Martinsburg WV – Sacramento PA – Washington D.C. – Martinsburg WV
Sunday May 27
(~ 543 miles)

I had a choice to make at this point regarding which direction to go on Sunday. Plan A was to hit the cemetery in PA first and then D.C. while Plan B was the reverse, plus a few other differences in bonuses. Neither plan looked like it would work out completely, so I opted to stick with the A route. If everything magically worked in my favor, I’d have beaucoup points, but if I lost the last bonus string, it would put me back just a bit under Plan B’s total points.

After a quick chat in the hotel lot with fellow rider Ken Andrews just arriving for his break, I secured my rest-ending receipt and was back on the road right on time and hopped on I-81 north once again. I planned to overshoot the Fort Indiantown Gap cemetery, since the two bonuses there were daylight-only, and first grab a couple other 24-hour bonuses in nearby small town Pennsylvania.

As I was slightly ahead of schedule for this plan, I kept the speed at a safe 10-over. Nonetheless, at some point near Carlisle PA, the speed limit of I-81 drops to 55 mph for a length of several miles, and a state employee took umbrage at my not having noticed that fact. So much for running a perfectly-timed day! After receiving his autograph and admonitions to watch for deer, I proceeded on my route, albeit now at a much slower pace. I would have to watch myself now in PA for the remainder of the day.

I exited I-81 at US-209 and then peeled off onto some local roads in the pre-dawn mist. Having lost ~15 minutes with the roadside chat and watched my ETA increasing at the slower speed, I arrived in the small community of Sacramento about 30 minutes behind schedule and eager for some sunlight to alleviate the constant scanning for deer on the road. The “Director” bonus here was for the sign of “any church in Sacramento” and was the furthest point north I’d get in my rally…all downhill from here!

With light now creeping across the heavens, I retraced my steps to US-209 and ran the quick five miles (nice road) west to the town of Porter for another historical marker, in the “Music” category.

Now I continued back south on I-81 to the National Cemetery at Fort Indiantown Gap. Similar to last year, the ride through the entry road was stunning in the early light, with hundreds of American flags displayed in rows on the hillsides. Being familiar with the location this time around, I found Jim’s grave and said a quick thanks after getting my photo.

On the way out of the cemetery, I took the short detour to the Veteran’s War Memorial sculpture. It was low points, but I needed the “Location” category. The sculpture is meant to represent a bombed out building in a theatre of war and was impressive. Definitely worth the stop and would be nice to spend a bit more time there off the clock some day.

I left the cemetery and made a quick fuel stop, then re-joined the interstates: I-81 to I-83 south, then I-685 to skirt west around Baltimore. I missed my exit for I-70 and quickly pulled over just past it about 100 ft. Traffic was pretty light and the ground level, so I slowly walked the bike backward with my flashers on, until I was able to cut over into the exit ramp. Mental error and I was beginning to agree with friends who’d recommended using GPS audio, especially in later stages of a rally when you are tired.

I-70 and US-29 brought me down to the I-495 beltway around D.C. I navigated the early morning streets of Silver Spring MD and found the small park containing the actual namesake natural spring, amidst all the buildings and hubbub. Having read the rally book carefully this time, I ignored the roadside historical marker and walked down into the depression by the water to get a shot of the correct metal plaque for this “female actor” bonus.

I skirted the top corner boundary of D.C. on MD-410 into Chevy Chase, for a photo of the easternmost Madonna of the Trail statue, right next to a big Hilton hotel.

Now came the part I was dreading with interest – a foray into Washington D.C. on Memorial Day weekend! I shot straight in on Wisconsin Ave to the heart of the city. Plenty of stoplights, but traffic wasn’t too tough yet as it was still before 09:00 on a Sunday morning. I turned off Wisconsin into Georgetown and hit an unbelievable 12+ stop signs within just a mile, going through the little gridwork of tight streets!

One final downhill on some sketchy cobblestones brought me to M Street NW and right around the corner was my next bonus: the famous narrow stairway that was a filming location for the movie The Exorcist. The rally book said to get a photo from “the bottom landing” so I got one from the very bottom of the stairway (not sure if that counted as a landing) as well as the first landing up, to cover all bases.

So far so good! Wanting to avoid crossing the Potomac and going near the Arlington National Cemetery, I pulled a quick U-ey in the Georgetown U driveway and used US-29 and the Potomac River Parkway to wend my way down to Constitution Ave. This bonus required a photo of the huge Albert Einstein sculpture at the National Academy of Sciences. The sidewalk was quite busy here, with a bus stop, tourists, plenty of No Parking and No Standing signs and a police officer keeping watch (police were EVERYWHERE in D.C. – literally almost every major street corner it seemed).

I pulled up, broke out my Hammy-stick at full extension and was able to get a decent photo with Albert in the frame from a pretty good distance. The cop had his eye on me but must have seen other riders pull up before me and he didn’t run me off since I stayed on my bike. Due to the Rolling Thunder rally, there were motorcycles and bikers everywhere in the city, even at this early hour, so I think that provided some good cover, so to speak.

Another non-project combo string defined in this rally was AM03, which consisted of seven bonus locations tracing the escape route of John Wilkes Booth after shooting Lincoln. They had to be done on Sunday and in order, starting from Ford’s Theatre in D.C.

This was the fourth and final combo of my rally, and I was now 100% positive I would not have time to complete it before heading back to the finish. However, each bonus was still worth some points, so I stopped by the first location at Ford’s Theatre to snap this informational sign – the first bonus of the combo string.

I still needed two “female actor” bonuses located along the eastern beltway, so I headed northeast out of D.C. to Bowie MD for this historical marker by an old train depot.

Then I went south and made my way over to US-301 down to the courthouse in Upper Marlboro MD to find a donation brick from Miss Piggy in the small sculpture garden. This one took me a while as the “garden” was so small (just a single statue of an eagle) that I walked way past it and was looking around the building for a more impressive sculpture park. Finally retraced my steps and found the bricks covering an area of perhaps 40-50 sq feet.

For the life of me, I couldn’t find the correct brick. We’d been told it would be very close to the brick for Jim Henson, creator of the muppets. Sweating profusely in the rising temperatures, I called the rallymaster. “Have other riders found this brick, are you sure it’s still here?” Rick assured me that it was because he worked right in that town and personally confirmed it. Patiently he guided my vision until I spotted the brick not quite as near to Jim Henson’s as I’d expected. I thanked him and proceeded with my task.

With my first three combos now in the bag, my goal now was simply to collect as many of the John Wilkes Booth combo bonuses as I could before my GPS told me to skeedaddle to the finish before the ending bell. I knew there was no chance to collect them all (GPS showed arrival at well over an hour past the 14:00 finish if I did so), but all points count and a few hundred could make the difference by a final placing or two.

So I continued south to Clinton MD for an information sign at the site of an inn where Booth stayed during his flight.

After a final fuel stop, I decided I had time enough for one more and headed south several more miles on the busy MD-5 and US-301 highways to the house site of Dr. Samuel Mudd, who treated Booth’s injuries and was later convicted of conspiring with the assassin.

With the fuel stop and traffic I’d just come through, I was now down to about a 30 minute cushion to make it back to the finish. Due to unfortunate geography of being on a peninsula with the Potomac between me and my destination, my only option at this point was back north to circle D.C. on the beltway and thence northwest.

When I hit I-495, I made a mental error and got on going the wrong way (west/south). If I’d looked at a map, this needn’t have been a bad thing necessarily, but as it was I was fried and was determined to let the GPS guide me home. Cursing myself for not having the GPS bluetooth audio connected, I whipped around on the next exit and zoomed back counter-clockwise on the beltway, hoping that the “speed cameras” that Waze kept blaring about were focused more on other folks besides me.

I must say out of all the interstates I’ve had the displeasure of riding on to-date, I-495 around D.C. has to be in the top three worst. Just a wall of traffic, four or five lanes wide, moving quickly with people darting in and out everywhere. Then there are those confusing signs announcing splits between the “express” and “local” interstate lanes, which we don’t have up in New England and confused the heck out of the GPS, which kept wanting me to go local, making me think it wanted me to exit. I finally escaped on I-270 northeast to I-70 and my ETA settled in on a 20 minute cushion.

I maintained that cushion to the end, pulling in around 13:40, reading off my odometer to the rally volunteer and receiving my official card to bring to scoring. I unpacked the bike and went to my room to shed some gear and get my scoring materials together. Then I went down to the banquet room to do my scoring prep and grab a bite of leftover fried chicken and cookies.

There was quite a bunch of paperwork to do, what with all the combos and balance sheet to track cost, etc. I transferred my notes as quickly as I could and checked and double-checked everything. The clock was ticking down, as we all had to be in line to be scored by 15:00 or be considered DNF. I was frantically scribbling down made-up names for my Project combos and populating them with the specific bonuses as we got down to five minutes to go. No time to check things at this point, I gathered up everything, stuffed it all into my duffel and ran upstairs to get my name entered on the waiting list for scoring. Just made it along with several others!

Scoring went well. While I had to show a couple photos on my phone camera that hadn’t made it in via email, everything was accepted and I left no points on the table, which I was very pleased about. No 207W this year, and nobody had found that first missing horse statue after all. The scorer seemed to think my three combos were pretty good, but I knew that there would be some folks with four completed.
Weather alerts hit everyone’s cell phone while I was in scoring and it turned out there was a tornado warning in effect for the area. Some of us stood outside watching the ugly looking clouds rolling by and then headed inside as the deluge began. Rain was coming in sideways through the overhang in front of the hotel and we watched a literal waterfall form off the roof of a nearby restaurant.

Dinnertime rolled around at last and after everyone gathered in the banquet room, they began to call up the tables to eat. Our table was closest to the food but last to be called! 🙁  Pickins were a bit slimmer by the time we got through the line, but the sausages and pulled pork were delicious. I did miss the burnt ends from last year though…

After all the hungry riders were watered and fed, we proceeded to the silliness we’d all been waiting for as the Cheesedick of the Year Award was presented, in recognition of an extremely efficient email reply to the rallymaster during the pre-rally testing.

Bruce Edwards received the Wand and Tiara of Cheesedickery with full honors.

Moving on to the film “Projects” we all worked on to complete our combos – token Oscar statuettes were presented either for most points within a given combo/project or for project titles that tickled the fancy of the rally staff (not sure which). Jim Alton took home three honors in this section of the proceedings.

After much laughter and merriment, Rick proceeded to announce the mileage and score for every rider, working up to the podium finishers. Considering my discontent with my routing for this rally, I was surprised to make the top 10 (ninth place), with 1514 miles ridden on the clock.

I was happy to see three other bikes from New England making the top six, including Jim Alton bagging overall first place by over 1500 points. I’d spoken with him at the wedding and realized at that point that he’d planned a completely different sort of route than I had, that I hadn’t even considered. He had chosen to bag the bonuses in D.C. and Baltimore right out of the gate, before heading south to the wedding. It worked out very well for him, and he did indeed manage to complete four combos in order to achieve high score, and rode 100 miles less than I did. Kudos to a great ride!

Jim Abbott turned in an impressive second place ride, bagging four combos of slightly less point value. He also had run a completely different route than Jim, I believe hitting some bonuses near Pittsburg and out on the western edge of the rally map in West Virginia.

Full rally results here

There were two riders that Did Not Finish the rally due to accidents, both of whom turned out to be mostly OK. One rider ran into a cow (man after my own heart) and the other hit a big piece of lumber in the road, damaging his wheels but miraculously remaining unhurt. I think everyone else made it back safely to enjoy the festivities.

Below shows my intended Day 2 route (green) and actual route (red).

Here are my bonus stops in order:
LO08, LO15, AF17, AF16, MU09, AM17, SU04A, DI01, SU04B, DI02, RE2, LO19, LO12, SU04C, REST, DI10, MU02, JIM, LO01, AF13, AF14, AF08, SU05, JWB1, AF11, AF02, JWB2, JWB3

Jim, Team Jerin, and I made plans to head north together in the morning after a relaxed breakfast. Some of the riders joined the rallymaster on the back deck (rain had stopped by now) to make good use of some of those cigars. I hung out briefly, but I don’t smoke and my sleep deficit had now fully caught up to me and was yanking on my eyelids.

In the morning, we heard news of torrential rain and flooding to our east in Maryland, in areas where many of us had just been riding this weekend. We were glad to have gotten a good weather window to complete our riding and get back safely to the barn before the tempest. The ride back to New England was all slab and fairly uneventful and we split off at I-87 in New York to find our separate ways home.

I learned some good lessons from this rally, particularly in regards to bonuses with an absolute time specified (e.g. group photos). I continue to enjoy the puzzle format and strategy (more so after the fact!) though the MD2020 continues to get the better of me. While disappointed with my poor planning, I was pleased with overall execution and having minimized the damage. Above all, it had been an extremely fun weekend, with excellent riding, good company, and laughter.