the mud puddle under a fence and passing through multiple black berry canes, litter fields, and poison ivy patches, we weren't making the sort of progress that would get us to the stone in less than an hour (not to mention return time). Let's just say this entire adventure would have been easier if we weren't on our fifth consecutive day of heavy rains and if it weren't the height of summer undergrowth. Eventually, we bailed and enjoyed the steep hill up towards MGM Grand and the subsequent decent to the River. Hid away my fear of heights and actually enjoyed much of the crossing of the Beltway bridge into first DC and then Alexandria. Checked out the southern boundary stone and Jones Point Lighthouse for the first time in ten years or so. Biked up to Old Town where we indulged in a fine lunch outside of the Fish wharf restaurant. Sat out the first rainstorm and provided Matt with the necessary ice cream to fuel the remainder of his ride. Discovered his tire had gone flat. Got it repaired two blocks away and headed north along Mt. Vernon Trail through another rain storm. Finished up across Key Bridge and past Visitation, eventually taking Wisconsin home. Matt, of course, got the extra two miles alone, to and from my house, but the 6.5 hour adventure (minus maybe 90? minutes in Alexandria) felt like plenty to me. Another shower was in order.