Live Simply, Bike Often: Endless (but beautiful) Pennsylvania

Today we are officially half way through the grand state of Pennsylvania, in a little town called Renovo, PA that sits on the west branch of the Susquehanna River.  Our odometer reads 310 miles so far over 6 days of biking.

Physically, I am at the point where my entire lower body is pretty sore, but there are no sharp pains like I felt the first few days.

We have learned a lot about roads and how they are mapped out.  When roads pass by lakes, there is usually a downhill as we approach a beach or marina and an uphill as we leave it. Roads along major rivers are flat-ish and mostly go along a ridge of hills or mountains. Roads that are really windy that don't go along rivers are mountainous, because why else would they have so many curves?

All this noticing is possible because we are travelling by bicycle. I believe cars go to fast to appreciate all of the little things, the pockets of beauty not advertised by a flashing road sign. It is too easy to press a gas pedal to get where you want to go- and we as a society pay a large price for it in the form of our health, environment and communities.

Zoey's favorite places to bike through are the little towns with one country store and maybe a gas station or a post office. All of those towns have stories and quiet but distinct personalities. Almost every place we stop for lunch we will get asked about our trip and people's mouths will drop when we tell them our end destination. People have been so kind and friendly too us, much more than I expected. I suppose that low expectation is from growing up in New York City where you can walk past a million people in a day and not talk to a single one. Now that I think about it, that's quite an odd thing.

Our day on Thursday was near perfect. We started out on a small lightly travelled road down from Hunlock Creek past Shickshinny Lake. The lake was glistening and the sky was vast and clear. We stopped at a post office to send some stuff home and the lady there was very interested in our trip, so I gave her the link to this blog. I wonder if she ever checked it out! The rest of the day until lunch was rolling hills through the countryside. There were many farms with majestic barns and horses or cows to go along with them. We stopped in a small town exactly like I was just describing called Rohlsburg. We sat on a bench outside a country store and ate our usual lunch of almond butter sandwiches and trail mix. We wanted to buy bananas to put in our sandwiches but the store didn't sell any fruit.

The rest of the day was along a ridge called Limestone Ridge which was almost perfectly flat and reminded Zoey very much of Ohio. We saw many cornfields and long stretches of straight road. That road took us right into Milton, Pa. In Milton we stayed with a couple we contacted on WarmShowers.com, a website like couchsurfing.org but specifically for touring cyclists. Lee and Cindy were very sweet, cooked us dinner and breakfast and allowed us to do laundry. We had a fun time hearing about Lee's bike tours back in the day, and Zoey really enjoyed watching a Graceland documentary with him.

While we were looking at maps on his computer we realized that are next two days were both around 65 miles and over a lot of mountainous parts. We decided that we would probably not make it and instead would split those two days into three.

Yesterday we stayed at a campsite called Happy Acres Resort near Waterville PA. It was a pretty happy experience save for the steep gravel hill we had to push our bikes up to get to the office. Our day getting there was not so easy- it was hot and stressful at parts. The first part of the day was fine; rolling hills until we hit Racoon Mountain. It was a 600 ft elevation gain over 1 mile, so we walked our bikes up the majority of the hill. Halfway up we took a break and finally finished off the trail mix that we had carried from New York, just as the chocolate chips were melting from the sun.

Ironically, there was heavy car traffic at the top from road work, and it felt nice to swiftly ride by all of the idling cars and trucks waiting their turn. At the bottom of the hill lay Williamsport, a largeish city that is apparently the home of the Little League World Series. Cool!

In Williamsport we stopped at a bike shop to pump up tires, buy water bottle cages and buy Zoey handlebar tape. She had been riding all this time gripping the metal handlebars directly, which was painful and numbing. After Williamsport we set out on a road that actually turned into a full fledged highway. For some reason I had missed that classification detail and unknowingly put us in a lot of danger. We road on the shoulder of the highway for over 10 miles, trudging on despite the cars zooming by at 70 MPH. Only when we stopped at a gas station and a truck driver told us straight how dangerous the road was and how many people get killed on it did we snap to our senses and stop ignoring the danger. We had 5 miles to go, and there was literally no other road to take. From the gas station we pretty much walked our bikes as far to the right on the shoulder as we could until we found a car mechanic shop. Just at the moment we pulled up a car was being towed on a large truck. We talked to the lady driving and she offered graciously to strap our bikes on too, gear and all. She was horrified that we had been biking on that road! She gave us a ride to the start of the Little Pine Trail Bike Path, which starts in Jersey Shore PA and goes north for over 60 miles. It is a rail trail with a crushed stone surface, but we didn't even mind. We were just so thrilled to be biking without any cars nearby. Plus, the trail was extremely flat, shaded and gorgeous.

We got to the campsite after 7 and finally had our first opportunity to use the stove. We cooked pasta, and it worked great. Unfortunately, as I was draining the pasta using the lid, it slipped and the entire meal spilled on the ground. It was at that moment that i almost started crying, but Zo was very forgiving. We carefully scooped it back into the pot and rinsed it as thoroughly as we could. We had some Indian food pre cooked packages that we added on top of the pasta so I didn't notice too much that there were probably lots of little pine leaves intermixed in the pasta. There is definitely a lower standard of cleanliness that had to be embraced when you go on adventures like this.

Today was a shorter day, only 30 miles. We started the day climbing a mountain, ascending for almost 7 miles. It was a gradual hill, so I was able to get into my lowest gear and just chug away straight up the mountain. On our way down we pulled into Hyner Run state park, a lovely campground nestled at the base of a mountain with a stream running through it. They even had a pool, so we were able to get a swim in before heading on. I love having the time and flexibility to do spontaneous things like that! Tonight we splurged for a motel with no other options available. Tomorrow is a longish day, but I think we should be fine. 4 days until Ohio!