How Our Road-Weary Protagonist Passes the Time

Dear Faithful Reader, it's been so long since last we met... I've longed to see you again with a love that will whisper through the ages...

Day 4: After entering my last blog we passed through York, PA which was a pretty incredible town. Beautiful. It rained on us pretty hard, so we took shelter under the awning of an abandoned townhouse. The city reminded me a lot of Baltimore or some city on the Atlantic Ocean.

Passing through York, PA we hit a LOT of Hills, but it had cooled down so we got all the way to EAST BERLIN. We ate at a great Country Cooking Establishment called The Iron Skillet. I love these dying little towns where every home is for sale, and no one younger than 50 lives there anymore. I wonder what will happen to these small towns in 20 years? Will they eventually just become ghost towns until the population increase forces people further and further out into the countries?

We didn't feel like paying for a campground, so we rode our bikes around town, trying to find a place to "stealth-camp" for the evening. We eventually settled on a small clearing behind a playground, behind a community center on the edge of town. We rode around til the sun set, trying not to look too suspicious, and when it got dark, quickly dashed into our hiding spot. We quickly noticed a healthy scattering of beer cans, cigarette packs, and general no-goodnick debris. It was Friday Night and surely these no-goodnicks would be coming back tonight to "party" behind the rec center... Or worse... What if this spot was a known trouble spot, and the police routinely monitored it? It was already dark, and too late to move.... Oh.... Did I mention that it was adjoining a massive cemetary; divided only by a small row of hedges?

DAY 5: Somehow I slept OK.... Matt did not. To be sure not to run afoul of the early morning playground rush, we got outta there around 7:00am. We rode through hill territory for a while, and were amazed at how great it was to be riding before the sun started blazing down on us. We will keep this early morning schedule for now on. After a small setback with Matt's rear rack... we got to our first obstacle.... the mountains. We climbed and climbed and climbed for ever! Finally at the top... we stopped at some frail old woman's house and asked for water. She looked at us strangely we when asked what the name of this mountain was.... "Mountain?.... This isn't a Mountain.... This is Maxois Creek Valley." IT WAS A VALLEY we had been climbing for an hour. I got very depressed and considered my options. Could I catch a Greyhound to Pittsburgh from here? Does a Greyhound carry bikes? Could I keep riding and ship my panniers to Pittsburgh, and just sleep without gear for a few days? I was depressed. Luckily there wasn't too much more uphill and we rode downhill for about 4 miles into CHAMBERSBURG!

They had a library that was Burger King adjacent.... this was my kinda town. Unfortunately the library closed early as it was saturday.... so we headed into Downtown Chambersburg and tried to use the library there. Some guy flagged us down and began to give us all sorts of advice about the mountain we would be climbing this evening. We were very appreciative... but then he kept going on and on about how experienced he was, and what great shape he was in, and just generally kinda started acting strange. He went inside this 2nd library to photocopy some maps for us, and i went in to use the restroom. He flagged me down on the way to the restroom and continued to tell me about the route. I interrupted him once and he quickly snapped in a raised voice.... DON'T INTERRUPT ME! ....We just let him talk for a while, and then waited til he drove away out of sight before lettiung our guard down.

Chambersburg has a cool town center:

The road out to Cowans Gap was pretty cool. Lotta LARGE hills, but not too steep. More dying towns. Central PA is full of them. Then we ascended 3 miles uphill to Cowans Gap. I knew I had to pace myself or I would have to walk my bike uphill for 3 miles.... so I put on Green Day's Dookie, and rode ridiculously slow; less than walking speed.... I must have looked kinda like Robert Redford in Sneakers when he's trying to not to set off the motion detectors. At the end of the very last track (F.O.D.) I reached the top where we had reserved a campsite for the evening.

At the campsite across from us, some nice guys from Lancaster (WONDERWORLD!, USA) we set up and kept offering us food. They hooked me up with some Diet Mountain Dew and I was very grateful.

Day 6: Woke up the next day and rode, and rode, and rode.... It started out very pretty, but It was really hot. And it was a lot of hills. and then we climbed a horrible, horrible mountain that never stopped. And then we run out of water for a while.... It was nice to reach the top of the mountain though.

At the bottom of the other side of thje Mountain was a man whose name I forget.... he ran an auction house and let us rummage through some of the items that were to be bid on this week. Some truly cool stuff. He refilled our water bottles and told us stories of when he used to climb mountains on his bike back in Germany. He stopped riding after his son got his bike stolen. Really cool guy....

From there. we breezed into BREEZEWOOD! It's over 20 fast food establishment within a football field sized patch of land. Its seriously like.... The Perfect Storm of Fast Food.

I ate Taco Bell, and also Wendy's. Didn't want to continue. Was really demotivated. Couldnt do any more climbing.... but we continued on. It flattened out some but not totally. As the sun set we were trying to find empty lots to camp in.... but Matt ended up asking a stranger if we could sleep in his lawn. The man said Yes.... and we got our tents up as a lightning storm raged overhead. Deer are everywhere around here.... Between the Cows and the Deer its like a "Far Side" Comic Strip.... except not all that weird.... kinda boring mostly.

Today! - Day 7? (Wow)

How does our humble protagonist pass the time? I mean.... seriously.... it's all very pretty, but it all starts to look the same after a while... Thats a Good Question..... Today we left at 7 and it was mighty foggy outside.... When the fog never burned off... I started to think about the ocean and then started singing sea shanty's to myself....

"Oh Shenendoah I long to hear you.... Away... You Rolling River... Oh Shenedoah, I long to Hear You... Away, We're Bound Away across the wide Missouri"

When I got bored of that, I started singing the theme to Saturday's Warrior (an 80's LDS musical), but with slightly altered words:

(Call)

"What do I do when the hills are so rough, and climbing them's tough, What do I do?

(Response)

"Courage Take, for goodness sake, when you're shivering and you're shaking, and you're ready to brake"

(Chorus)

"You got a Mother and Father, Sister and Brother, And pulling together we can work it out!"

But it was seriously a a beauitful day... the sun was nowhere to be seen. The hills flattened out for a few hours and we got 40 miles behind us before noon (including a mountain). At the top of the last hill was a library with no fascist time keepers. It's been a good day so far.... I'm hungry and want to eat. I can't reccomend that Somerset Library enough! I'm actually sitting next to a small child playing video games, and I smell sooooooooo bad..... like piss that was left in a jar under the bed in an apartment above a paper mill in Detroit. Poor Kid.

Comments, people! Comments!