Today’s ride was quite a contrast to yesterday’s: nothing more than 3% grade, hard-pack dirt and rock surfaces, limited sight lines.  We started from the hotel and wandered from Owings Mills to Hunt Valley, both outer suburbs of Baltimore, past what appeared to be large horse farms.  At mile 15, after a pleasant sag stop, we entered the Northern Central Railroad Trail, also known as the Torrey C. Brown Rail Trail.  The surface was hard-packed dirt with crushed stone.  We were on the rail trail through a canopy of forest for much of the time, making it cool as the sun was blocked.  Our first stop was in Monkton, where a Maryland Park Ranger greeted us, with a mini-museum and clean restrooms.

Along a section of the trail, someone had placed American flags to celebrate Memorial Day this weekend.

 

At mile 35, we entered Pennsylvania (another margarita night!) at New Freedom.  I was not aware that the Mason-Dixon Line was plotted between Maryland and Pennsylvania due to a boundary dispute dating to the 1760s; I associated it with the Civil War and ultimately with the “dividing line” between North and South.

The trail surface in Pennsylvania was still hard-packed dirt with pea gravel on top, and we were headed downhill.  We had lunch at the Rail Trail Cafe in New Freedom and enjoyed the replica Civil War steam engine coming into town.  There were a lot of rail crossings on the Pennsylvania part of the trail.  We stopped in Hanover Junction at another mini-museum and were informed that Abraham Lincoln had ridden a train through the town going to and coming from Gettysburg.  And we passed through the Howard Tunnel, considered one of the oldest railroad tunnels in the U.S.

By the time we entered York, Pa, our destination for the night, we had spent over 40 miles on the rail trail – our legs had been spared but our hands and shoulders had suffered, and, in many respects, the scenery had become boring.

Mileage for the day: 59.63 – about 1400 feet of climb.