Somerset, PA

We spent three nights in Breezewood with Bing and Susie. And their family of dogs. Hooter, Stoney and Elton. They are on their way to the National Poodle Show in MD. It was so great to see them again. If you have been following our journey you may remember that they drove out to Glacier National Park and spent several days with. We didn't do much in Breezewood except relax, watch movies, play cards and eat. It was great!

We left Breezewood and rode to Bedford. We are still following the PA "S" bicycle route. The route was beautiful. Everything is so green and the trees are just starting to bud. We saw a brand new baby calf. It must have just been born. It was still wet and was trying to stand for the first time. The mom even still had the afterbirth attached. We had quite a few short steep climbs today. But we have been expecting the crossing of the Alleghany Mts to be pretty tough. We have climbed them before on a couple of bike tours. The biggest difference between crossing the Rockies or western mts and the eastern mts is outwest you might climb for 20 miles or more but at a 5-6% grade. In the east you might climb 1-7 miles at a 7-10% grade. Which would YOU pick? We found a few of those 10% grades today. Ah well, that's bikin! As we were entering Bedford we noticed a big factory with the name Cannondale on the outside. Wonder if that is the bicycle factory Cannondale. We pulled in and Hap went in and asked. As it turned out it was. He set us up for a tour in the morning. There was a campground just down the road so we headed down there and set up camp. For dinner we had rice, peas and chicken. Does that sound good to anyone else? We played a game of cards and someone won but we don't need to go into that! Bing had loaned us a movie "Mystery Alaska" so we watched it on the computer. It was really a good one. Thanks Bing!!

This morning we got up at 7a, I know ..... guess I better get used to it since my date to get back to work at the hospital is getting close! I am really looking forward to it too. Not the getting up early part! The being a part of a great team at Berger Health System. That's what I miss. The tour at Cannondale was awesome. It almost wants someone to add to our stable of bikes. But not quite. It is nice to know that an American made bicycle is a quality machine. We saw alot of pretty bikes and learned alot about how they were made. They had one bike that was made special for President Bush who is an avid cyclist. The tour guide said they got tired of seeing him ride a TREK bike! When we left Bedford we decided to take a slight detour from the "S" route. We opted to take Rt 30 to see the Memorial to Flight 93 that went down near Shanksville on 9-1-1. Route 30 is known as the Lincoln Highway. It was a good riding road. Some berm and not much traffic. It was a pretty ride once again. Who knew that PA was such a pretty state. We had lots of climbing. One climb was 7 miles long. We climbed up to over 2000 feet. The memorial was really a special place. It is just a temporary one for now. They are working to put a permament one up. There was a lady there who lived in Shanksville and told us about that day. She said the explosion shattered windows. I just cannot imagine what it must have been like for a large jet plane to hit the ground at over 500 mph. There wasn't much left. While we were there I looked over and saw a familiar face. It was my cousin Wayne from Dublin, OH. What a surprise. It was good to see him! After we left the site we rode into Somerset. We thought we were going to see a campground on the way into town but somehow it wasn't where we thought it was. So we ended up at a Days Inn. Which worked out just as well since it started raining as soon as we checked in. I washed out our clothes while Hap worked on the bike. The gears have not been shifting like we like. Or let's say that I kept having to jump off the bike and "help" us get into the lowest gear. And with all the hills it got alittle tiring. He cleaned everything up and hopefully tomorrow it will work better. Dinner was pizza and salad from Pizza Hut. Tomorrow we plan to get back on the "S" route and ride to the Great Alleghany rail/trail. That connects Washington DC with Pittsburgh. Until then...............