I had all week to select a day to do this ride and thought that the rainy weather that began the week would be over on Wednesday plus the winds would be light so I left around 5am to hopefully time getting to Annapolis around sunrise so I could actually see the water and perhaps even a nice sunrise. However what actually happened is the misty weather continued on into all morning for this ride. I had no real issues riding the big roads east from Washington, I had a very generous shoulder for most of it and in any case most of the traffic was heading towards DC anyway. I crossed the big bridge over the Severn river at its mouth at the Chesapeake Bay and jumped onto the Baltimore and Annapolis trail. Up to this point it had been misting off and on, not too heavy to really get all that wet thankfully. Temperature around 65. But soon after getting on the trail it began to lightly rain until everything was wet all around me, even under all the trees, so my un fendered bike was throwing water up and soon I was wet too. Temperature was around 60 so I was not as warm as I would have liked although I was ok. Definitely wished I had brought my rain jacket. But thankfully it slacked off before I got to my jump off point for the trail near Baltimore and then stopped for awhile during the parts through the city. Baltimore was alternately quiet streets, short sections of busy road and very lovely deserted paths. The Patapsco river valley section was really beautiful. A paved path beside very tall trees along a gently flowing river over many rocks and a tall forest along a pretty steep little gorge. Didn't feel like I was very near one of the biggest cities in the country. The hill up and out of this valley was pretty long and steep in parts. I meandered on through more streets and eventually stopped for the first time of the ride at a Shell station amid a vast shopping complex. Decided I didn't want to bother with a grocery store or a fast food stop so I just got normal stuff and topped off my bottles. In only a couple miles I was on the next rail trail of the day heading north to the Pennsylvania border on the Northern Central Railroad trail. It was mostly empty of people on this misty Wednesday morning. It was still off and on light or heavy mist at times. Temperature mostly holding steady since the rain stopped around 65. No wind at all. The rail was very smooth finely crushed gravel. It rose very gradually in elevation for 10 or so miles and then descended a couple hundred feet till I got off near Glen Rock after I grabbed snacks at a little gas station there. I rode into the hills of the PA farm country. Some roads were extremely steep and there was almost no traffic at all. Some really fun gravel roads here and some great scenery and good views at the tops of the hills. I maintained eating and drinking well through the halfway point and feeling pretty good. I rode on back across the border and through more hilly farm country in Maryland. Very fun curvy fast descents and still no traffic indicating I was not really inside the zone of Metro DC and Baltimore anymore. I stopped at a Dollar General in the tiny town of Union Bridge and I really packed my bike intending to hopefully avoid having to stop again for the remainder of the ride. Sometime mid afternoon it finally stopped misting for good but the sky was still thick with clouds. I bypassed stores in Mount Airy and eventually began to gradually descend from the lofty average elevation of the hilly country as I went further south. The sun set long before I was even close to the DC metro. So I was riding with lights for a good hour or two before I turned off the road network. It was mostly very quiet traffic wise and I felt pretty safe with my radar on. I was glad to turn off onto what I figured would be a short unpaved path section on the Upper Rock Creek trail. Initially it was grass with a very faint dirt track in the middle running behind some houses. I turned off my rear light and was keen to be as quiet as I could as I was almost certain it was closed between sunset and sunrise. The grass and the clay were wet from the wet days previous and so it was slippery and messy. In addition the short section turned out to be very long and also quite narrow and even somewhat technical at times. For some reason I envisioned a wide gravel path but what I got was singletrack at best and at worst thick grass or kinda muddy clay. I was in a hurry to get to the paved part of the path because I wanted to be done but also because I knew I would be more in the clear legally about riding there. The trail was totally devoid of people and far enough away from houses and such that I felt pretty comfortable riding it thankfully. I actually went down at one point on the slippery clay and into the soft grass, very gently thankfully, and the bike was okay despite my falling on the right side. I resolved to take corners a bit slower and managed to keep it upright the rest of the ride. At great length I finally arrived at the paved Rock Creek trail and rode it for awhile and was glad to be making slightly faster forward progress. I peeled off and rode Beach drive which paralleled the path till. I planned this because it was short and in any event I was about to head onto the streets to shortcut the path a bit. I wished I had stayed on the path here because it was still busy enough out that I got passed by several cars despite the short length of the section. Everyone on the whole ride was very generous with giving me space though thankfully. I rode through a suburb on the deserted street network and then on another section of Beach drive that had gates stopping through car traffic(but allowed bikes though). And I was looking forward to a very quiet trip down the streets of DC which I figured would be empty but I had picked a main drag of a street to travel south on and it was fully of activity which commanded all of my attention and was actually quite stressful despite a bike path. In retrospect I should have just gone ove to another paralell road but I was foggy with fatigue and decided to just stick with it. Eventually I worked my way off the main drag and onto some quieter streets and finally rolled in way after I thought I would mostly due to the slow trails and all the intersections through the city. But I felt pretty servicable at the end despite it all. I was definitely ready to be done though. The route was pretty on point and didn't have any errors and I didn't have to make any detours so the end mileage was very close to the planned out mileage.