Day 74 – Aug 25, 2015 – Iron City PA – Rockwood PA – 52 miles

Day 74- Aug. 25, 2015 – Iron City PA KOA – Rockwood PA – 52 miles

I am writing this in the dining room of the Trailhead B&B in Rockwood PA. We made it here finally. It took us a long time.

Normally we get up early and leave early but today we stayed at the campground a little longer. We needed to do our laundry. This is a necessity that takes, oh, may 1 1/2 hours to do. We need to build it into our schedule. Today, since the KOA campground had such a nice laundry we did it before we started riding and not after, which is normal. So we did not leave camp before 11am. Slow packing and chatting with Don from DC and, of course a Blog entry this morning.

This trail really seems to be a destination for bike tourists. There are all kinds, the day trippers, the Pittsburgh to Cumberlanders, the Pittsburgh to DCers, and of course the differences between the B&B travelers and the campers. We like to think of ourselves as the “purist” camper bike tourists, but we are not. Every now and then we touch back into that world and say “hello” to our kindreds. So today we are staying at a B&B that seems to be the B&B that you could feature in a movie as the “B&B”. It is about a 150 year old house full of nick knacks and is clean and cozy. There are 3 other bike people here but we only met one of them since we arrived so late and rushed out to the local pizza joint to grab a bite before it closed at 9.

Leaving late makes the ride that much harder. It’s the same distance but, there is something about it that makes it really hard. Today we climbed the whole day, which slows you down. The grade was less than 1 % almost the whole way but it still takes it out of you. We crossed some beautiful bridges. We got to the Great Gorge at Ohiopyle, the river rafting and kayaking capital of the area. It was beautiful. We even met 2 young men who came here from Cleveland for the day to raft. We even found a farm to table cafe with great food (I think Gregg finally found a great Reuben sandwich) and IPA beers! It was a great stop. We rode on for another hour and stopped again at a town called Confluence where we went to another of our favorite “smoker” bars for a cold beer.

But the final push was hard. It was getting dark. The forest was getting scary for me. Gregg was running out of energy. We put on our iPods and pedaled, focused and determined to do the 20 miles left. Got here and a unique flag welcomed us to our home for the night – a shotgun shell American flag! Go figure. Now we will rest for tomorrow’s final push up the hill passing the Mason Dixon line and over the continental divide and down to Washington DC.