Monday I drove from Hampstead Md to Ohiopyle PA. Ohiopyle is in spitting distance of the famous Falling Water, Frank Lloyd Wright house. Jacqui and I saw it way back in 2003 during our weird honeymoon. "Who goes to Pittsburgh for a honeymoon?" Jacqui was still working on her PhD and we didn't have time to go do the warm Caribbean thing. Jacqui got to visit the Andy Warhol museum and I got to try a Primanti's sandwich for the first time. We even stayed at the Seven Hills Resort for a few days, which is also super close to Ohiopyle. Mid October it was nearly empty. Anyway, enough reminiscing
This blog is more about biking. So going back to Hampstead, here are some photos from a local 8 mile loop I rode Saturday and Sunday from Mark and Teresa's place. Lots of super pricey horse farms. Mark said a lot of the land nearby goes from 150k per acre. Still beautiful, rolling hill country, but pricey, Woof.
I would've taken more photos Sunday, but the fields I biked passed the day before had just been plowed. Oh well. Out of practice at thinking about taking pretty shots Hopefully did a better job biking on the GAP (Great Allegheny Passage) bike trail. It's on my list of future bike tours. I biked from Kentuck campground to Confluence and then doubled back, with some side trips, I bike 25 miles Tuesday. Beautiful weather, 70F, 21C
From Kentuck campground to the GAP trail there's this short 0.3 mile hike. Super steep, so you have to walk your bike down and push it up. Totally doable though. It's not rocky
Weather was crappy Wednesday. Colder and Rainy all day. I was originally planning on just driving 3 hours to Poe Paddy in Central PA, but their forecast had rain Thursday too, so I pushed on to Promised Land State Park near Greentown PA. A 5 hour drive. No biking Wednesday. I got there 3:45p.m. before the park office closed at 4p.m. Sadly Ranger put me right next to another couple, the electric RV sites are open year round. Probably a 100 sites, and only like 10 were used. I felt bad.
Pennsylvania State Parks have a few weird rules. No alcohol and quiet hours are 9p.m. to 8a.m. I think it's because the sites are so close to each other. Have to keep the peace. On the other hand, the Ranger ladies in the office at both Ohio Pyle and Promised Land said you can usually get a site during the week during the Summer. Not like NY where everything gets booked months ahead of time. With the PA campgrounds you can pre-book via Reserve America, but you should still swing by the office because they'll printout a sheet, and there's a strip of paper showing your checkout day, you attach it to the site post of your campsite so when the Rangers go around, they can keep on eye on people trying to overstay.
Anyhoo, the PA Promised Land park is huge and seems to completely surround the lake. I did a 16.5 mile ride completely on the park roads (except a short half mile on the state road 390 that goes North/South through the park) You can rent cabins and cottages there too.
It was a nice Spring Day. probably about 50F/10C, but it felt like someone left the fridge door open when I was near the lake. The water was definitely cold, and sucked the heat out of the air.
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