CloseLocal Treks
Tuesday, 27 July 2010
Delaware & Raritan Canal Towpath
It's a bit of an understatement that it's been hot lately. Even so, we have found some good, cool(er), mostly shady places to bike - and the Delaware & Raritan Canal Towpath is the latest and greatest.
To get there, we drove to Washington Crossing State Park in New Jersey, following the directions of the nice Short Bike Rides Around Philly book that we picked up a few months ago. There's parking on both the towpath itself and in the state park, with a pedestrian bridge from the latter.
It's a fairly flat ride, with the verdant canal on one side, trees and then the river on the other. There was a great breeze and we did the 7 miles to Lambertville pretty quickly - our goal was to ride there and back before the heat really hit at noon. Just before Lambertville (which is a really cute town), we stopped and looked at the canal locks, and then stopped again to look at the local playground… you know the drill. Lots of singleton bikers smiled and waved, and one asked if we'd dropped a bag of cheerios on the trail (nope, not us - we had dried mangoes and banana chips).
Once in Lambertville, we debated stopping for a snack, but opted to walk across the bridge to New Hope. The bridge is pedestrian only, and both New Hope (in Pennsylvania) and Lambertville (in New Jersey) have plenty of art galleries, antique shops, and places to grab a quick bite or to sit down for lunch. We finally settled on eating in Lambertville and then starting the 7 mile ride back, which we did by about 11:30, after refilling our water bottles.
The sun had passed over the trees on the path, increasing the shade, but even so, it was a hot, dusty ride back. I was glad we had the trailer bike, as our daughter could rest if she wanted. We'd also purchased a camelback for her, which allowed her to stay hydrated while she rested. She weighed in once for us to duct-tape an iPad onto her dad's back so that she could watch movies, but then she was distracted by checking out the geese and swans along the canal, and describing the cat-tails she'd seen for the first time. We made it back to the car drenched in sweat and cranked the A/C, but we were all happy with our ride.
In May, I'd put the Cyclemeter app onto my iPhone, and since then I've been tracking our rides. It's a great tool for all of us, especially the maps that we can use to reflect on where we've been. Another plus is that it tracks inclines, mileage, and speeds - over the course of a single ride, as well as a month. I know a lot of apps do this, but I like how simple this one is. The D&R Towpath ride was 14.4 miles and took us about an hour and a half. We could have stayed on the path and gone up to Frenchtown… but that's another ride for another (cooler) day.
What does our daughter think of all this riding? She's excited to go on some longer, multi-day rides, and it cracks her up when people ask if she's doing all the work on the trailer bike. She gets tired sometimes, and takes breaks, and we've found that getting her biking gloves helped a lot. But she also likes seeing new places. One of the reasons we decided to drive to the Towpath instead of a Fairmount Park ride is that she had grown a little bored with our usual rides. And encouraging her to help pick the rides is part of the fun. We also got to talk a little history, about that guy who rowed across the Delaware, which was cool.
Trackback URL for this blog entry:
Digg
Newsvine
Reddit
StumbleUpon
del.icio.us
Simpy
Fark
Furl
Twitter
Technorati
Google
Facebook
Local Treks
Recent Posts
Archives
- July 2010
- June 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- September 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
Distant Lands
Tag Cloud
airlines airplane airplanes airports animals aquarium archaeology arizona art asia baby-proofing bad weather baltimore baseball bathrooms bavaria beaches biking boats books bowling bribery brooklyn business class california camper canada caves central america cheese chinese new year circus cleveland coast colorado communications community crafts crib delaware diapers dining out easter entertainment europe factory farm farmer's markets festivals fiji fireworks florida france free fresh air funky games gardens germany great britain greece haunted hiking historic history holiday hotel hotels hudson river ice cream inauguration indonesia indoors ireland know-it-all leech london lunar new year maclaren malaysia mall maps maryland midwest mistakes money mountain museums music national parks nature new hampshire new jersey new york new zealand north carolina ontario open air open house oregon panama parade paris parks pennsylvania philadelphia pirates planning playgrounds pretzels ptri rainforest rainy day renaissance river road trip safety scuba self-catering smithsonian southwest souvenirs sports events storm stroller stuff tennessee tours towpath toys trains utah virginia washington dc weather whimsy winter winter travel wisconsin zoo
Most Popular
Most Commented
- How to get crayon off of a rental car
- Ireland - first and foremost, check out:
- The Kindness of Strangers
- How (not) to get an Infant's US Passport in 27 Easy Steps
- Landing gear: airplanes up close and personal
Reviews and News
- Love: The Novara Afterburner
21 Sep 2009 - Postcards! We're 1!
17 Oct 2008 - Rockabye - 2 great places we sleep
24 Jul 2008 - More...
Subscribe Here!
- TWC Site Feed
- TWC Blogs
- Distant
- Local
Comments
reply this post
answer this topic
reply this post
respond this post
answer this topic
respond this topic
respond this topic
re
reply
answer this post
Re: Delaware & Raritan Canal Towpath
Re: Delaware & Raritan Canal Towpath
Re: Delaware & Raritan Canal Towpath
dm@angular
cheilitis
answer
The Lynch of red soled on display
ganjames
Re: Delaware & Raritan Canal Towpath
Heartbeats White Beginning last year, Chinese fishing vessels such as spate waters in Okinawa and Nagasaki, Dr Dre Beats Lady Gaga
Heartbeats Red and Japan generated friction.
Okinawa in September last year, Dr Dre Beats Lady Gaga
Heartbeats Black the Senkaku Islands (Diaoyu islands that I - Ben Wang note) so that the collision occurred waters of Japan-China relations deteriorated sharply. Beats By Dre Monster Beats Tour Purple High Resolution In-Ear He
The end of August this year, two Chinese vessels violated the fishery around the Senkaku islands in Japan's territorial waters. Dr Dre Beats
Electroplating Studio Limited Edition Senkaku islands belong to Japan Ishigaki made to strengthen the central government marine guard requirements. Beats By Dr Dre Studio Headphones Champagne High Definition Powe Mayor of Zhongshan Elan stressed: "To protect the safety of fishermen will continue to request." Beats by Dre Studio
Gold Monster Headphones He said that if the Chinese government does not carry out their law-abiding fishermen education, Monster Beats By Dre
Blue Studio Headphonesit is equal to tolerate the illegal operations.
In November, a Chinese fishing boat into the Goto Islands, Beats Studio High Definition Powered Isolation Headphones Pink Nagasaki Prefecture of Japan's territorial waters, Beats By Dre Studio Headphones White High Definition Powered Isothe captain due to avoid boarding while being arrested. Five islands of the fishery co-director of Gold Fields Senior Code for a long time, Monster Cable Diddybeats In-Ear Headphones said: "Chinese fishing boats in the fishery have seen I do not dare close to the fear of conflict, Monster
Beats Studio Nate Robinson headphones Apple Greenterrible."
[Kyodo Tokyo on December 14 (Xinhua) - Han Guohai Police are operating illegally by Chinese fishermen stabbed stabbing incident, Dr Dre Beats Spider
-Man Studio Limited Edition last year suffered the Senkaku example collision near the island of Japan and the Japan Coast Guard has decided, 2011 New
Beats By Dre Studio Kobe Bryant Limited Edition through the Korea Coast Guard and diplomatic means to collect relevant information.
Paul said, according to the Sea of Japan, Dr Dre Beats Lady Gaga
Heartbeats White as of last year, Chinese fishing vessels operating illegally seized the number one per year, but after November of this year jumped to 4. However, Dr Dre Beats Lady Gaga
Heartbeats BlackChinese fishing vessels had never been violent resistance, even in the collision last September in Japan, Monster Beats Studio Lamborghini Limited Editionforced together in a patrol ship, maritime security officer after foot fishing boat, Roc Nation Headphones has not made significant resistance.
MEPC will continue in the waters around the Senkaku Islands in order to send a patrol to continue to monitor the country. Monster Beats by Dr Dre Graffiti Limited Edition Headphones Red Ishigaki in Okinawa Prefecture and the Ministry of Maritime Security Eleventh District of Coast Guard Headquarters, Dr Dre Beats
Michael Jackson Studio Limitedbut also stand ready to patrol the emergency call.
In October, Ishigaki MEPC replacement deployment, Justbeats Solo High Definition On-ear Headphones with ControlTal and replaced with a helicopter landing Fu Ganghai protection for large patrol. Coast Guard University (in Hiroshima) is also stepping force on the boat together analog operations training ship. Monster
Beats Solo High Performance with ControlTalk BlackCoast Guard, said: "South Korea will have the full incident investigation and research, in order to take foolproof measures."song.
nice post
respond
respond this post
answer this topic
plumbers
Water Damage Oceanside
Re: Delaware & Raritan Canal Towpath