walking 6 miles is harder than riding 100!

Day 36: Resting in D.C. & Baltimore

Well, resting is a bit of an understatement!  After waking up late at Paul's aunt's house (and having an excellent breakfast!) we pulled our stuff together and made for the Capitol.  The drive was great (no traffic!), and there was simply SOOO much to see.  We walked a lot (probably close to 7 miles) and got to see most of what we wanted to.  After our great adventures of seeing the sites and waving the invisible American flags we held in our hands as we read the historical markers and signs, we went to "Ben's Chili Bowl" (explanation below), for lunch...read on!

Les holds the Washington monument up with one hand...that's what cycling across the country enables one to do!

I stand gawking in front of Lincoln...and..umm, this is also what cycling enables you to do?

So after a loooong walk (which, really, because we haven't quite exercised some of the muscles one does when walking or running, seemed harder than doing a long ride!  I'll bet the semi-foot blisters and sore feet afterward helped out in that though) we went to Ben's Chili Bowl.  As you can see from the picture below, this doesn't seem like anything too out of the ordinary, right?  Well, this is actually one of Bill Cosby's favorite places to eat and there is a sign inside (see picture below) that states that the only person who eats free at Ben's is Bill Cosby.  There were pictures of him everywhere inside and we, obviously, hoped he would walk in and get angry at us and tell us to move out of his seat or something!  Didn't happen though...

Ben's Chili Bowl

We were tired from walking, but the chili was good!

I love this sign.

After a late lunch we slowly made our way up to Paul's place in Odenton to drop off our stuff, meet his roomates, and see his AMAZING pool house (ask us more about this later!).  Then we set out for Baltimore where we'd be going to an Orioles game at Camden Yards.  

Oh yeah!

Seeing a game while on a bicycle trip was highly unexpected, but it was really cool, AND, the Orioles won in the tenth inning because of Luke Scott's walk-off solo homerun!  It was exciting.  Also, three of Paul's military buddies (Brad, Giovanni, and Pedro) joined us for the game and it was cool to get to hear their stories and hang out with them too.

It was a long day and we did a ton of different, non-cycling type things, which was refreshing and a little odd too (because we're so used to the eat-sleep-ride mentality), but it was great fun!