Wet Gravel and Jerky...

I slept better this night, but Tuck didn't sleep very well.  Strange.

We ate dry cereal for breakfast, and then were on the road by 8:30.  

This time I was planning on nearly completing the Pine Creek Rail Trail by evening.  First, we needed groceries and water. In Jersey Shore we stopped at a gas station to relieve our bladders and bought a gallon of water and some pretzels.  I asked the cashier if a grocery store was nearby, and he gladly informed me of a Weis just up the street. 

Since our diet had deteriorated considerably during our visit, I wanted to bring it back up to a somewhat healthy level.  I bought cabbage, apples, grapes, granola, cookies, soy milk(so it wouldn't spoil un-refrigerated), and peanuts.  

We then proceeded onto the trail.  It was a lovely place, but I got very tired of grinding endlessly along a flat gravel trail.  There were no downhills, and that meant few brief breaks.  Just pedal, pedal, pedal, until it was time to snack or go to the bathroom.  Ah, well, at least it wasn't uphill!

We met a group of interesting elderly cyclists on the trail.  They were from near Wellsville, NY and were working on riding 100 miles this year.  It was fun encountering them repeatedly on the trail, since we were headed in the same direction.  

We stopped at Cedar Run for some more of the amazing jerky we had eaten on the way down.  This time I bought 10 pieces!  It had started pouring just as we rode up to the little store, so we sat on the porch and chatted with a couple guys that were also sitting there.  The rain didn't let up very quickly, so Tuck decided we should eat some ice cream while we waited for it to quit.  The ice cream was good, and the conversations floating around were interesting.  By the time the ice cream was gone, so was the rain, so off we went.

Everything was wet, so the gravel stuck to my tires and swished through my fenders annoyingly.  

Here's a photo I took while waiting for Tuck near Rattlesnake Rock.  I took a quick walk down to the rock, and was pretty impressed, but saw no rattlesnakes.  Tuck had already run over two snakes today.  One may have been a small rattlesnake, but I'm not sure.  Yes, they were alive and slithering!

We stopped at the Tiadaghton Camping Area for the night.  We didn't have a camping permit, so we hoped any officials would just stay away.  It rained again, so the ground was rather wet.  We ate random food that we could find in the bag, such as cabbage, apples, grapes, fig newtons, and so on.  It was a very lovely place to camp, and we had it to ourselves.  We even saw some Bald Eagles glide majestically through the gorge.

Both of us were having great difficulty walking.  My Achilles tendons were extremely sore and had been most of the day.  Tuck's thighs were very sore.  I figured the extreme soreness was a result of the mountain yesterday, and hoped it would recede by morning.

The rain stopped enough for me to set up the tents.  Tuck was fixing his front tire, which had acquired a slow leak towards the end of the day.  The leak gradually got faster and faster, and by the time we were at the campground, he had little difficulty finding the puncture.

The sunset was very picturesque...

We bedded down and fell asleep hoping nobody would show up to kick us out...