Day 5 - The American home

I leave camp very early, leaving no trace behind. Feeling lazy this morning, knowing that I am almost in Washington DC and will spend a full day here.

Rock Creek Trail is a narrow asphalt road that starts I somewhere north of the american capital, and if you follow it you get all the way to the National Mall. Basically it's a stretched out park across Washington, somehow an equivalent of Central Park I think.

I exit it at some point looking for a place to eat and I end up at a McDonalds. The clientele seems to be mostly mexican and chinese. I take my regular egg and bacon sandwhich and proceed calling home as I usually do during breakfast.

A guy with a notebook at a table in front of me hears me speak on the phone. "Is that russian?" And so I get to meet John Wharton, who spends his retirement years in Mexico with his mexican girlfriend working on expanding their little business with a campsite for tourists "such as myself", called "El Parque" :) It's located in a cute historical little town, San Miguel de Allende, a UNESCO world heritage site.
Funny coincidence is that John will come to Romania in a couple of weeks on a Danube cruise from Budapest to Giurgiu, then Bucharest.
So there is a lot to talk about and after an hour we somehow end up debating the ucrainian crisis.
John says I got to meet his friend Paul and we walk to his house nearby.

Paul is quite a character. Skinny, tall, blond hair, laid back and a very gentle guy who travelled all over the world on his bike in the nineties. He has a ton of stories from his treks in South-East Asia, China, South America and I browse two packs of amazing photographs while we sit around his kitchen table drinking tea. His fridge is also filled with memories from his trips, newspaper articles, and several photos of a cute asian girl with coins on her neck and keys as jewelry hanging on the side of her head. John jokes that she's his dream girl :)
Jerry, or "Chief" as Paul calls him, another bike world trekker drops by and I get to meet him too.
Paul invites me to use the shower (I don't think I stink, but the guy knows the first necessity of a cycle tourer after a night in the bushes), then we talk some more. Too bad we have to split up, me to see the city and them to do their bike ride, I feel good in their company.
At departure Paul offers me a scarf with the American flag. Whish I had something for him in return of his great gift, but with all this ultralight thing I did not think to bring any souvenirs from Romania.
So ends my first visit to an American home, Paul's batchelor crib impressed me with it's simplicity and warm atmosphere.

In a very good mood I continue pedalling the trail now full of active people that bike, run, play soccer (many mexicans live and work here), kids do acrobatic horse riding.

Pierre, my friend & fellow ixian who works at the North Carolina Ixia office, has surprised me the other days when he told me that his best friend Luc Bijeau can host me for a night in Washington.
So I am heading for his address where I am warmly welcomed by Amy and Ellie, Luc's wife and daughter. I leave my belongings safely in their beaitiful home and go bike through the city, targeting the National Mall and surrounding neighborhoods.

After a few hours of wandering, admiring and almost falling asleep on the grass in front of the Washington Monument (the giant obelisk) I use a different route to return at Luc's home. It takes me about 50 minutes to get back, Washington is quite big. In total today I count almost 80km, I did not expect to do that much in my rest day.

It's now almost 10PM, Luc and his son Charles are back home after attending a scrabble competition in Rhode Island. I imagine Luc is very tired after 9 hours of continuous driving, but he still takes the time to correct his son's homework for French, while Ellie is also doing hers. However tired we both are it's always a great idea to go for a beer and something to eat and we walk through the quiet neighborhood to the pub a few streets away.

Luc is also a software engineer so we talk the same language, I could not have found a better host :)
I find out that Luc and Amy are both marathoners, in fact that's how they met. I found the talk with Luc, as the one with the guys in the morning, to be very sincere and felt a connection that transcends our different origins.
Relaxed after the beers we head home, where I decide that tomorrow I will start lazy too and drop on the bed dead tired.