Trippin' with Susan Straley

  Last I wrote we just started our ride on the Great Allegheny Passage Trail.   We spent two nights at the Hilton in Homestead.  It is a nice hotel right on the trail about six miles south of Point Park.  Point park is the place with the fountain where two rivers come together and where most riders of the whole GAP trail start or end their rides. We had a whole day to explore Pittsburgh by bike.  Our shuttle driver had told us that besides being the city of steel manufacturing, Pittsburgh is the city of bridges.  With two rivers converging there, and highways and trains it is understandable and very evident as we rode around the city. We went to the Science Museum and enjoyed a planetarium show.  I always learn something at these things.  Like the zodiac constellations are all in a row across the sky.  All the other things I learned, I quickly forgot.  My brain isn't the sponge...  I was going to say isn't the sponge it used to...

Greetings from the shade of my kitchen in Inverness, Florida, In two weeks Steve and I are flying to NY to watch the solar eclipse and visit his family.  This weekend they got seven inches of snow!   I can't remember if I purged my winter boots when I was cleaning out my storage or if they are stored up in Steve's attic.  I guess I will have to do some searching before I buy a pair.  We might even do some skiing or snow showing in the Adirondacs while we are there! As you can tell from the title of this post, we made it home from our bicycle ride.  I apologize to Steve, as I did not spend a lot of time planning this trip, I guess. And our motels turned out to be a lot further apart than I had expected.  We didn't always follow the Google path.  So we had three days in a row of higher than planned days.  50-ish.  And me on a new-to-me bike seat.  Let's just say, the pain made me wonder at times why I ever thought this would be fun. S...

 Greeting from Lake Mary, Florida, Last night after I wrote to you, Steve and I walked the side walk and trail to the Honeysuckle.  There we ate dinner.  Bruce will be glad to know we broke our streak of bad luck picking places to dine.  This was yummy.  With spicey green beans, cornbread, black-eyed peas, steamed cabbage, and sweet potato tots for me and catfish and cheezy grits for Steve,   home style southern cooking. When we arrived back at the B&B it was all lit up.  Nice! I use Google maps with the bicycle level turned on to map our rides.  Most the time the routing is spot on.  But I had a hunch when we got to the end of the Spring To Spring Trail, that it was putting us on the road when it didn't need to.  But that was later in the day, let me start from the beginning.  We departed shortly after sunrise. It was a cold morning but by 9 am we were starting to peel off a layer. We encountered a group of cyclists doing ...