Cycle To The Sea: Thursday Aug 28 -- Binghamton, NY to Dalton, PA (Lackawanna State Pk)

Stats: 90.3km, Avg 23.4km/h, Max 61.2, Time: 3:50

Rode w/Pieter the actual entire day today. He wanted to take a slower and easier day. Of course, an "easy" pace for Pieter means that my daily average was 2km/h more than yesterday. Hmmm.....

Left around 7am and arrived around noon. Not a terribly long day, and we had a few stops and sights.

Met up with the "London Express" at the PA border. Actually, it's a good thing we stopped there to chat with them for a moment, as Julie the SAG driver pulled up about 2-3 minutes after we arrived. Had we not paused, we would have missed the first SAG stop.

Rode with some of them into the next small town and ended up having a coffee/hot-choc stop with them for a half hour. It was just a sports bar, really, but it opened in the morning for coffee. The owner went out to a store and actually picked up timbits (not really, but equivalent) for us, and then told us it was all on the house!!!

Pieter and I rode on alone - Cynthia Aukema is not comfortable in large groups of riders since her accident. Passed/Visited Peter Beerda's sag at the half-way point.

Saw a very cool railway bridge in the last 1/4. which is where we ate our sandwiches.

Then Walter's sag for a visit in the town of "Hop Bottom". Were do they pick these names?

Hooked up with Nathan, Josh N, and Eritia at Walter's stop and rode with them for about 10+ km. Got another view of the same style rail bridge, but bigger/taller. It's been abandoned, and is in disrepair. It'd be fun to climb/walk on top of it, but not today...

... or not. Later in the evening (after I wrote the above in my notes for posting) I spoked with another rider who saw a train on the bridge. I was shocked. Over at the first photo stop, the concrete was clearly crumbling and I even saw a small shrub/tree growing out of the top of the bridge! Maybe it really isn't the same line, or maybe a bit of surface crumbling is okay from a structural point of view? I dunno.

Then we hit a crazy monster killer hill. It was like the "old river rd" hill back in London, but 5 times longer. or more. Pieter and I both had to stop twice on the first hill, to let our middle-aged heart rates ease off, and our middle-aged lungs catch up. :-) It was a very good thing were were almost done for the day, as that hill sequence turned my thighs to rubber climbing it. Then a nice fast dip, and then another one, though smaller, on the other side.

We cruised into the Sate park, and sat around. Lots of people were there by now. It was possibly the most relaxing afternoon of the entire trip. This is the sort of day that I think should happen before a stop like we had at Chatham, as we would then have more time to enjoy the hospitality of the city and hosts, as well as still have some unwind time. As it was, some people got rather bored since we had hours to ourselves in the afternoon, and yet were "stuck" way out in nowhere with no beach or pool or nearby town. Lots of folks got out the playing cards later on and I ended up playing some Dutch Blitz with Janelle ("nanny" for the Witvoet kids on tour), Eritia, and Corinne.

I did manage to score on the shower front, though. I noticed that once again there was inadequate shower facilities - only two stalls in the men's washroom!! When the gear truck finally showed up (we beat it by an hour at least) I grabbed my bag as soon as it came off, and half-set up the tent, spread out the fly to dry, and grabbed my shower things and headed off to the facilities. I still was beat by other wise riders, and there soon was 2-3 people behind me. We were quick as can be - 3 minute showers, and get out. Ours were hot. Within an hour, the hot-water-heater had been overwhelmed and it was cold showers for the rest. They even started shuttling people over to some of the other restroom facilities in other areas of the park to accommodate all of us.

One bonus many of us realized was that we now could stop washing our cycling gear in the shower or sink, as most of us have 3 sets and there was only 2 more days to ride... Ahh, small blessings!!

Here is a small chunk of the camp, with the restrooms behind, and the kitchen truck far off - actually invisible beyond the trees. This was a very spread out and sprawling camp area.