Monday, March 03, 2008
Milton, DE to Grasonville, MD
60 miles (184 total miles)

Day 3 - Ursula and her family continued their royal treatment of us, getting up early to give us a big waffle breakfast this morning. After packing up, and taking some pictures of her family, we headed off by 8:45. It was already about 42 degrees and bright and sunny. It continued to be a glorious day, warming up to somewhere around 60. Pat and I were peeling off clothes as the day went on. It continued to be very windy however - giving us practice for the California Coast headwinds we've heard so much about. Luckily, the terrain was very flat, so it was pretty easy going even when winds were against us. We were encouraged that we were feeling a little stronger today; yesterday's shorter ride seemed to help our muscles recover a bit.

Today's ride was very pleasant, past well-kept family farms and various farm animals, including a bison farm we were very surprised to see. All the animals turned to look at us with curiousity. You'd think they'd never seen a tandem hauling a trailer before! The people we met along the way were all very friendly, too. We stopped to use the restroom and got a snack at a little general store and ended up having a pleasant chat with the owner. Our bike attracted attention at a Subway restaurant in Denton where we stopped for lunch. People came over to ask about where we were from and where we were headed.

We arrived at the Best Western Hotel in Kent Narrows (Grasonville), just before the Bay Bridge across the Chesapeake Bay, at about 4:30 having covered 60 miles in about 5 and 1/2 hours riding time, almost 8 hours overall time. They treated us very nicely at the hotel - storing our bike in a conference room and being generally very friendly and helpful.

Tomorrow, a truck will pick us up at the hotel to take us over the Bay Bridge, since bikes are not allowed on it. Then, we head off to Washington, DC where we'll spend the night with friends again.

Downtown Milton, DE - where we stayed last night

Ursula's house in Milton

Robyn, Sabina, Ursula, and us

Robyn, Ingrid, Ursula, and us

The Delaware countryside - family farms with tidy houses and fields

A short stretch of Redden State Forest

Corn stalks left over from the fall harvest

A bison farm

Friendly buffalo checking us out (Ursula tells us they really aren't so friendly)

The Greenwood, DE water tower

Houses along the main street in Greenwood

An old barn along the road

Local cows found us interesting too

Silos at the dairy farm (Ursula says the milk goes into Land O' Lakes products)

Stopped for a snack at Al's and stayed a while to chat

We enter our 4th state on this trip

Historic marker in Denton, MD

Another historic sign along Route 50 past Denton

The church to which the sign referred