What a blessing it is to have supportive friends and family. Spending two nights in Greencastle at Matt’s parents allowed us to rest, repack, run errands, tune up bikes and grab other essentials needed for our tour. More importantly, we had great visits with Matt’s awesome parents Tom and Betty, Aunt Lou, Uncle Bill, Aunt Teresa and good friend Carol.

Betty graciously agreed to take us up to Paw Paw on Saturday. This allowed us to skip a huge hill that was not bike friendly. Someday, I will return and ride that section of the C&O when it reopens.

Matt and I rode back into Paw Paw to grab a quick piece of pizza. We sat down at the picnic table outside the Liberty gas station and had an interesting conversation with a sharp gentleman named Elridge Kerns. He was 95 years old and had lived in this one horse town his whole life. He seemed to spend his days at the gas station with the other men, commenting and observing the happenings around them. Though it appeared today that a man driving a truck pulling a horse trailer was lost. Maybe the commotion was that the trailer may have had the only horse from this one horse town in it.

Either way it caused quite a stir.

Soon Matt and I were back on the towpath. We were headed to Town Creek Campsite. We arrived a bit late for us, but when we rolled in it was as though the heavens opened up and the sunbeams were illuminating the perfect campsite. There was no one else around….yet.

Matt went for a swim to cool down while I got caught up on phone calls. Just as we started dinner, the crowds came in. Might have been our awesome smelling cooking or it was just a Saturday. Probably both.

We met a father and son Roman and Cassian. They were bike packing the C&O together. After a quick chat, they decided to ride up to the next campsite a few miles upstream when they saw how full the campground was getting.

Soon after Roman and Cassian left, Kristen and her daughter Ruby Lou set up camp. This was Kristen’s first overnight bicycle tour! She was a strong rider who was going into second grade this year. Matt and I talked to them about our tour and they got to meet Rosie! Later on that evening, Ruby Lou brought Miss Bunne to meet Rosie. Both of these stuffies looked well loved and cared for.

Tonights dinner consisted of a favorite meal for us on tour. Old El Paso makes a meal kit called Adobe Burrito bowl. Tonight’s version was made with a thawed NY strip steak, Aunt Teresa’s jalapeños, Betty’s new potatoes and onions from her garden, a package of dozen cousins cowboy beans, a block of white chedder cheese and a package of tortillas. Absolutely delicious! Matt made an awesome recipe with his Dad, Tom’s collards that had me rethinking collards. I actually like them! All in all the dinner and second breakfast for the next day cost us $8.77.

Coming soon: Gallery page for Our Favorite Things! This meal kit made the list!

After cleaning up dinner, Matt and I finally got a partial game of scrabble in. When I was setting it up, I was surprised to see Mr. Thumbs also plays scrabble.

As the sunset on the water, Matt and I finished our game and then headed for the hammocks. Both of us were quite tired and ready for bed. We both wanted to get a early start tomorrow with 22 miles into Cumberland. “Forecasted” weather called for storms in the afternoon. Maybe we do the 44 miles with the 22 mile climb all in one day. My body might say probably not. We shall see…