Day 70 – Aug 21, 2015 – Hartville OH – Beaver Falls PA – 62 miles
A perfect day for riding. Temps in the mid 70s and low humidity. Bring on the good roads! Well we had some nice roads today. Rolling hills on country roads, and some steep climbs on highway roads with little shoulder and high traffic, and then more very steep climbs on lonely country roads. All in all a good day but we are exhausted after about a 2800 ft ascent and descent day.
Since the weather was so good we really pushed ourselves to get as close as we can to Pittsburgh. The approach to Pittsburgh has been haunting us for days. How close can we get today? We did just fine.
As we are getting closer to the end of our trip we are reflecting upon the themes of this journey that will stay with us. One of them is lawnmowers and the American obsession with moving lawns. For hundreds, if not thousands of miles, the only people, actually people, not including towns folk, that we saw were people on lawnmowers. Very interesting to us. These are the true American heroes, the lawnmower people of America. We have seen dedicated retired people, young people, professionals mowing the parks, fat people, skinny people, very old ladies, all kinds of lawn mower people. We have seen fantastic lawns that were perfectly mowed. The lawns we have seen were the size of 4-5 home lots combined in Los Angeles and perfectly groomed. They take this very seriously.
So today I decided to document that a little more. I stopped and filmed 5 different people mowing their lawns. A regular retired farmer, a professional, a lady, a regular guy near a town, and an elderly gentleman with a 1946 tractor. It was great. We talked to two of them. The old farmer/former truck driver with the ’46 tractor was great. It was just across the Ohio – Pennsylvania border. He had 123 acres, he loved his old tractor; he was a retired truck driver who drove just under 2 million miles professionally; his wife has her own John Deere which she regularly crashes; and he wants to leave the farmhouse after 82 yrs to build a home in the woods nearby. Nice guy. Had a super thick Pittsburgh accent. Loved it. Anyway, that was a little theme we had going today which reflects the whole trip.
There are plenty more. Buick comes to mind. Today we were almost hit a couple of times, and if I am not mistaken they were Buicks, or maybe red trucks.
It is coming to an end slowly but surely. As we get closer more profound issues of “life liberty and the pursuit of happiness” will come out, I am sure. But for now, we need to rest for our approach to Pittsburgh, that may not be a bad as we thought. Let’s see.
Oh, I almost forgot. I woke up today thinking we must reserve a hotel in Pittsburgh. Well as soon as I got online I was shocked. $250-$350 rooms all over town, even with bad hotels. What is going on? I looked at the Steelers schedule, and sure enough, the Steelers are playing the Packers on Sunday in Pittsburgh in a PreSeason game. Preseason really? But I did not take “no” for an answer and spend a couple hours trying to solve our problem. I wanted to go to Pittsburgh and I wanted our last 0 Day before we got to DC. I wanted to relax and perhaps go to Museums, the Warhol Museum came to mind…among others. I have been there but actually never spent any time there, and Pittsburgh is cool. Well I found a good deal after calling around near the PNC baseball stadium which is 1 mile (just across the river) from downtown. Looking forward to it.
Leave a Reply