Tuesday: The Agony and The Ecstasy

The day dawned bright and beautiful and Barry and Lynn were on the road by 9:45 am at the Deal, Pa trail head. We enjoyed a beautiful, bucolic countryside in sunny, crisp weather. Truly, it could not have been more perfect. The trail was hardpacked and fast (at least at the beginning) and humans were few and far between (but those we met were friendly and helpful).




We traveled over a number of stunning viaducts. The most scenic of which was this one called the Keystone.



Barry was fascinated by the windmills and asked me to take pictures of several. This shot was from the Salisbury Viaduct, high over the roadway, with a terrific view of a wind energy ridge.





As most of you would have done, we quoted our favorite poetry to each other. This is a living illustration of Longfellow's forest primeval from "Evangeline:"







Along about Garrett, PA the trail got a little sticky, no doubt saturated from the previous day's rains. We worked our way to Rockwood, PA for lunch and learned that we were smart not to try the trip yesterday as the lady at the convenience store told us that she drove to work in the snow!

We were warned about the detour around the Pinkerton tunnel but took cheer in the fact that it had been "paved" over the weekend. However, two friendly bikers told us that "paving" meant adding two inches of sand and gravel to the surface and in fact it was the roughest mile and a half of the trip. But we persevered and arrived in Ft. Hill, PA 15 minutes ahead of schedule and found our Bill, our tried and true trip support person, waiting for us with bottles of cold water.


Stats:

31 miles in 6.5 hours.
9.018 mph actual peddling time
3 potty breaks
12 pictures taken
hundreds of laughs
cost: priceless