Day 008 – Otter Creek Campground, PA to Jarrettsville, MD

Not a lot of video editing got done yesterday because I was having such a good time talking with Joe and Carol and today I spent most of the morning updating yesterdays post and trip planning. I’m going to keep kicking the video can down the road for a while. Being an editor I’m not used to being on the other side of the camera and find myself stumbling and sounding dazed when trying to recount the day – hence the desire to edit before posting. I do have more sympathy for all the people that annoyed me when I had to edit them into something watchable. Talking to camera is a real skill.

Carole and Joe sent me off with a pancake and bacon breakfast – thanks! I am glad they didn’t make a big deal about the hill out of camp, because it was a real killer.

On the way to Jarrettsville I saw a few Amish horse and buggies. Most were passing me, but one I had to follow behind for a while because I could pass it down hill, but the horse kicked my ass going up. With all the cars I didn’t want to keep passing each other so waited until I couldn’t see any hills in the distance.

I was trying to get to Reistersville, but with the hilly terrain and late start I ended up in Jarrettsville as the sun was setting. I called a local church to see if I could set-up camp on their property, but didn’t hear back – (Rev. Larsen actually called me the next day since she was on the road in Minnesota on her way to a conference and didn’t get my message until late. We had a nice chat.)  I tried the county sheriffs office to see about putting my tent up somewhere in town, but they told me to keep asking churches. Finally, I tried the warm showers.org contact in Jarrettsville, reluctantly since it was 8PM on a Sunday night.

Elaine called me right back an her husband Tom came and picked me up in his truck since it was now dark. I had a hot shower and got stuffed on the remaining Chinese food they had for dinner. It was a work night so Elaine had to head off to bed, but Tom and I stayed up talking for a bit about some of the other cyclist they’ve hosted and Tom’s work as a nurse – Elaine is a nurse practitioner.  I also got a good dose of dog therapy with their two dogs – once of which recently had taken out a raccoon! I also got to meet their daughter and her boyfriend as they were just leaving. An incredibly warm family that used to having cyclists stay over for a night or many.

I was off to bed at 10 PM exhausted.