Chesapeake and Ohio Canal

And so this is one where you could take the train, you could bring your bike, and then you can take advantage of all of the great biking trails that are right at the foothills of Cumberland.

There's the C&O Canal, the Gap Trail, which goes all the way to Pittsburgh.

These are really great crushed rock trails that are great for mountain biking, I would say, not so much road biking.

But I think it's awesome if you're one of those people who wants to get out of Washington, doesn't have a car, wants to bring a bike along.

You could certainly do this.

And if you're super talented in biking and cycling, you can bike all the way from Washington on the C&O Canal to Cumberland where the trail ends.

So you might want to like pause in Harper's Ferry for a night, give yourself a break.

But that is definitely something that a lot of like bike enthusiasts, extremists, I would say would do.

And now that I have this wagon, I kind of feel like maybe that's something I should do.

I know some folks who have bike-packed the C&O Canal towpath up here in DC, Georgetown, Maryland, but close enough to Northern Virginia.

If there are any other good bike-packing trails, I know New River Trail State Park has got a couple of campgrounds along the way.

But where else? Does the Creeper Trail have...

The featured activity there was getting the ice cream, but walking was a part of it.

The day I turned 30 years old, Ava and I went on a hike along the C&O Canal, and I have this memory of climbing on some rocks and thinking, "I'm 30.

I feel like an adult now." [laughs] And there's a whole bunch more.

How many memories do you have where walking is a distinct part of that memory, even if it's not the featured activity? All right, today's Challenge Listener Spotlight is Patty.

So that's kind of a piece of all of that.

And I think for other folks, you do a better job of this, you know, of saying, oh, look, it's the C&O Canal.

Sure, I could do it in three days like other people with podcasts do.

But you know what would be a lot more fun would be to really focus in on the history and all the towns.

The B&O Railroad, which I opined a long time ago about being my first model railroad on a ton of episodes of our show.

And the C&O Canal, both dead end there.

So coal, iron, glass, brewing, all that stuff.

So for a while, it was the second biggest city in Maryland.

And, and, and so he was very careful about who he met and where they met and so forth.

And of course, there were rumors about his many liaisons, including about one woman who was found murdered by the C&O Canal and, and so forth.

Um, th- as time goes by, and as more women enter the workforce, you get more conversations about this, and you get more strong women.

You know, and George W. Bush ...

Let's talk about the towpath for a little bit.

So the C&O Canal.

What do you think about running on the towpath? Do you enjoy it? Do you hate it? What is your thoughts on the towpath?

I hate it every year.

And, you know, he had this vision for the Potomac River.

He thought that should be the canal and it eventually became the C&O Canal.

But he was lobbying for that even before the revolution.

He started a canal company, even got the Carroll's to invest in Charles Carroll to invest.

As a city, Baltimore still had to compete for trade with other ports.

And You know, roads were terrible, right? I mean, it really was, they needed better ways to move things around.

And Carroll had already backed, I didn't mention this when I had the George Washington slide up, but George Washington was pushing a canal project, something that ultimately became the C&O Canal.

Back then it was called the Potomac Company.