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Patuxent Water Trail Day 3

When we pulled the boats up on Saturday we all agreed that it was too tight an area for us to all load at once in the morning. We’d have to pull one boat out at a time, load, launch, and repeat. Needless to say, 6 AM Sunday found us all crammed down in the launch area at once, busily loading gear while tripping over each other and the kayaks. A brief but intense rain shower rolled in while we were finishing up, causing us to dash about in a yet more manic fashion. Amazingly, this comedic ballet did not result in any mishaps, nor (as far as I know) did any of our slapstick maneuvers in an area thick with poison ivy yield any major rash problems. Against all odds, we actually got under way exactly at 0700 - ten minutes earlier than on Saturday. I wondered if the shower was going to mean a day of paddling in the rain, but fortunately this was not to be. The shower rolled out as quickly as it had rolled in and conditions were dry the rest of the day.

On this wider section of the river we didn’t have the current helping us, the wind was against us, and we were all a little “experienced”, as we put it, so it felt like slower going. I was paddling with a new Greenland paddle, one which seemed more given to cavitation than my old paddle, and so I spend a lot of the day focusing on adjusting my stroke to gain efficiency. Being the only one there paddling a plastic boat, I think I also may have been working the hardest to keep my speed up. However, being towards the young end of the group agewise, I was darned if I was going to be the one in the back, so I just paddled harder, as evidenced in the big blister which appeared on my right hand mid-day. 

Heading for Jefferson Patterson Park
A warm, calm day on a wide river isn’t all bad. In fact, without the previous two days to compare it too it would have seemed quite spectacular. However, we were getting into the more developed, more heavily traveled section of the river and it began to feel like a little bit of a slog. We took a welcome lunchtime break at Jefferson Patterson Park, which was hosting Children’s Day at the Farm. A typical paddling break involves squatting on a rock at the shoreline and gnawing at a half melted PowerBar, but here we hiked up into the and explored a really neat local festival – replete with farm animals, funnel cakes, old tractors, the works. Oh, and the most delicious cold Diet Cokes ever. 

While we sat and ate lunch a couple of our group started cooing over a horse. “It looks like a Belgian, but miniature.” I know nothing about horses – where I grew up they were something the police used for crowd control and livery hacks used to ferry tourists around Central Park*. I can tell a brown horse from a white one, and maybe a large one from a small one. The finer points of equine breeds are completely out of my range of knowledge, however. So I was impressed, as is always the case when people demonstrate mastery of what seem to me to be obscure subjects. Jen, who took dressage lessons in college – dressage, for pete’s sake! In Greenwich Village, where I went to college, you could probably find cross-dressage lessons, but that’s different – went over and talked with the owner. Turns out the horse was a Haflinger, which, sure enough is somewhat like a smaller Belgian. So there.

After a longer than planned break we hit the water for the final stretch to Solomons. The Route 4 bridge proved to be another one of those never-getting-any-closer landmarks. I worked on my mental focus. My natural tendency at this point in a trip is to fixate on getting to the end and stop noticing the present. But I kept guiding my thoughts back to where I was at that moment, appreciating the breadth of the river, the way my leg muscles felt when I got the stroke right, the look of the group spread out over the water, the sky. 

Solomons
At last we rounded Point Patience into Solomons, which is a quaint little waterfront town. After hitting the beach just before 3 PM we mucked around a little bit – finding a public restroom, strolling, hauling gear, enjoying the still-cool sodas Ralph had in a cooler in his truck. Somehow the shuttle plans worked and everyone and every boat made it onto a car. Mike’s brother Butch, who was in town for his 50th high school reunion, arrived with Mike’s van and gave Jen and me a ride back to where we had left our car. The van ride was satisfyingly long – made me feel we had really covered some distance. 

Jen and I had learned our lesson. We turned on the traffic report as we pulled out of Selby’s Landing, making sure we were not heading into another traffic jam. Truth be told, listening to the news was a little jarring after three days off the grid but I guess all good things have to come to an end. As we drove home I felt like we were descending from the special world of the river back into the mundane. Jen and I vowed to go back another time so we could cover the few miles we missed at the outset. It’s good to know the Pax and I will see each other again. 

You can read Ralph's trip log here (includes links to everyone's pictures).

A short album of pix is here.

Total Distance: 21.9 miles

Three day distance: 47.5 miles (for Jen and me, YMMV)

*Actually, this is not 100% true. I have ridden horses in both Brooklyn and Queens.

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