Day 47 – Dessert anyone?

For the longest time last night we debated, should we sleep inside the lighted school hallways or should we risk sleeping outside under the stars when it might rain? Finally we decided to walk around and sleep under the school’s covered entranceway, which was a great decision. Our slumber party was two bigger last night when Andy and David Lambert joined us, and we enjoyed watching a brief rain before we fell asleep safe and dry against the building. This morning was our first ever $5 morning, which was fantastic because it was a short day and we rode back into town to find a good little dinner. We found a little place called Ernie’s which gave us just what we wanted for a good start to the day, and we took our time eating and drinking coffee. That was the name of the game today: enjoy the company and the stops.

Before long we were off and leaving Gettysburg behind us. We took some great pictures of our first “restroom” stop along a beautiful strip of sunflowers lining the road, and then we almost passed right by the marker for the Maryland border. After some more pictures we made our way to Kathy’s waterstop, where we decided we could really spend some time off the bike again. We laid our bikes down and headed straight over to the shade of some trees to lay down and nap in. It was glorious, with a waterbottle as a pillow I could have laid there all day napping.

Finally we dragged ourselves onward, and we decided it was lunchtime when we hit Frederick, MD. It was such a cute little town, and honestly it reminded me a lot of the city I lived in in the Netherlands with the brick sidewalks that went right up to the brick buildings and homes. Recommended by a local, we walked into the Orchard for lunch, which was a vegetarian’s dream. I had the best salad that I’ve probably ever had in my life there, so much so that I took a picture of it: organic mixed greens, shredded carrots, sprouts, hummus, avocado, and sesame tofu. Mmm mmm.

We finally made it into the campground tonight just as the first shuttle was leaving for dinner at Applebee’s. I had a quick rinse-off in the shower before it came back, and we were shuttled off to Applebee’s for our last dinner together. The ALAW generously covered the tab for whatever we wanted to order, minus alcoholic drinks. I had a totally un-filling salad, and decided I was definitely going to need dessert. I was sitting next to Tom, who had already had a huge meal and one dessert, but was still hungry, so we decided to each order different desserts and we’d split them. We did, and then ordered Scott’s dessert and ate most of it, and claimed someone else’s unclaimed dessert, and before long we had eaten some of each of the five desserts that Applebee’s offers. It was fantastic.

As our last night in camp, we had some organized ceremonies, which included a mock-marriage between Margo and Adam, an awarding of distinguished titles for most inspiring rider and other such appropriate and less appropriate honors, and a final farewell songs written and preformed by fellow riders. We laughed so hard, and it was a good way to spend our last night together.