September 18

Denny's had been so good last night that we skipped the free breakfast at the hotel and went there again.  Most important meal of the day, you know...

Today's route was different than our normal day of riding, in that we had three specific places we wanted to see today.  First we set a route for Pottsville, Pennsylvania.  I have no idea how we got there.  I just did what the GPS told me, and Eric stayed right on my tail.  We passed a lot of open coal mines early on.  I always thought of West Virginia as coal country, but there is plenty in PA as well.  Soon we found ourselves on little country roads that did not appear on my map.  We never would have ridden these roads had it not been for the GPS sending us there.  You would have had to buy a county map to get enough detail to find these little trails.  We were climbing a hill on a narrow, curvy little track when a doe jumped out, just at the crest of the hill.  I braked and signaled Eric to slow, knowing that she would probably have friends.  Sure enough, a spike buck was right behind her.

I should explain that Pottsville is STEEP.  Highway 209 is the main drag through the town, and the terrain on the south side of the road, where the brewery is, rises at a crazy angle for several blocks.  If it were much steeper, it would be a cliff!  We parked the bikes two blocks higher than the brewery, the only parking that we could find.  Eric's ankle was still hurting from his crash, and it was worse walking downhill .  So I went on a scouting mission.  I finally found the office, and signs leading to the museum and tour.  The morning tour was over, the next one didn't start for hours, but the tasting room was open.  Hmmmm....

We tasted (TASTED, we are both pretty serious about drinking and riding) a few samples and chatted with Todd, the beer-pulling dude, a recent economics graduate of Penn State.  Then we hiked back up to the bikes.  As we did, I called Lana, panting (it was a STEEP hill), and got a weather report (all clear).  Eric ran into a little old lady coming down the hill as he walked up.  They chatted.  She was a 77 year-old widow who walked the hill twice a day for exercise.  She said that all of her friends were fat and weak, but she was trim and full of life.  She challenged Eric to a footrace, but he declined, citing his injury.

My next goal was Millersburg, PA.  209 ran straight there, but the map showed a little road that paralleled 209, called PA 25.  If there is a little road that will get you there, why take the big road?  So we turned off of 209, wound our way up a steep incline, and found ourselves on a dandy little road that sat right up on a ridgeline.  This ridge was mainly cleared, dotted with small towns and cornfields, and had sweeping views of the ridges that ran parallel to it, all of which were heavily wooded.  The day was sunny and clear, the sky almost cloudless...this was the perfect place to be.  A great ride.

So why Millersburg?  Well, besides being a cute little river town, Millersburg has something special.  A paddlewheel ferry across the Susquehanna.  This relic of a bygone era has been taking passengers across this wide, shallow river for 175 years.  It sure would be cool to ride it.

Once across the river, we picked up 274.  We could do no wrong on roads today.  Every one we picked was wonderful.  274 ran though a lot of farmland until it reached Tuscarora State Forest, where it narrowed, climbed, and became densely wooded for several miles.  We came to a set of switchbacks, and the signs warned that this was a 20 MPH curve, so we checked our speed.  Coming out of the turn, I thought "That was no 20 MPH turn, it wasn't tight at all!  The road sign folks around here are a bunch of wimps!".  So at the NEXT curve signed 20 MPH, I didn't slow down near as much.

That second one WAS a 20 MPH turn!  It got a little exciting.

At the end of the State Forest, there was a long downhill straightaway, and I could see the forest ceding back to farmland at the bottom of hill.  As I approached, something walked across the road.  Then another something.  Then several somethings, one flying.  It was a flock of about a dozen wild turkeys.  The last few scattered as I passed their crossing point.

We now found ourselves back in Amish country.  We stopped for lunch at a diner in Spring Run, and  saw maybe a dozen horsecarts pass by in the hour we were there.

I don't remember what we had for lunch, but I do remember that the waitress had an Armenian accent, and that a local couple struck up a conversation with us.  They were regulars at the diner.  He told us that the main tourist draw in the area was hunting.

Late in the afternoon, we came to our third goal for the day.  The Flight 93 Crash Site.  At first we took a wrong turn and ended up at a gate guarded by a Sheriffs Deputy.  No admittance, he told us, families of victims only.  Eric asked if there was a place we could view the crash site from, and he gave us directions to a temporary memorial about a half-mile away.

This was a sobering place, and is difficult to write about.  If you are ever in the area, you should visit the site.

The site is still pretty basic, and the bathrooms were portable toilets.  I went to use one, and above the urinal, in permanent marker, someone had written "The infidel Americans must submit to the will of Allah or die".  It had been scratched through, as if some patriot had tried to remove the message, but it was still legible.  I finished my business and started towards the bike, fully intending to get my Leatherman and cut that message off of the plastic wall.  Then I thought better of it.  I left it alone.  It was either a horribly bad joke, or a true expression of a radical corrupter of the Islamic faith.  Either way, leaving it there would remind others, as it reminded me, that we fight an enemy that wants just one of two things.  To convert us, or to kill us.

Darkness fast approaching, I told the GPS to find us a hotel, and it led us to a Hampton Inn in Somerset, only about 10 miles away.  They had snacks, including hot dogs, out in the lobby, and since we had a late lunch, this made for a perfect supper.

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