BIG RED
On
Wednesday Christy and I went a bike ride.
Christy had managed to talk her sister, Megan, into bringing Christy’s
bike up from Charlotte for her. Megan
was coming up to Pennsylvania for her cousin’s wedding, and luckily she was
able to get the bike in her car. Christy
was eager to get some exercise, and thought that her knee would be able to
handle a bike ride.
I
was also interested in doing a bike ride.
Pennsylvania has a vast array of Rail Trails that make excellent cycling
destinations. Some years ago I’d ridden
part of the Little Toby Creek Rail Trail.
It had been a beautiful ride, but on that occasion I didn’t have time to
complete the entire trail. Ever since,
I’ve been eager to have another go at it.
Megan
wasn’t able to bring my bike up from Charlotte.
However, Christy’s father has a bike that I was welcome to use. I found the shiny red mountain bike in their
garage, but I was immediately skeptical.
It felt like that bike weighed 90 pounds! On the other hand, I didn’t really have any
other options.
Christy’s
road bike isn’t suitable for unpaved rail trails. While I rode the rail trail from Brockway to
Ridgeway, Christy would do a road ride starting from Ridgeway. If everything went according to plan, I’d
meet Christy in Ridgeway at the end of my ride.
Christy
dropped me off, but made sure I had everything situated before leaving for
Ridgeway. I found my way to the old
railroad bed, which has a hard packed dirt surface. I followed the trail downstream along lovely
Little Toby Creek. The ride was smooth
and pleasant, as the trail is in deep forest for most of its length. Roads,
houses, and other signs of civilization are few and far between.
One
highlight of the ride was passing five ghost towns along the way. There wasn’t much left of most of them, but
they still added some interesting history to the ride. One of them was accessible by crossing a rope
swinging bridge spanning Little Toby Creek.
I parked the bike and walked over there before returning to resume my
ride.
Another
ghost town featured an actual hiking trail (1.2 miles round trip) to an old
quarry. Unfortunately my pre-trip
research hadn’t disclosed this trail, and doing the hike would’ve meant being
late meeting Christy. I skipped it and
resumed the ride.
The
last few miles of the ride followed the Clarion River. This stretch of trail was busier, as I passed
several walkers and cyclists. I only saw
one other person along the Little Toby Creek portion of the ride. Although this stretch had some nice views of
the river, it also stayed fairly close to a busy road. Overall I preferred the
quiet and solitude on the portion of the trail closer to Brockway.
The
last few miles of the ride were rough.
Big Red’s seat was about as comfortable as a concrete block, and my
tailbone was feeling it. I finished the
18 mile ride in 2 ½ hours, and met Christy in Ridgeway as planned. Her ride had been less enjoyable. Her knee had swollen again, and Christy was
pretty discouraged. We had lunch at the Sheetz in Brockway before heading back to Clearfield.
COOK FOREST & PRESQUE ISLE
On
Friday Christy, Boone, and I left Clearfield for a trip to Erie, PA. Christy’s cousin was getting married there on
Saturday, and we planned to spend the whole weekend up there. Luckily for me, Christy was willing to drive the
back way to Erie. This meant driving
through Cook Forest State Park. Cook
Forest State Park features one of the largest stands of old-growth forest in
the eastern United States. Even better,
a lot of the old growth trees are hemlocks.
Since most of the hemlocks in the southeast have been devastated by the
blight, I was looking forward to seeing healthy trees in Cook Forest.
We
left early on Friday morning so we could spend some time in the park. When we arrived, Christy dropped me off at
the Joyce Kilmer Trailhead. Christy hung
out for a little bit, while I did a short hike and exercised the dog. My hike took me up the Joyce Kilmer Trail,
which was a fair climb. I crested a
ridge and then descended into the Forest Cathedral, which features most of the
park’s biggest trees. I wandered through
the Cathedral’s network of trails, enjoying the forest and its quiet and
solitude.
I
finished up on the Longfellow Trail about an hour and a half later. Christy picked me up at that trailhead, and
we resumed the drive to Erie. In Erie,
we headed out to Presque Isle State Park.
This was something of a homecoming for Christy. Christy spent four years in Erie while
attending Gannon University. During the
summers, she worked as a lifeguard at Presque Isle. We went out to one of her favorite beaches,
where we spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing. We took Boone with us and had fun playing
with him in the surf.
On
Saturday morning we returned to Presque Isle and I took Boone for a run. The park was busy, even though it was fairly
early. That afternoon we attended the
wedding in Erie. It was a Catholic
wedding, but luckily the ceremony was much shorter than expected. That evening we ventured to a ski resort just
across the border in New York for the reception. The reception was typical, featuring free
beer, good company, crappy music, and sorry dancing.
On
Sunday morning the bride’s parents had most of the wedding party over for
brunch. Breakfast was great, but the
highlight of the day was a prank played on the bride’s mother involving a giant
(human-sized) stuffed squirrel. I won’t
go into details, but you could say that it was nuts! Well, you shouldn’t say that, but you could.
We
finally started the long drive back to Charlotte around noon on Sunday. The drive back was relatively uneventful, and
concluded our grand tour of (most of) the United States.
I
hope to make another cross-country trip in a few years. We’ve got two dogs now though, so I don’t
know how we’ll pull that off!
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