day 70

we got up around 8:30ish to pack up and eat some breakfast before we setoff towards dc. we said goodbye and thanked our wonderful host, sarah, when she headed off to work. we got underway and it was a very hot and muggy day already. we were biking on a very heavy trafficked highway that would lead us all the way to dc so that was good to have pretty much a straight shot there. we were about 20 miles or so away from warrenton and evan's backtire to give us some more grief and a spoke was broken. we were shocked and upset cause it just doesn't make any sense so we busted out our trusty "bike broke" cardboard sign that we've had since before cedar city, utah but we didn't expect much of anything to come from it since it was a roaring highway. after some time we founded out there was a bike shop maybe 3 miles away so we were just getting ready to start walking when 3 different vehicles stopped to pick us up; the first was a small car that would take awhile unpacking and trying to fit 2 bikes and gear in it, the second was a van that we thought had an empty back (it wasn't empty but didn't know until later), then after we agreed to the van a truck offered but had to take a u-turn to get to us but we told him we'd take the van up. evan somehow crammed his bike into the van and set himself in a contorted way while i started to bike towards manassas which was still 7-10 miles away. evan got his spoke fixed and retrued and i met up with him at the bike shop. we then started our way back up to washington dc. we stopped off at a mcdonalds to get out of the heat and i grabbed some extra calories. the traffic died off after manassas for a bit then it picked back up and got more and more hectic the closer we got to dc. we were just taking hwy 50 and were a few miles out of dc when a cop car pulled up and told me the road was too dangerous and had no shoulder and that he would escort us the rest of the way into dc. i was shocked cause i thought he was going to tell us to get off the highway but he was cool about it. he followed us and guided us with his loud speaker and no cars messed with us or got in our way so we had our own lane and traffic pretty much stayed behind us. when we crossed the bridge he said, "have a safe trip" and jetted off to who knows where. it was a pretty epic way to enter the capital. we found our way to our couchsurfing house to unpack all of our gear and find a bike shop so evan could get a new back rim. we spent a good 2 hours at the bike shop then struggled for an hour or more to find a place to eat dinner. we decided on a mexican restaurant that was super good but when you walked into it you would think it would be a cheap place but it was pretty expensive. just a different adjustment coming to a big city instead of being in smaller towns. we then headed back to the house to meet our wonderful hosts! we enjoyed getting to know gil and nancy; we sat in the living room and chatted for a couple hours about our trip, their lives, d.c. and any other topic we stumbled across. we then decided we should get some sleep to conquer tomorrow.