Filling in the gaps of the GAP (day 2)

I woke up in Meyersdale in my quiet room in the Morguen Toole... alarmless. I slept in as much as I needed, I was tired and it had been ages since I'd had the ability to have a night uninterrupted by a dog who needed to pee at 2:30AM. It was glorious.

Howdy, stranger.

I dressed and wandered over to the GI Dayroom. Another mistake I'd made was my packing: I could have brought all manner of clothing and kept it in the car, but my obsession with spartan packing meant I'd inadvertently brought nothing but black warm things to wear on the chilly walk over to the restaurant. It was filled with the local cliques of retired men gossiping in the booths and on the stools at the counter. The lone stranger walks in dressed all in black and every head turned and stared in silence. It was eerie, like something out of a Western movie. Honestly, I don't always dress like Johnny Cash's goth daughter! I smiled and took a booth and hoped they'd resume their chats and after a few seconds, they did. So awkward. Note to self: blend.
I wondered if the spandex-clad who come in clicking their clips along the tiles get the same reaction.
I ordered an egg sandwich and many cups of coffee. There was WiFi here. I was happy.
Jody, my waitress, asked me to sign a guestbook, being a GAP traveler. I took the time to look back at the previous entries and noted all the faroff places people come from to ride the GAP. Very interesting. This was the second guestbook I'd been asked to sign in Meyersdale.


I loaded up the bike and got on the trail to Rockwood. Just outside of Meyersdale I found a small cemetary, and I'm guesssing these are the Meyers that Meyersdale is named for.

There were many more trees on this part of the GAP that were turning. It stood to reason: the maples turn first and Meyersdale is the Maple City. The number of maples here was far greater.

Rockwood and my OCD rears its head.

I reached Rockwood quickly, being only 12 miles from Meyersdale. There was a small manned visitors center there with a cell booster. The gentleman inside helped me figure out the water fountain and take my photo in front of the train sculpture.

He clearly didn't understand that getting the bike in the shot was uber important.

Planing to turn around and make it an early day, I felt cheated. I'd come all this way and stayed overnight... I wondered if I could make it to the Pinkerton Tunnel and I asked him how far away it was. He told me 8 miles. This would turn my 24 mile day into a 40 mile day. I could do this.
If I didn't, there would be a gap in my GAP map... a part of the trail I hadn't completed when I was so close. The obsessive compulsive side of me yelled: "Do it! You can't leave that section unfinished!"

I headed West and made it to the side of the Pinkerton tunnel I hadn't seen. I visited the other side a few weeks ago.

OK, if I turn around now, that'll be 40 miles for the day. Wait, the Bypass! I HAVE to ride the Bypass, I can't leave that unridden! Two miles later, I reached the other side of the tunnel. There, I did it. My obsessive side sighed contentedly.

I noticed this bit of pay-it-forwardness along the trail. Very nice.

Seeing myself as others see me

In my travels, I find that many were asking me: "Traveling alone?" or "With a group?".
I encountered today something I don't recall seeing before today: a lone female cyclist. She had lots of gear and stopped frequently to take photos. She stood out in stark contrast amongst all the other parties I saw: couples, groups or single men.
When I first encountered her, my first thought was: "She's alone." 
Not: "Nice panniers."
Not: "Love the way she braided her hair." or "Awesome bike."
My first thought was she was out here, by herself. It dawned on me: this was probably everyone else's first impressions of me. Did they think I was vulnerable? Lonely? Left behind by her party? A target? I never had those thoughts whenever I saw a lone male rider. I never gave that a second thought.
It left me with some discontent.

Feather Identification is difficult

I find bird, mammal and plant identification fascinating. I do fairly well at IDing birds by sight, flight patterns and calls, but IDing a bird by a lone feather is tricky, I discovered! I found this feather from a large bird in my travels today. Wanting to know the species, I called upon Google. Hoping it was from a bird of prey, I was disappointed.

Just a wild turkey feather, nothing special.

The final stretch with another Trucker

Along the way back, I played leapfrog with a group of 5 or 6 heading to DC. They were heavily laden, one of the bikes being a Xtracycle cargo stacked high with supplies. I liked seeing this. One of them told me: "You look like you know what you're doing!" I told her I had her fooled.
One in the party had a disc Trucker. I parked Fizz next to it when I returned to Meyersdale.

Green Trucker meets yellow Trucker

44 miles, a good day.

After getting back into Pittsburgh, I dropped Fizz off at Thick for a new saddle and front rack as well as a tune up. I'd have to use Ruby for a while.

Grabbed a new patch for my top tube pad:

And here's the map of my GAP progress after this weekend:

I should have more sections filled in before winter arrives.

Ohiopyle to the Pinkerton Tunnel

I drove an hour and half to get to Ohiopyle. I don't think I'd been out there since I'd gone trail riding with my ex-husband in the late 1990's and ridden a whole eight miles that day and was really proud of my accomplishment.

The drive there was harrowing: wicked fog!

It was much worse than this in places.

I got there before the throngs of kayakers, river-rafting and bike-rental folks arrived. These were the first cold days of the year. This morning it was in the 40's when I started and wow, I'm not used to that yet. I couldn't wait to get moving and warmed up, my layers weren't keeping me warm while I took the bike off the back of the car and loaded the panniers and necessities onto the rear rack of my Surly Long Haul Trucker. Eventually, around 11AM and 12 miles into the ride, it warmed up and I could remove the long pants and my layers.

You can see why I need a rack-mounted Fly6 with all the stuff I carry back there!



In Ohiopyle, there's a gorgeous rapids/waterfall.

Normally, I'm in the city and using the camera to capture motorists endangering my life, but today I employed it to help capture some of the the beauty of the Great Allegheny Passage, which is a 335 mile trail from Pittsburgh, PA to Washington DC. Cyclists spend several days to ride it. It's quite the feather in a cyclist's cap to ride the GAP to DC. Some riders camp and some take advantage of the many bed-and-breakfast places that have sprung up along the GAP to cater to the whims of cyclists taking on the adventure.

Would you believe I headed the wrong direction and started into the State Park instead of towards Confluence as I'd intended? The lovely bridges of the park tempted me and my bike just lead me to them. Eventually, I discovered I was going the wrong way and righted my direction. The bridges along the way are so scenic; here's a Fly6 perspective of all the bridges I encountered:



And here's some of the photos I took from those bridges:

I stopped in Confluence for lunch, which was actually breakfast, as Sister's Cafe come highly recommended for breakfast-y foods. Fried egg and bagel. Nom. Sister's Cafe was also the ONLY place I could pick up wifi and send a message to Hubby. Cell service was non-existent everywhere, even in Ohiopyle.

Being a city girl, I locked my bike. Discovering that nobody locks their bikes in Confluence, I felt rather silly with the overkill of a Kryptonite u-lock.



My end point was the Pinkerton Tunnel. There's an interesting story behind why this tunnel is no longer used. A friend of mine told me the story and you can read about it here: http://vannevar.blogspot.com/2011/06/nextgen-canal-train-tunnels-concrete.html

Hopefully, with enough donations, it can be re-opened, but until then, it will stay boarded up.

Now, just because there's a lack of cars on this trip doesn't eliminate dangers: imagine getting this railroad spike caught in your spokes?

 Or, landslides and falling trees?

I came across this recently cleared landslide.

Here's what it looked like before it was cleared.

Trees go down along the GAP all the time and I'm sure one day I'll have to haul my bike through some branches just as other cyclists report. Adventure!  

When I returned to Ohiopyle, I noted the interesting bike racks. These are clearly much easier to use with a cable lock rather than a u-lock. Another cyclist and I were commenting about them. A man walked up to me afterwards and asked how I liked the racks... because he designed them. He called them 'The Bike Garden'. Apropos.

45 miles on a gorgeous late-summer day.