18th Anniversary Ride!

Hello! It's been WAY too long since my last blog post!
Over the weekend Travis and I celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary by riding a couple new trails! We started in Indiana, PA on the Hoodlebug Trail which connected to the Ghost Town Trail ending in Ebensburg, PA. We rode 45 miles to Ebensburgh on Saturday, spent the night, then 45 miles back to Indiana on Sunday. I don't have any pictures of the Hoodlebug trail, but for good reason. It wasn't very interesting and by far the bumpiest trail I have ever ridden. It was honestly horrible and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone! The Ghost Town trail was much nicer with lots of fun things to see.


I especially loved the Black Lick Creek that ran along it.
Apparently there's so much iron in the water that the entire creed bed was orange!


There were also a few furnace remains that were pretty neat.
 


I also loved this abandoned bridge. It used to lead to a coal mining town which is no longer there. It's the only bridge from that time period that survived several major floods. We of course had to explore the actual bridge. It had several trees growing on it, but was very passable. It was a nice place to stop and have lunch!


Right before the end of the trail in Ebensburg we found this fun graffiti for a little photoshoot. Notice my sweet new bike accessory! Travis got me a Buca Boot for our anniversary. It's like a trunk for your bike that locks and everything! I actually took my camera along since I had somewhere to carry it! It worked out great!


Happy anniversary to my love! Here's to 18 years with many, many more adventures ahead!

Pittsburgh to DC Bike trip in a massive nut shell

If you have been following me on Facebook, it's possible you are sick of hearing about this. Alas, I need to do an "official blog post" about it! My husband and I have been planning and training for about a year for this! When we first started riding our bikes more often, 20 miles felt like SO FAR. When Travis mentioned that he wanted to ride his bike from Pittsburgh to DC Labor Day 2013, I thought that was a crazy idea. I mean...I knew I could do it if I trained, but it just seemed like a little much. LOL! But yea, Travis and I have this problem with goals. If we get one, we usually make it happen.

So after many weekend rides and lots of preparations...we were ready and on our way!    

We left Pittsburgh September 1st. We originally planned on leaving from Point State Park, but silly Siri couldn't get us there (I decided that everything that goes wrong on our phone is Siri's fault). We just decided to start at Station Square instead. It would be easier for us to park and Dustin to drive home after we unloaded anyway.

Day 1: Pittsburgh, PA to Connellsville, PA - 60 miles.

The day over all was very easy. Right before we came into Connellsville, Travis broke a spoke. Thank goodness we caught Bikes Unlimited still open! They stayed late just to fix his bike. We were so thankful!

Day 2: Connellsville, PA to Frostburg, MD - 76 miles.

The second day was tough. The elevation hike was a little harder, and we also had two flats. It was also the hottest day of our ride. Other than that, the trail was great! If you ever get a chance to ride the Great Allegheny Passage...do it!

When we finally got to Frostburg we were flippin TIRED. To our dismay, Frostburg is a city on a mountain. Before we got to our B&B, we had to climb this switchback.

Then to get to the rest of the town for dinner, we had to climb this:

Needless to say, our legs weren't working so well at the end of the day. LOL!

Day 3: Frostburg, MD to Hancock, MD - 76 miles.

Ah!!! Down hill for 15 miles. Exactly what we needed after a hard first two days. Not to mention it was beautiful! We did end up having one flat...no biggie. 

Cumberland is where the Great Allegheny Passage ends and the C&O Canal Towpath begins.

Almost half way there!

The C&O Canal Towpath was really interesting. I didn't know anything about the canal until our ride!

My body was ready.

Tons of old locks and misc ruins along the way.

This tunnel was SUPER CREEPY. It was really really long, wet, deep and dark. The floor was really uneven so you had to walk your bike through. I did not like it one bit! :p

Poor Travis. He got really good at changing inner tubes!

Day 4: Hancock, MD to Harpers Ferry, WV - 64 Miles

This was the first "uneventful day". Lots of pretty stuff again. Long long trails in the woods. That's about it! 

Harpers Ferry was a pretty cool place. Lots of history and nice scenery.

My only complaint was...everything was closed in the evening! We were lucky to find one place to eat.

All we wanted was dinner and a beer. . . God Bless Secret Six Tavern!

Day 5: Harpers Ferry, WV to Washington DC to home in Alexandria, VA -  74 miles

WOOHOO! Last day! This day was really pleasant.

Probably because we knew that there wasn't much more. 

 

Found this awesome tree! You know this one will show up in a painting sooner or later! 

 

Finally made it to mile marker ZERO! The bike trail didn't exactly lead up to it. Some nice trail patrol guy named "Norman" gave us a paper with directions on how to find it. Kind of tricky!  Right before we got to Mile -0- Travis broke his bike again. Poor guy! We were riding and I suddenly heard a loud sound and saw a puff of dust coming off of his back tire. We originally thought he broke another spoke, but it was the metal part that the spoke attaches onto at the hub. HA! He wobbled all the way home. 

 

Heck yes. Notice awkward photobomb in the back.

A couple peacefully basking in the shade, gazing into each others eyes.  

About 10 more miles...and we're home!! WOOHOOOO!

It was quite anticlimactic. We rolled into the parking lot, took a selfie and put our bikes in the basement. 

It was definitely an amazing adventure I will never forget. We were blown away by the perfect weather too! The first two days were supposed to have rain, but we managed to miss it all. While we were riding, we decided to make a goal...bike tour in New Zealand! Well, we'll see. That's wayyyy in the future. But we will do it. Oh yes we will. 

Spontaneous Mini-Vacation!!!

This is our last weekend here in Virginia that we will be "without puppies". They have been staying with Dustin and the Bro's for most of the summer. I miss them so much! At the same time it's been VERY freeing. We can do whatever we want, for however long we want. It's been hard because we don't have anyone to watch the puppies or check on them here in Virginia. So no day trips for us unless we take them along.

So Travis had Friday off. We were trying to think of what we could do for fun and Travis mentioned that he still had some points for a free hotel...so why not go to Ocean City, MD and ride our bikes up the coast? YEA!! Why NOT? So we booked the hotel, packed and took off! It was great!

Friday evening we just took a bus over to Ocean City to walk around the boardwalk. It was a little rainy, but not bad. I hit all the spots on Penny Collector and got quite a few! Sadly, there was one I didn't get at Ripley's Believe it or not. The lady even let me go in without paying to get the penny, but sadly it was out of order. I guess she didn't realize.

Also, I got to meet a SMURF!
I think it was a fake... especially since he was taller than me. :p

Saturday we rode our bikes all the way up to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. It was about a 29 mile trip.
Never did I think I would even GO to Delaware, let alone ride my bike there. LOL! 

 

Can I please brag about my husband a minute? He is seriously the best. My best friend. What guy would offer to spontaneously go on a little vacation? He totally catered to my penny smashing fantasies and constantly put up with my weirdness the whole time. He's sooooo amazing. I love that we can ride our bikes all over the place together and just hang out. It's total bliss. What a blessing he is to me! 

 

We got to eat at a nice place out on the deck. The wind actually made it cold. 

 

Travis cutting a coupon out of the little welcome booklet with a pocket knife. That's my kind of man!

 

Penny pressing!!! 

 

Nine new pennies this weekend! Woohoo!

I plan on getting one on the way home to PA this week in Breezewood,

and then a couple on our bike trip. 

Did I mention we were going on a sweet bike trip next week? Starting one week from today, Travis and I are riding from Point State Park in Pittsburgh all the way to Washington DC and straight to our home in Alexandria, VA. It's a 5 day trip doing around 60-70 something miles a day!

SO EXCITED!