Patuxent River Trail Day 2

Setting Out, Day 2

I would have bet against it, but 7 AM indeed found the group on the river ready to go. I had popped awake at 5 AM, having slept (or at least having been horizontal in bed) for longer than any night in recent memory. The night had been cool, in the high 50’s, and quite conducive to sleep - at least for those of us with sleeping bags. A few people had packed for summer weather and felt the overnight chill. Suzanne wound up sleeping bundled up in all her clothes and paddling jacket to stay warm. As light dawned I stumbled out of my tent and wandered down to the boats to get my breakfast. I had left my breakfast food in the kayak, figuring it was as safe from critters in the hatch as in the tent. Pausing to take in the scene, I reveled in the glow of water in the dawn light, punctuated by puffs of mist. Back up on the bluff, Ralph had coffee up. The early risers gulped down a quick breakfast and then we shook the laggards awake.

I’m glad I had test-packed my boat before the trip. Both mornings required quick loading and it was good to know where to put everything so that it would fit and preserve the boat’s trim.
 
The section of the river up at White Oak Landing is quite lovely, being small and largely devoid of development We proved a compatible bunch on the water – all about the same speed and skills. Rich, a fast long distance paddler, paddled way out ahead as he is wont to do, but kept in radio (and usually visual) contact with us. Saturday morning was for me the most peaceful stretch of the whole trip. Ralph knows the river very well, and in addition to the natural beauty he filled us in on some of the history of the area. Paddling through this tranquil spot it was hard to image it crawling with British warships and American gunboats as it was in 1812.

King's Landing

We made a stop at King’s Landing where we were able to refill our water supplies (and use a flush toilet, too). We marveled at the pool – obviously maintained and ready for swimmers, but closed and locked mid-day on a June Saturday. Perhaps budget cuts have taken their toll. This stop had originally been planned as a lunch break but we started so early and made so much progress that most of us decided to hold out until we got to Maxwell Hall and so took just an extended leg-stretch and snack break.

Our destination was said to be near the Chalk Point power plant. We’d been able to see this plant in the distance from the observation tower at White’s Landing, and it loomed in the distance as we paddled onward. Distances on the water can be tricky: at the start of the day the power plant didn’t seem all that far away, but after half a day of paddling it seemed not an inch closer. That kind of visual effect can really mess with you if you let it. After yet more time on the water the plant finally entered the foreground of our view and we knew we were close. About this time Greg hailed us on the radio saying he and Jenny were out on the water, had spotted Rich (who was out front as usual) and that he’d be joining us. 

Chalk Point Power Plant

No one in the group had used this campsite before and so it took a little finding. I led us to the listed GPS coordinates for the site, a point at which there was a small beach and a trail leading up to a cleared area with a picnic table. We were also greeted by snakes, ticks and poison ivy. Rich reassured us about the snakes – yes, this species bites, but no, they’re not venomous. Oh, and and let me not forget the constant drone of the power plant, which sat just across the creek from us. Suffice it to say that this site, while still lovely, was less idyllic than White Oak. We pulled the boats up above the tide mark, squeezing them into a pretty small area, and then we dragged our gear up the hill to the campsite.It was a warm afternoon so after settling in a number of us went for a swim to refresh ourselves.

Relaxing

When you camp you pretty quickly get into a routine built around food and shelter. In fact, the forced consideration of the lower levels of Maslow’s hierarchy is to me one of the appeals of camping. You have to be in the moment taking care of basic needs in a way which those of us in urban civilization rarely do. As such, we set to work establishing our campsite. Tents (some slightly impinging onto an equestrian trail), and a tarp went up and food came out. Saturday night was Suzanne’s turn to cook for our little sub-group. She had planned a different variant chicken hash, this one with curry and Trader Joe’s multigrain mix. I once again helped out with my full range my major culinary skills, which include both opening cans and stirring. Before you know it we had a pretty tasty dinner, with enough extra to share with the larger group. Other folks ate a range of food, including MREs (pre-fab military field meals) and the Mountain House camping store equivalent. More wine was consumed, but alas there was no watermelon. There was no fire either, since the campsite lacked a fire ring. We subsequently realized this was because we weren’t really at the campsite. Al and Bob went out for a brief evening paddle and discovered the campsite proper was a little further into the creek. We were in the right park in the right neck of the woods, but not in exactly the right spot. Since we were all set up by the time we discovered this fact, we opted to stay put.

Saturday evening we took a brief walk through the park and I dashed into the woods to find one of several geocaches hidden in the park. Mostly, though, it was another evening of sitting back in our folding chairs and enjoying the (warmer) evening. While I had never met Al before, I knew from a mutual yogi friend that he was a yoga practitioner and indeed he spent some time during the evening doing yoga, including some rather impressive inversions. Motivated by this, I stretched a little too. After a relaxing evening we again turned in early with the goal of getting an early start again on Sunday. There was some noise overnight from the power plant - for example, we heard the shift change, but nothing too bad.
 

Total Distance: 18.9 miles

Patuxent River Trail Day 1

This is the first of three segments about a weekend kayaking trip following the Patuxent River Water Trail for 50 miles from Queen Anne Landing to Solomons, Maryland. 

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The trip started inauspiciously. Jen and I set out carpooling from Arlington to meet up with the group at the Queen Anne put-in but found ourselves stuck in a hideous traffic jam before we even made it out of Virginia. We got increasingly frustrated as the minutes ticked on, eating up the extra time we had built into our schedule, then the minutes required to get to the launch under the best of conditions. Well, actually I’m speculating when I say Jen got frustrated, since she displays that mid-West equanimity I find so perplexing. I grew up in a complaining culture. The New Yorker’s version of the Goldilocks story would have only two bears. “This porridge is too hot!” I get that. “This porridge is too cold!” I can sympathize with that. “Just right”? Never. Don’t people in Iowa know the meaning of the word “kvetch”? OK, maybe they don’t. Anyway, after a couple of hours of fuming (me) and mild vexation (Jen) we phoned the group and told them to launch without us. Ralph, the trip organizer, vectored us to another put-in downstream where we could catch up with the group. When Jen and I reached this “bail-in” point we realized we were almost at the terminus of the day’s paddle. Wanting to get more than a mile of paddling in, we went through the rigmarole of getting a parking pass then headed up river to intercept the group, which we did at their lunch-break point at Mt. Calvert. In the end, Jen and I paddled about 6.75 miles to the group’s 11.5.

Fifty miles in three days sounds like a lot, but in fact with cool weather and favorable tides it’s really only a half day of paddling per day. We reached our first campsite in the early afternoon. The campsite was a lovely setting: an open field, surrounded by trees on a bluff overlooking the water at one end. And an ancient, but maintained porta-potty. Each of us had our own individual tent, so in a jiffy we transformed the field into a little city comprising eight tents plus Ralph’s hammock. As we planned the next day’s paddling we realized we’d want to be on the water by 7 AM to take advantage of the tide, which led us to immediately go on “Drinking Savings Time”: drink, eat, and go to sleep an hour or two earlier than usual in order to get on the river that much earlier. Jen, Tall Tom, Suzanne and I coordinated on dinners. Friday night was Jen and my turn to cook – a delicious chicken hash-like mush (no actual hash was used in the preparation of this meal). We were done with dinner so early that we had time for a second round of drinking, after which we took a hike to a cool observation tower. “Caution: Tower Sometimes Attracts Bees & Wasps” said the sign at the base. Fortified with ample drink, we were not deterred by this warning and ascended the tower to find a magnificent view of the Patuxent River. After dinner we finished off the watermelon Ralph had somehow managed to transport in his kayak, made a few jokes at the expense of Rep. Anthony Weiner (the political scandal du jour), and planned the next day's paddling. I don’t have too many evenings like this in my life – hanging out in the wild, kicking back and relaxing with friends. I do cherish such moments and like to make them last. This one, however, came to an early end. We were all in our tents by about 9 PM. I read for a while then went to bed.

A Choppy Night

I really need to sit down sometime and get a better understanding of how waves form in the river. Some nights a fairly strong wind will kick up nothing but some small swells. Other nights a moderate breeze will somehow stir up serious wave action. Last night fell into the second category. From conditions on land I really wasn't expecting any significant when I got on the water. But boy, it turned out to be a fun evening. We headed across and downriver, always the roughest of our paddles and quickly ran into two foot swells with occasional whitecaps. Nice! In cold weather these kind of conditions freak me out because of the serious implications of capsizing, but once the water warms up (it's now in the 70's) I love a choppy evening. Downriver we paddled straight into it. A lot of kayaks have a very buoyant bow and so they go over top of the waves when you paddle into them. That keeps you dry but pounds you every time you drop down into a trough. The bow of the Shearwater cuts through waves rather than going over them. That means a wet experience with waves rolling up the deck, but a fairly smooth ride. You just have to know how to steer the thing - there's no point in trying to turn the boat when the nose is buried in a wave. One new paddler turned back (escorted by a couple of more experienced kayakers) but the rest of us made it down to Haines Point, which turned out to be surprisingly calm. In windy conditions the point is often a mess of standing waves and clapotis caused by the confluence of two rivers plus the channel bouncing into the seawall, but for some reason last night it was relatively smooth - again, there's some hydrodunamics at work that I just don't understand.

Paddling in following seas (the waves behind you) is very different than paddling into the waves. A wave will come up on you and all of a sudden the stern of your boat wants to go faster than the bow, making it want to spin around. Proper strokes and use of the skeg can help, but I always find it a weird feeling. On the plus side, the waves really push you along - we made much better time on the way home than on the way out.

There's never an evening when the power of nature fails to impress me. On the evenings when the river is up it impresses me most of all.

Bike to Work Day

The experience of growing up in New York City in the 70’s indelibly etched certain weird ways of thinking into my brain. Principal among these is the assumption that you always have to expect that people will act in malicious, even psychopathic ways. So, after securely locking up my bike at work (making sure to lock both wheels and the frame against theft), I take my water bottle with me. Why? Well, first, the water bottle isn’t locked to the bike and so I assume there’s a high probability that someone will steal it if I leave it unattended. Heck, I assume that even a passerby who had no intention of committing theft might steal it just to teach me a lesson for having left it there unprotected. Worse yet, someone might poison it – add a little battery acid or something – and put it back on the bike. Now, I admit this is pretty paranoid stuff, particularly since this particular bike rack is under video surveillance and is located inside a parking garage in a high traffic area directly next to the hallowed Permit B parking spaces where the CEO and other most senior execs park. But this is the way you think when you grew up in the anarchic, lawless New York of my childhood – the place and time of the Charles Bronson Death Wish movies. A time when having your car stereo stolen at least once per year was par for the course, when we had to lock up our bikes even inside the garage of our house since the garage was routinely broken into. I notice that the other bike in the rack has two full water bottles on it. Not a Brooklyn native, I assume.

Oh, I’m supposed to be talking about Bike to Work Day. Yes, that’s it. This year for a change I got a chance to Bike to Work on Bike to Work Day. I had none of the conflicts which had kept me from participating the last couple of years: meetings requiring me to wear a suit, weather, etc. The ride back and forth to work was pleasant, as it always is. I didn’t get the feeling that there were too many participants going out in my direction towards Tysons (as I’ve noted, there was only one other bike in the rack at work) but there seemed to be plenty heading downtown. In fact, on the ride home I saw lots of people heading in the opposite direction wearing their purple Bike to Work Day t-shirts, confirming that there were plenty of participants.

The organizers of the ride set up a number of “pit stops” around the city in the morning. I hit the one at Gallows Rd. and the W&OD trail. Picked up some swag, but passed on the Panera croissant egg sandwich and coffee. I already had a water bottle full of iced coffee, and the eggwich would have been a little too much food in the middle of a ride. I also stopped at the Booz-Allen pit stop in Tysons Corner because it was a block from my office and because it’s where I had to go to claim my purple t-shirt. This was a smaller stop but offered bike tune-ups. I had to deal with a guy from a Fairfax cycling organization who insisted, simply insisted, that I take their flier.

The ride home had no pit stops. Cyclists were on their own for “bike home from work day” but from the looks of it we all survived – I saw no collapsed cyclists by the side of the trail. There were few sprinkles here and there, but no real rain. I vow to bike to work again soon.

Force of Nature

Some days really bring home the meaning of the term "force of nature." Over the past week everyone has been shocked by report of the record flooding of the Mississippi River, with farmers' fields inundated under ten feet of water. Of course, we're all still reverberating from the Japanese tsunami. Now, we have our own small-scale version close to home. Admittedly, the Potomac at flood stage pales in comparison to these other cataclysms. But look at the sharp "hockey stick" rise in the Little Falls gauge height over the last couple of days. Wow.

After a long email exchange on the subject, most of the kayaking group bailed (so to speak) tonight.. Just Rob, Peter, the back-after-years-absence Mike V and I showed up. The four of us made our way to a shoreline vantage point through the construction area of the humpback bridge. The river was high, and it was cooking. Big logs, trees and other debris were flying down the river as if motorized. The river was just a few inches below overflowing its banks on the DC side - and it was low tide. Peter proposed a paddle in the protected waters of the Boundary Channel, which would have meant a mere  45 minutes or so on the water. I just didn't feel it was worth changing clothes and unload gear for such a short trip, and I was leery of the inevitable urge to peek out into the river a little just to test the conditions. My view prevailed and so the four of us headed to dinner at Lebanese Taverna followed by browsing at Hudson Trail Outfitters.

I rarely go out just to socialize weekday evenings. Either I'm doing some activity (kayaking) or going to some meeting. It was really nice to just sit on a nice evening and shoot the breeze over shwarma and Lebanese beer. I felt like I was in a beer commercial. I've been stressed lately, but the force of nature forced me to relax tonight.

Southern archetypes

Spent the day in Knoxville hanging with some distinctly southern characters. There's the lawyer guy - some combination of Matlock and Foghorn Leghorn as played by John Larroquette. There was Dr. JB the crazy engineer, who looks like they took Jesse Duke (the patriarch of the Dukes of Hazzard, in case you are unfamiliar with the show) and showed up for the meeting dressed in grimy coveralls straight from the wardrobe of Cooter (the mechanic character on the same show). The Boss Hog character in all this was Dr. Bob - not in the evil Boss Hogg sense, but in the sense of being the wealthiest man in Hazzard county. My compatriot RC, while a native of Brooklyn rather than the south (coincidentally, he and I grew up not far from each other) reminds me of Barney Fife nonetheless.

I'm living on a diet of blackened fish, candied sweet potatoes, pecan-crusted chicken and lots of sweet things. I have managed to defy the local culinary norms a little bit and make one dinner and breakfast vegetarian. And the Azteca hot pepper and chocolate gelato in downtown Knoxville? Delicious!

What about the bison?

Thursday only three of us showed up to paddle; everyone else was SK102-bound. Given that we were an intimate little group we had some time to muse as we headed upriver (I won't dwell on the coastal flooding advisory which was in place). What's with the central section of the Memorial Bridge - why is it metal when the rest is stone? And what's with the buffalo head decorations at the apex of all the arches?

A little research revealed that the center span was originally a drawbridge. Over time, as less boat traffic headed to Georgetown it got used less and less frequently. by the 1960's there was basically no longer a demand for passage of tall boats and so when Roosevelt Bridge was built they didn't bother making it a drawbridge. Having a low bridge just upriver was the final nail in the coffin, and so the drawbridge mechanism was disabled and was removed in the 70's.

As to the bison, I couldn't find a story. The bridge symbolically relinks the North and South (connecting the Lincoln Memorial top Rober E. Lee's house at Arlington). Maybe the bison were considered a symbol of the "post-bellum" vitality of America, in particular the American West. Or something.

Anyway, a good paddle. Water was high - the normally poky boundary channel was wide and deep.