Today was a great way to start off my trip. Ali came over in the morning with bagels and mimosas. She also brought a few of my friends. Andy, Raquel, Ryan and Joe all came over to see me off. Ryan tried to get me to shotgun a beer but I had to refuse because it was about 9 in the morning. After Ali and Andy left, Ryan and I went to get a few more things I needed at the bike store. On the way there my back tire was locking up because I there wasn’t enough space between the gear and the rear rack that was holding all my stuff. They were able to fix it in about 5 minutes and I was officially ready to begin.
I accidentally took the wrong bridge over the river and wound up in the wrong area of Anacostia but it only took me an extra 5 minutes to get out of there and find my way again. Further up I
asked some firemen for directions because I thought I had missed a turn and they ended up turning me onto a shortcut that saved me a few miles. I reached La Plata, MD around lunch time and saw a hot dog stand where I met Pat Reilly, his wife and daughter. They have the hot dog stand every Tuesday and were very nice to me. They told me that I wouldn’t be able to ride my bike across the bridge I was planning on taking because there is no shoulder but they called a friend of theirs that is a cop and she said that they would be able to drive me across as long as I got there before 4 pm. I reached the bridge in time and got a ride across the river with my bike 
in the back of a maintenance truck. I stopped at a supermarket along the way to pick up some more lunch. I’ve been carrying a loaf of bread and peanut butter the entire trip and having that most days for lunch and sometimes dinner since I’m trying to do this as cheaply as possible.Most of the ride was great with rolling hills that weren’t too hard to climb up and were a lot of fun to go down. I my top speed was 36 miles per hour which feels a lot faster when you’re on a bike. The weather was perfect with little clouds and about 70 degrees but most of the way was in the shade of trees on each side so it helped to keep me cool.
When I reached Warsaw, I asked a lady if there was anywhere to camp and she told me about a
site outside of town that I headed to. She didn’t tell me it was about 8 miles away so after about 3 miles I gave up and pitched my tent in the woods off the side of the road. I was kept up most of the night because I thought that the people in the house next door were either spying on me or going to come out and yell at me. I swear I thought I heard someone typing onto their cell phone.
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