Day 306, 0 km
Diana, my
wwoof-ing host, decided to take me on a "covered bridge tour" and at the same time buy some material to build a plastic green house/wind tunnel.
The first bridge we planned to see was destroyed by the hurricane Sandy last fall, so now they were building a bridge of concrete instead...
But the second bridge was still a nice wooden bridge.
It was interesting to see its construction
In the afternoon I begun my building project:
And also watched the daffodils in the garden. How many days would it take until they opened? It was quite cold during the days and frostdegrees every night that week...
Day 307, 0 km
In the morning I watched many Amish buggies passing by.
In the afternoon anothe wwofer arrived. Her name is Olivia and it was really good to be two at some moments.
Especially because there was a wind blowing.
Day 308, 0 km
We finished the building project.
It was not so difficult to cover the wind tunnel and I got inspired to build one in my garden as well
In the evening Kevin and Diana took us to Lancaster City. Because it was the first Friday in the month, all shops were opened late at night. We visited some art shops,
ate delicious donuts (Diana, Kevin and Olivia ate one each and I ate three)
and we even looked at shops were you could buy vintage building material.
Then we ate delicious dinner at a Mexican restaurant.
Day 309, 0 km
In the morning we visited a nice market in Lancaster. On the way back we saw that Diana's neighbor who was Amish, had made a coal fire in his "steam powered weed extinctor".
They had built it by themselves, so I was curious to see it.
Amish people are allowed to use tractors, but only if they have metal wheels. The sun of the farm looked out of the trailer the same second as I took the picture, so accidently he was caught on the picture. I hope I did not take a part of his soul...
This is the steam engine inside the trailer.
Now it was really nice and warm inside the wind tunnel,
although we opened the rear window.
We decided to move in some furniture and eat our lunch inside.
In the afternoon I was interviewed by a friend of Diana. He is working for a radio station called Lancast. In the middle of May he and his friend David will podcast the interview, which is almost an hour long.
In the evening I took a long bath in the luxurious bath tab.
Day 310, 95 km
Early next morning I left the farm. Actually I would have liked to stay longer, but there were students waiting for me at three different schools along the way to Miami. And I also had to catch the cruise ship to Barcelona...
I said good bye to everybody and rode east again, towards Kimberton.
I passed New Holland,
and saw many beautiful spring flowers along my way.
In the afternoon I arrived at Alan's cottage.
He is a teacher in woodcraft and blacksmithing and had invited me to camp in his garden.
His wife made us a delicious Indian dinner.
Day 311, 90 km
Next morning we went up early to ride our bicycles to the Kimberton Waldorf School. Alan showed me the woodcraft room and told me what he was doing there. He had very instructive and pedagogically step-by-step patterns so the students could easily work almost by themselves.
It was a very organized room
He told me that I could make a walk to a close-by farm where one of the grade 12 students was building a earth-ship-greenhouse. So I did and there I had a nice talk with the old farmers.
It was interesting to see
a house completely built out of recycled materials.
But it also seemed to be very work-intense, which probably was the reason that it was delayed...
The farmer advised me to even visit a camphill school called Beaver Farm, which I did.
I met a very nice employee who showed me around although she was on vacation.
When I came back to the school grade 8 was starting to have woodwork
It was very interesting and inspiring for me to be there and watch them work
and I came to the conclusion that Alan was a very good teacher.
After one hour Alan suggested to go out and play the Swedish game Kubb, which he had introduced to the school and had as a woodwork-game.
I was allowed to join but unfortunately our team did not win...
Then I had a talk for grade 3 to nine, which were a lot of students. Many teachers were listening as well and I think everybody liked to hear about my adventures.
After my talk one of the teachers (a friend of Alan, who I learned to know at the dinner the day before) offered me to follow me the first hour of my trip southwest towards Washington DC.
When we passed the covered bridge close to the school she told me that it was quite new because somebody had set the old bridge on fire.
The new bridge was built of some kind of African wood, which would not burn so easily, I learned to know.
It was nice to have escort for some miles and actually it was a help for me to ride in the wind shadow of somebody.
It was a really hot day. Still the Magnolia blossoms were not opened yet.
But many other trees were blossoming!
After a long hot day I found a good sleeping location in a wood.
Day 312, 140 km
This day turned out to become even hotter.
From one bridge I watched a turtle taking a bath. I was surprised that there were red eared sliders in Maryland!
Inspired by the Turtle I stopped at Gunpowder Falls
and took a bath n the river.
The "Falls" were not as impressive as I imagined when I read the name "Gunpowder"
Now there were a lot of daffodils everywhere!
In the afternoon I passed Baltimore
where I found several blocks were nobody lived. I tried to ask people why, but they did not know.
I also got stopped by several people who asked me if I had some money for them because they were hungry.
In the center of Baltimore I asked about the road but people there seemed to be very busy and did not have time for me.
I enjoyed the heat and decided to continue all the way to Washington DC. At 9 pm I arrived at the White House.
There I met a guy called George who had biked from Alaska to San Francisco some years ago. He also did it to encourage the bicycle as a viable alternative making us less dependent on fossil fuel and he also wrote a
blog about it!
We exchanged some experiences and than I asked him if he knew a good place where I could hide my tent. He knew exactly what I needed and guided me to a nice park,
Day 313, 30 km
I woke up at six and rode back over the bridge to explore more of Washington DC.
This is the Lincoln Monument, situated on the west side of the "Mall".
Every state is named on the top
and inside there is a huge statue
of Lincoln himself.
I rode down to the Memorial place of the Korean War
where I met another nice bicyclist, who immediately wanted to become friend with me on Facebook.
Then I ate breakfast under the famous Cherry Trees
I had heard that many tourist who had planned their visits carefully
had complained since two weeks because the blossoms where delayed this year.
So I was very happy that they had waited for me...
On the east side of the Mall I found the famous Capitol.
I wanted to go inside but there were security guards everywhere who told me that I could not leave my bike with all its panniers outside. If I anyway did it they were forced to shut down the whole area and destroy them with a bomb robot...
So I decided to visit the Botanic Garden instead.
The Conservatory had a Capital as well, which I think I liked much more!
It was really wonderful at the Botanic Garden!
They told me that ALL museums around the Mall were free (and there were a lot!) so I decided to visit the Museum of Indian America. It had a very special architecture which i liked.
Then I visited the Museum of Natural History, which was also very interesting.
At the gift shop I was tempted to buy some beautiful stones, but then I thought that my bike was already too heavy.
Finally I went to the White House again to take some pics at daylight.
When I rode to the Potomac Crescent Waldorf School it was almost too hot...
But inside the brick house it was much better
I had a nice talk to a small group of grade 1-3, together with their parents. They had a lot of interesting questions and some of them got inspired to ride on their bikes to school in future!
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