Trippin' with Susan Straley

Greetings! We went back in Ohiopyle.  This time by bike. And what an awesome ride!  Waterfalls and cliffs on the right, the Youghiogheny river down on the left.  Sometimes it was placid and sometimes the river was roaring.  And then it seemed all day perfect weather and a canopy of trees.  Across from the river was a busy train track.  If it came when I was in the right spot on a river bend, it sounded like it was roaring up behind me. I had a nice chat with a couple from Sacramento, California.   Along the trail was a memorial to the 239 men killed in a mining explosion.  As a result miners no longer wore open flames for light. A couple trees were down.! I was able to create ramps to rolle my heavy bike over them. We started on day one riding eight miles to the Pittsburgh mile marker about 150 mile.  Day 2 we passed mile marker 100. Painted tanks outside a cut glass shop. I was the first to roll out of the GAP Trail campground. I ride slower than Joan.  So sometime during the day she

Greetings,  I hope this finds you well. These pictures and stories are not in sequence as I am trying to figure out how to blog on my phone. Joan stopped ahead of me and took this picture of me riding out of an underpass.   I passed a red smelly waterfall.  I hear there are several on the trail.  A reminder of the many abandoned iron and coal mines in the area.  This smells a little like sulfur, a sign says it is water from an old mine and is acidic and a major source of pollution. Joan is an experienced bike tourist as you can see by her neat pack.  She said keep your raincoat on top. We stopped  at a cemetery and campground in Dravo where a soldier was buried from the war of 1812 and about nine from the civil war. Is a consort a lady friend without a marriage certificate?  I have yet to google it. Once out of Pittsburgh ant it’s burbs, the trail became bluffs on one side and the river on the other. McKeesport was industrial but had a park on the trail with a nice statue of John F Ken

 We parked in a burb and biked unloaded to the start of our ride.  Mile zero in Pittsburgh.  

 Greetings from the Allegheny Mountains. I am glad I got here a few days before our bike tour.  There is a lot to explore near Ohiopyle State Park. One day I walked down to the little tourist community of Ohiopyle.  The town is small with a visitor's center, a general store, bakery and sandwich shops, a motel and B&B, and a few white-water outfitters.   The walk down is on a steep, gravel trail from the campground to the GAP trail.  But then it is a short flat walk on the rail trail across two bridges that cross a river with rapids. I stood on the bridge a while and watched a guy in a small kayak playing in the rapids.  He’d shoot between two big rocks then turn and paddle his way back up that shoot and choose another place to get through the rapids.  It was fun to watch. One of the bridges I crossed while on the trail I remembered reading about in The Great Allegheny Passage Companion.  The railroad built it with the idea another track would be crossing there too, so the pilla