Our bed-and-breakfast last night was wonderful. The amount of food they had in their kitchen for us to make breakfast was outstanding. We barely touched what was available, and yet we ate a lot. It was a fun place to stay. We want to go back to that one again.

We knew we had a bit more miles today, so we left by 9 AM. Much of the trail was in good condition until we were about halfway through our ride — then we hit the section the trail crew is working on. Once again, they went out of their way to let us by. We’ve ridden other places where construction like this would make the crew close the trail. We’re so glad they kept it open, as there wasn’t a reasonable option to bypass it on roads. By October, the trail should be improved all the way to Paw Paw Tunnel, they said.

The Paw Paw Tunnel had been on our mind much of the day, similar to the steep detour the day before. The tunnel is a pretty rough trail, barely wide enough for one bike. Thankfully, a railing runs along the side facing the canal. The canal sits about 10 feet below the trail. We, of course, didn’t want to test the sturdiness of the railing by hitting it, so we did our best to stay in the middle. Three times we met other bikers going the opposite direction and had to get around them carefully. The tunnel is 3000 feet long. It was quite costly, both in money and lives, to build. Again, we are grateful that someone had the foresight to preserve it once the canal was no longer in use. The alternative to the tunnel is a 2-mile steep trail that would not accommodate our tandem bike.

Here is an album with some of the videos leading up to it and going through it.

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Today seemed like an especially long and difficult day. I think it was because we got out of the shade of the trees on this part of the trail. In the opposite direction, we had ridden much of it in the evening, and were moving a little bit faster because it’s slightly downhill. Today it was just hard. We are resting tonight in Cumberland in a hotel, and tomorrow we have our most difficult climb. We don’t really know how fast or slow we’ll be able to go uphill for the section. We estimate the climb out of Cumberland to the continental divide might take us about eight hours. We’ll try to get going early and beat some of the sun.