A Trip Cut Short...

It was a beautiful morning that we woke up to.  Chilly, but lovely.  Mist quietly rose off the creek water.  Everything on the mountains was completely shrouded in fog.

A pair of Bald Eagles came and perched in a tree near our camping area.  I was able to get a couple pictures, but they were shy of the camera.

Our legs and ankles were still painful, but we could ride.  I came to the conclusion that my saddle had been set too high.  I had adjusted it during our visit, and must have put it just a little too high.  It caused my feet to extend with each pedal stroke, placing unusual stress on the Achilles tendon.  I lowered my seat, hoping that would enable me to ride the rest of the way home.

 Once again, we got going around 8.  There were about 10 miles of the trail left to ride before we came out at Route 6, or Grand Army of the Republic Highway.  We wanted to avoid the steep dirt road we had taken on the way down, so that meant we were on Rte 6 for probably 20 miles.  

20 miles with little variation.  There were a few small towns to ride through, lots of rolling hills, woods, and a few farms.  There was also a significant side wind that felt like a headwind.  After 10 miles, I was ready to be on a different road....

Finally we turned, and my mindset improved dramatically.  The side road was more interesting and fun to ride with decent downhills and lots of curves.  Twisting winding back roads I find quite enjoyable...

And...in only about 20 miles we would be in New York!

Unfortunately my Achilles tendons were becoming more and more painful as the day went by. 

We stopped for lunch at the same place we had on the way down, near a little creek and a side road.  I tried standing in the creek to cool my tendons, but it didn't help.

In the little Pennsylvania town of Genesee, we stopped at a gas station for some water.  There was less than a mile to go till NY!  We were pretty happy to be getting to the state line.  It was a very clear sign that we were nearing home.

Not long after riding into NY, we noticed that the driver here were definitely less courteous than PA drivers.  How annoying!  Why would a thing as small as a state line have such an impact on the behavior of a person?  I found it fascinating....

We made it to the little campground between Wellsville and Scio that we had stayed in on the way down.  There were only 80 miles between us and home, but my tendons were extremely painful.  I called home to find out if they thought, like I did, that it would be a bad idea to ride 80 more miles on an injury like that.  

Mom decided she could come out and get us that night. 

Here is a picture from when we were waiting...

We were very grateful to her, but I was sad to miss the last leg of the trip, and not finish the way I had planned.  I am glad I didn't further injure my tendons, though.  I hoped they would heal quickly, so I could get back on the bike before too long!

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... 

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...

Day of Rest

Once again it rained in the night...but this time only a little. 

We decided this campground would be a convenient place to rest for a day.  I was very tired and needed to rejuvenate.  
We installed a temporary clothesline and hung our now-pungent clothing up to dry, hoping it would do some good...

We had the rest of the cheap milk on granola for breakfast...I thought it was disgusting, but Tuck was still in great appreciation of the substance...

My hair looked terrrible after three days of lots of sweating and no showers...I decided to try washing my  hair in Pine Creek.  I had brought baking soda to use instead of shampoo, so it wouldn't damage life in the creek the way soap would.  It worked very well...

The creek was a lovely and peaceful place to hang out at.  There were quite a few kayak-ers, tube-ers, and canoe-ers...probably because it was Saturday...

Tuck was fine, and felt ready to roll...but I was so tired I took two naps!  He rode around the immediate area checking out lots of stuff...and discovered what looked like an old abandoned farm, and the area of the camp where the Adirondac shelters were...which is actually where we were supposed to be staying...

Today we also got to see a bald eagle for the first time!  It flew down near enough for us to see it's white head and tail...so beautiful and wild!

Here is a photo of an eage flying high above the mountains...

 My feet had acquired pretty intense tan lines from wearing sandals all the time...

That evening we decided to try making a fire to cook over instead of using the slightly frustrating little camp stove.  Firewood was terribly hard to find...but we did manage to get enough and get a fire going good enough to cook soup!

I cut up all the woody carrots and threw in some bullion, pasta, garlic, cayanne, salt, pepper, and some dried onions too.  It tasted pretty good...though a little smoky....

Our clothes had dried by evening, and so had everything else....

The food bag was actually pretty easy to hoist into the tree since both the rope and the tree branch were dry and slipped easily against each other.  I had been so exhausted that I was ready to go to bed in the evening in spite of the two naps!

Pine Creek Rail Trail

We woke up pretty late...and once again it had rained in the night...

No bears discovered our food stuff.  We had parked the bicycles near the food since I had used beeswax on my panniers and I wasn't sure if bears would be attracted to the smell of it. 

We had been planning on this being a rest day, but changed our minds due the the presence of way too much stinging nettle.  We still took it very easy today...

I walked around before Tuck got up and enjoyed the quiet morning in the woods...

A deer bedding down above the trail at the top of a bank carefully watched me as I walked by and then took pictures of it...

I also surprised and was surprised by a doe nursing her fawn in the undergrowth near the creek...

As soon as she saw me, she kicked her fawn out of the way and watched intently as I walked by, making sure I wasn't going to attack...

 When Tuck finally rose from within his tent, I made a batch of pancakes...

They were easy to burn since the bottom of our pan was just thin steel, but they tasted amazing anyway...

My tent looked so comfortable and cozy...it had become my home.

  We were able to dry out the tents, sleeping bags, sleeping pads, and tarps completely before packing them away.  We finally got started around 12:00.  Shortly after we started, it began raining in spurts.  I decided to put my poncho on, since I was wearing the only dry clothing I had.  About one mile down the trail, we came upon a neatly mowed camping area with a water pump and toilets!  Oh well, we slept well despite the nettles and tall grass...

At the camp area there was cheerful group of elderly cyclists that had paused to don their rain gear.  They asked me to take a photo of them all dressed up! 

Unfortunately the water pump at that camp area had a bacterial warning on it, so we didn't fill up there.  Farther along the trail we passed through the small town of Cedar Run which had a tourist-oriented store not far off the trail...

The proprietor offered the use of his outside spicket for us to fill up our water bottles with.  As thanks, I bought a few pieces of very tasty, satisfying jerky.

We traveled pretty late, since we had to ride 40 miles....all in the afternoon.

The "Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania" was very beautiful...

The old railroad bridges were fun to ride over and pretty nice to look at...

As we neared our evening campsite, we stopped at a gas station/general store out in hickville...

There was a poor selection of poor quality foods available, but I bought some anyway.  The quart of cheap milk tasted better than just about any milk we'd had....to our starving bodies.   The spoiling, woody carrots weren't palatable, even to us!  I saved them for cooking another day...

Bonnell Flats, the camping site that was our destination for the day, was lovely.  There were fire rings, picnic tables, mowed grass, and easy creek access.  We were (at least I was) very happy to stop for the day...

 I fixed some tasty chili on our stove...but didn't use the carrots.  We drank half the milk, and reluctantly saved the rest to eat with granola the next morning.  It was good to have mowed grass and a place to sit. 

Pennsylvania!

Once again there was pouring rain and plenty of thunder during the night.  Our freshly washed clothes were not dry, our freshly dried tents were soaked again...

 All the wet clothing we ended up stuffing into a plastic bag and strapping onto the trailer.  We filled up with water, ate breakfast and soon were on our way. 

Today we were planning on entering PA and reaching the Pine Creek Rail Trail. 
As we neared the border we traversed a very pleasant back road through the woods...

Once, when we passed through a cluster of dingy houses (I think it could be considered a small town) we suprised a young couple making out on a porch.  When they noticed us passing by, the girl suddenly stopped, turned, and hollered " 'Ello!" then watched us ride past, as if acting like nothing had been going on....

We got back on route 19 to cross into Pennsylvania...

 The wide shoulders were great...especially when there was truck traffic...

Thankfully the truckers were usually considerate and respectful and we had no problems with them.

I didn't get a photo of my NY maps...but they were just Google print-outs.  I stuck the maps in a Ziploc bag and clothes-pinned that to the top of my handlebar bag.  I was very pleased with how well such a simple map case worked!  The yellow line was our route across the map...

 For lunch we stopped along a stream in a grassy mowed area.

Tuck is searching for food...

I tried to dry the clothes in the sun...but they didn't have time to completely dry out.

 People continally waved at us!  We kept being surprised by the friendliness of strangers.  Gradually we were learning to expect a wave....and to respond in time.

We found out today that sometimes roads that look like shortcuts on the map, are actually too much trouble.  My route directed us up Parker Hill Road...just out of Loucks Mills.  It was a dirt road...up a mountain...with a very steep grade at the beginning.  The road was labeled at the intersection, but there were no other markers along the length of it, and I was very unsure about whether it was the correct route!  As it turned out, it was the right way, but we will be finding another route home!

This photo wasn't of the steep section....but it was definitely dirt!

There were wild strawberries in places along the shoulder...and those things are some of the tastiest morsels!

It rained a little as we were working our way through the back-country hills of PA.  The road was warm from the earlier sunshine and that caused rising steam...

It makes for poor visibility...but an amazing picture!

Here is a photo of the first main road we pedaled in this state...Grand Army of the Republic Highway, or Route 6.  Just the name made the highway deserve a picture!

This route brought us into Astonia, where we picked up the Pine Creek Trail.

It was such a lovely place!

 We discovered that only 20 years ago Pine Creek was dying from mining pollution.  We never guessed.  Everyone that has worked on it is doing such a good job cleaning it up.....it is beautiful!

There are countless 'runs' where water runs off the mountains and into Pine Creek.  Here is one with a nice bridge...

Tuck convinced me to push onward until we accomplished 60 miles before camping.  We ended up camping in very tall grass and stinging nettle...

 There was an uncalled-for amount of this painful plant!

 We hoisted the bag of food into a tree about 100 feet from our campsite to deter bear visits.

It was a little difficult, but with me hauling on the rope and Tuck throwing the food bag, we got it maybe 7 or 8 feet above the ground.  Our rope wasn't terribly strong, and we didn't want to break it...or we would have both just hauled on the rope until the bag was high enough.

 Here is a final photo of both the food and bikes, and the tents...

 It was lovely and quiet since there wasn't civilization very close by. 

Tuck ate leftover spaghetti for supper, and I ate raisins and peanut butter. 

We expected rain, since it had rained every night so far, so we didn't even bother to try to dry the still-damp and now-smelly clothes.