Diane and Bob McCallum rolled into town last week, she on her Trek bicycle, he in his pick-up truck pulling an Airstream trailer. They left La Push on the coast of Washington a couple of months back. Diane rode 3,569 miles over 60 days of cycling with Bob providing support and nighttime accommodations.
“Bucket list,” she said. “It’s been on the list for 40 years. I wanted to ride ocean to ocean and when we checked out the map, we saw Washington D.C. and between the capital and the ocean we saw Milton and we knew Dogfish Head was in Milton so that sealed the deal for us.”
“We love microbrew craft beers,” said Bob. “Dogfish has always made such good beer and we told ourselves a while back that we had to go there some day.”
“Dogfish has the mother ship of brew pubs,” said Diane.
They stopped at the Milton brewery on their way to Rehoboth to finish the ocean-to-ocean odyssey and then went to the brew pub to celebrate. Then they went to the Dogfish Inn in Lewes to complete the trifecta. “We completed the Beermuda Triangle all in one afternoon,” said Diane.
She said she rode as many rail trails as possible. “I’m more of a mountain biker than a road biker - I don’t like cars.” The Great Allegheny Passage, that hooks up with the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Park Trail, connects Pittsburgh with Washington D.C. via Cumberland. Md. - the last long rail-trail link before crossing the Chesapeake onto the Delmarva Peninsula.
“I had a few suck-it-up buttercup moments but made it through,” said Diane. A high metal bridge with see-through grates over the Missouri River near Decatur, Illinois tested her courage. “Heights and water are a bad combination for me but I giggled, laughed and screamed all the way across. Then there was a dead beaver on the bridge approach to greet me. Just one of those things.”
Next on Diane’s bucket list?
“The Appalachian Trail. Maybe summer after next.”
In the mean time, the couple is now on their way back to home base in Montrose, Colorado. It will be cold there.
“We’ll probably head south to Arizona when we get home,” said Bob. ” As you can tell, we thoroughly enjoy traveling.”
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Dennis Forney has been a journalist on the Delmarva Peninsula since 1972 and has been writing his Barefootin’ column for The Whale and then the Cape Gazette for more than 30 years. Like his Barefootin' Facebook page to get notified of blog updates.
