Trestle Trail

 Today was one of our more relaxing days, although we started with a 18 mile bike ride. We rode on the Trussell trail, which is absolutely beautiful. It was paved the whole way, and we went over several bridges past bodies of water past old buildings, and mostly under the trees, so it was shaded, an added bonus was that we could smell the pine trees along the way. It’s a very popular trail as we passed a lot of people and several disabled people; some with artificial legs and some in wheel chairs. It was nice to see people enjoying the trail. We think we only rode about half of the trail. Apparently this trail will eventually go from Maine to Florida.  Who knows maybe we’ll be on this trail again somewhere.

We then went to Dan’s place for lunch, which was an excellent choice. I had a better fried cod Reuben sandwich with housemaid chips. It was excellent and I only ate half of it. Scotty had a fish sandwich with onion rings, and he said his was excellent, and he left behind part of his bun also, we did leave room for ice cream and went to Buttonwood Farms. I had coconut almond ice cream, which was one of the best ice cream‘s. I’ve had along with a scoop of mint chocolate chip. Also, Scotty had strawberry cheesecake and mint Oreo. One of the reasons we went there was there very popular sunflower fields. I was very disappointed to see that we were probably two weeks ahead of the blooms which is too bad, because they had an absolutely huge field of flowers.

Trailer Trouble

 What happens when you drag your home behind you ever bumpy roads. We found out today. The frame on our slide started to pull away from the trailer. This was no good because if it continued, we would not be able to use the slide. We pulled over at a Wilkes-Barre Walmart in Pennsylvania to re-search dealers. There was a local RV dealer 8 miles away and the lady was very nice on the phone so we drove over. Boy did we luck out. There were two young men that analyzed the problem, and immediately knew what to do. They did what was also recommended on the Winnebago forums. They removed the screws and put in rivets and now it will be almost impossible for the frame to pull away.  From there we went to our hidden gem, the Susquehanna Brewing Company. We shared a flight of beers, and then bought four cases – blue berry, orange, blackberry and peach. We love these fruity beers and plan to take some out to the island with a repair. Stop a Walmart stop a brewery stop it made for a long day and we were glad to get to our campsite. Hope Pond Island State Park is a pretty park, but it is absolutely packed with people. There’s only one small section of beach and all that we didn’t go over during the day. We imagine it gets very very full with swimmers. 

Repaired

Caledonia State Park, PA

 It was about a 5 to 6 hour drive to Caledonia State Park. This is a pretty treed park, although our site was at a slant, which made it a little more difficult to level the trailer.We immediately got into the truck and drove over to Pine Grove furnace State Park and rode our bikes for 6 miles. The path was part gravel, and then partly paved. This is a pretty little park, and it appears to be much used by the community as there were lots of people in the lake. This path is also parallel to the Appalachian trail, and there was even a large hostel their rooms available for the night. We passed several hikers, and I briefly considered us hiking it someday until Scotty reminded we may have to sleep on the ground. The Appalachian Trail is off my list! When we got back to the trailer, we made a veggie pizza and ate it outside. We were both amazed that there was absolutely no humidity in the air, or at least it appeared so to us.

New River Gorge Bridgewalk

 Wow! How do I even express the emotions felt on this walk? Originally, Scotty looked online and the slots were filled. I later found that they would book a few people that called in that day. So I called and booked a 3:00 slot. Immediately afterwards, I began to think, ‘What the hell did I just do?’ But, we showed up and apparently, my anxiety showed as another young lady named Alison began talking to me. She was on her 1 year anniversary trip and her husband convinced her to go. We decided to walk beside each other - wimps unite! The guide showed us how to pit on our harnesses. The trans-fastener that attached our harness to the steel cable cost $900 and that somehow gave me some relief. If it costs that much, it has to be good, right? (Just don’t think about it’s purpose!!) The walk is a 2 foot steel walkway with 2 railings on each side. It is underneath the bridge - a 4 lane highway so you’d be protected from precipitation. And they do tours all year long! The guide was great, she asked a couple of times at the beginning how we were feeling. All were good so we proceeded. Of course at the beginning, we walked above the trees. I couldnt help but think, would I be safer falling into a tree, or the river farther out! Not good thinking, I know. One of our first views below was a white truck parked below and a few people. They looked as small as ants, okay, as small as gnats!! I couldn’t believe I wasn't more scared. As we walked along, our fastener would sometimes get stuck on the safety cable intersections. We were instructed to give it a tug. More than anything, that was annoying. We could also feel the walkway shake some and definitely could hear the larger vehicles passing overhead. I thought that might bother me, but it didn’t. As usual, when I travel with my engineer, he’s looking at the structure and pointing things out to me. He noticed the trap doors we walked over before the guide had even pointed them out and the numbers on the 70 cable supports. We learned that the steel weighed 44 million pounds and the cement pillar bases also weighed 44 million pounds. That was by design to act as a counter-balance. The bridge cost 37 million dollars and was completed in 1977. The more we walked, the more I appreciated this engineering marvel and enjoyed the views around us. It was a fantastic experience and I’m really glad we did it!

Endless Wall Trail

 We decided to hike this wall trail, which was listed as a 3 mile loop to be done in an hour and 15 minutes. We ended up hiking 3.7 miles in two hours and 14 minutes. The only way to do this hike in an hour and 15 minutes is to bypass the overlooks which would be a shame because that is the highlight of the walk. The skies were hazy because of the California wildfires are still spectacular. There were several overlooks, and each one offered a different view. Several of the overlooks included rock climbing, and there were two overlooks that had ladders to go farther down. We did not venture to do that because the ladders were straight down and looked a little scary to me. This is a very popular Trail and we passed lots of people.  We travel to trail clockwise last overlooks that we could see the new river gorge bridge through the haze.