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| Finally!! It seems that unless you are traveling on an Interstate Highway, you'll not likely get a formal signage welcome. This small welcome mat was across the small bridge to Easton, Pa. |
After an overnight thunderstorm and morning rains, the clouds cleared away and the sun shone brightly on our intrepid cyclists. The day was filled with many challenging hills as we weaved back and forth across the Delaware River, heading south towards Easton. I took my rain jacket off by mile 52.
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| This was as much welcome as New Jersey could afford. Your tax dollars at work. |
Some of the riders that this was the most thoroughly enjoyable day. Others felt it was among the most challenging of days, with a mile-long, 13% grade climb though the National Park Service lands on an old mining road that dated back to the Revolutionary War and with more potholes than London after the blitz. That was followed by a series of nasty short (one-to-two tenths of a mile), steep climbs (15%, 14% and 11%) along the New Jersey side of the Delaware a few miles before our returning to the Pennsylvania side.
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| These small and narrow bridges do not allow bicycles to ride across. And to ensure we don't even ride along the sideway adjacent to the bridge, there are attendants waiting on the other side to issue tickets for cycling offenders. |
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| It was the very same situation entering Easton, Pa. The I-78 bridge is a quarter mile north of this. |
Some of the crew and riders (the really fast ones!) had their first bear sighting this morning. Just before the first SAG stop, a bear was standing near the intersection of two country roads. The van may have scared it off as it soon ran into a nearby cornfield. Minutes later, a motorist stopped our first two riders as they neared that same SAG stop to warn them that a momma bear and her cubs were in the cornfield next to the road. They gave the cornfield a wide berth.
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| A huge plume of white smoke caught our attention off in the distance. Soon we rode through the darkly wooded and very narrow roadway (you can't see just how badly the paving was). Rounding a corner, we saw the source of the smoke; a nuclear power plant on the Pennsylvania side of the river. The irony was that once we got out of the woods, to our left on the Jersey side was a huge field of solar panels. |
Those of us who have been on cross country rides before (either west to east or up the Mississippi) all had similar observations about our surroundings this afternoon. As we rode past crop fields along both sides of the river, we couldn't help but notice the strong similarities between these scenes and those of past rides throughout the midwest, whether along the Mississippi, Missouri or Ohio Rivers. They all looked identical!
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| Are these cornfields in Iowa or Pennsylvania? |
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| Is this farm in Indiana or New Jersey? |
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| Easton, Pa. is home to Lafayette College, ex-heavyweight boxing champion, Larry Holmes, Jr. and, to my surprise, the Crayola Crayon company. |
The final surprise of the day was the last two miles to the hotel. It's a new hotel for this trip and, as such, it's a new route for both riders and staff. The cue sheets made no mention of a brutal half-mile climb once you turned right about a mile from the hotel. There was little or no time for many to gear down in our lowest gears to attack this very steep hill. Some veered off just to avoid falling. Others deftly managed to shift down in time. Needless to say, the crew got an earful when they arrived. Duly noted, the cue sheet for this leg of the journey will be amended for future editions.
Tomorrow, it's off to the west into Amish Country. Final destination, Lancaster, Pa.
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