Memorial Day 2020 Epic Bike Ride

For our Memorial Day celebration during the pandemical lockdown, we went on an epic bike ride. We rode from our house to The Mall in Columbia (and back again). The round trip is over twenty miles, so we packed some snacks and planned for breaks along the way.

At our first break, my youngest spotted some squirrels playing in the park.

Pointing to...

...squirrels!

Here's a close up if you couldn't spot them

Our next stop was by Savage Mill for a snack. Unfortunately we were too early to get a snack at the stores so we ate what we brought.

Enjoying a snack

The next leg of our journey took us along the Patuxent Branch Trail. This trail runs under I-95, far under it!

The highway bridge

We took another little break but not for too long since a spider was sharing our bench.

Bench with spider, pixels on screen (2020)

Here's a close up in case you weren't able to spot him (sorry if you didn't want a close up)

We walked down to the river (the Patuxent!) and threw some rocks in.

Enjoying the river

The trail soon turned to pavement which meant we made better time.

Moving faster

After about an hour, we made it to Lake Elkhorn where we had (you guessed it) another snack. We broke out our travel cups and shared a drink of juice.

The falls at Lake Elkhorn (sounds like an apartment complex)

We went further along the trails till we hit Owen Brown. Memorial Day weekend is when swimming pools open in our area. Sadly, with the corona virus lockdown, no public pools are opening. We saw one of the closed pools (along with a closed playground).

Pool and playground (sounds like a British pub)

Here's a close up in case you couldn't see how the swings were locked down by being locked up

Soon enough we were on the bridge going over Route 29, which meant our destination was not far at all.

This bridge looks more impressive from the road

Taking the above picture, my group (i.e. my family) got too far ahead of me and I lost them at the next turn. I figured my way to the mall and somehow managed to get there before they did! I went up a steep hill, which they probably avoided.

Across from the mall

We tried to get take out from Union Jack's, a British-pub-style restaurant just outside the mall. After perusing their menu on our phones and picking out what we wanted to eat (which took a while), we called to order. Then we found out that they would not open for business until 4 p.m.! Their excuse was Memorial Day. We looked around the map for other mall-perimeter restaurants that might be open (the food court being inside and closed for business). We found a pizza place not too far and put an order in. The food would be ready in twenty minutes which was plenty of time to get there. On the way, we spotted a Chick-fil-A tent set up for sales by the entrance to the food court. We would have ordered that if we knew it was an option. Too bad they didn't advertise better!

The pizza joint had some interesting art outside.

Sculptures by the restaurant

A dad came by with his kids (and some food from Shake Shack). They played on the flower in the picture, sliding down the petal into the center. I was surprised.

We ate our pizza which was very good.

Us eating

After finishing lunch, we rode through the mall's parking lot rather than around the outside. The lot was totally empty on Memorial Day Monday. The experience was surreal.

An empty lot

On the way back, my oldest had more energy and kept getting ahead of the rest of us. I caught up once and had him stop. We looked back and eventually the rest of our crew came into view.

Can you spot the approaching bikes?

Here's a close up in case it's too hard to spot them in the above picture

On our way back down the Patuxtent Trail, we stopped at another part of the river to throw more stones into the water. Our only problem was the lack of stones in the area.

Looking for a rock to throw

The bike ride was fun but exhausting. The next day we did very little! Except smile, of course.