A Day of Firsts...

We woke up ready to ride this morning... 

Packing went smoothly and quickly, and we were back on the road between 8:30 and 9:00....if I remember correctly.

The trail ended in the PA town of Jersey Shore...where we stopped to take care of our now-dry, but very smelly, unwearable clothing. 

Squeaky Kleen Laundry did the trick...

Across the street from the laundromat was a store I had never seen before.  A store of addictions...and it was very busy...

We had two route options after Jersey Shore...we could take route 220 to Williamsport and then pick up Bike Route J, or we could take the smaller route 44 down to Allenwood, again picking up Bike Route J across the Susquehanna River.  We decided to go with route 44, since 220 was limited to only motor vehicles...

This added one mountain, but we thought that would be okay...

We did survive...but some of it was very steep!

Here are our bikes near the top...with the final murderous incline in view...

There were no shoulders, but the traffic wasn't bad at all.  We even saw a couple other cyclists on our way up!  They were on fancy racing bikes, and were breezing past us on their way down, but it was encouraging to see them...

Here is the not very gradual incline we just rode up...

And here is the very steep bit we were about to tackle...

After we conquered the beast...this is what she looked like...

On our way down the mountain we had to stop a couple times to cool our rims since we tried to keep our speed under 30mph.  A cyclist passed us going the same direction...on his fast light bike.  At the bottom of the mountain we passed him....he had stopped for a snack.  A few miles later he caught up to us and chatted for a bit...

We then had our first flat....Tuck had noticed a slow leak on our way up the mountain, but just pumped it up hard, and watched it carefully.  A few miles after our cyclist friend left us, Tuck's tire went splat...patching was necessary.

In one the small towns along the Susquehanna that we passed through I stopped at a grocery store and picked up bananas, apples, fig newtons, cookies, walnuts, and yogurt.  I had started craving fruit for the last few days...especially bananas...

When we left the store, I was suddenly incredibly tired.  It was only mid-afternoon, but I felt like setting up camp and going to bed right away.  Unfortunately that was not to be...

We had decided to try to make at least 60 miles today, because that would make it possible to get to our destination tomorrow....

By the time we got to Shamokin Dam, I was getting slightly irrational in my handling of tractor trailer passes...I even panicked once and almost crashed.  After that, I was very careful and made sure I was relaxed and didn't freeze up whenever one went by.  Thankfully, almost every truck was very courteous.  One even forced oncoming traffic to get over so he wouldn't intimidate us!

Riding through Shamokin Dam and Sunbury was pretty frustrating.  We had a hard time finding the correct roads, and the traffic was pretty bad...

The dam itself was interesting though...

A few fisherman were wading and boating just past it...

As we were riding along a street that I was desperately hoping was the correct one, a young man stopped us with great enthusiasm.  He had been thinking of bike camping and thought we were "rad".  It was a "sign from God" that we rode past his house...nobody like us ever comes up his street.  He was very excited, and I sure hope we didn't discourage him by our lack-luster responses to his questions.  We were tired, frustrated, and not even sure if we were on the right road! 

Thankfully, not far out of Sunbury we came upon a cemetery with an old church-turned-dining-hall, parsonage, new, larger church, and outside pavilions and bathrooms.  We stopped and asked the parson if we could camp in the graveyard.  He was very generous....gave us the key to the dining hall and told us we could sleep inside if we wanted...oh joy!

I was so exhausted this evening that it was wonderful not having to set up camp!

We didn't even fix supper...just ate fig newtons, walnuts and yogurt...

It was great to sit on real chairs...with backs!  We brought our bikes inside the little sanctuary, and were able to take sponge baths in the bathrooms.  Flush toilets and plenty of easily accessible clean water were also welcome luxuries!!

It was a wonderful place after an exhausting, 63-mile day...