The day starts with a lucky double-yolk egg. We forgot butter for toast, but avoided roughing it when our van-camper neighbor offered us his since they were headed home to North Carolina. He explained that their plan was to go to Maine, but this was as far as they made it - they'd stopped to smell too many roses and ran out of time.
We broke camp and headed for the Darling Run access point near rt 6 by around 8:30AM. The cloud cover and early start mitigated the heat. There were a LOT of people at Darling Run, but once on the trail, the traffic really spread out - most of the time, other people couldn't be seen either in front or behind us. We took a break about 8 miles in at the Tiadaghton camping area. No potable water - a recurring feature of the PA outdoors.
A few miles on we approached a guy very interested in something to the side of the trail, which turned out to be: rattlesnakes. We stopped and took pics, thinking it cool to see some wildlife.
The next few miles of trail was solid rattlesnakes. Melissa stopped to take a picture of one, and while slowly approaching it from 20' away, was startled to find one crawling up beside her only a few feet away. The path was strewn with small twigs and branches which made scanning for snakes more stressful. Melissa claims she ran over the tail of a baby and it attacked her bike tire.
We passed thru Blackwell, pressing on to Rattlesnake Rock where we stopped after about 18 miles of pedaling to find a phone to call for a shuttle. None found, we backtracked to Blackwell. Ice cream from Miller's store made everything a little better. The Miller's directed us to the free land line phone at the parking lot, from which we called Pine Creek Outfitters to learn that the "every 3 hours shuttle" has to be scheduled in advance. The next shuttle was already full and still hours out.
A young guy was loading riders and bikes into a van marked "Stony Fork Creek Campground." He was headed back to camp to drop off his shuttlees and pick up more, thence to take the fresh riders to Darling Run. We offered him $20 for a ride back, but he could only take one of us and no bikes. With little thought (and the near disaster of forgetting the truck keys in the bike pannier), a few minutes later I was in a van headed to Darling Run. Melissa would stay with the bikes in Blackwell - I'd get the truck and come back to pick up her and our gear.
A few miles into my van ride, it occurred to me that I'd just abandoned my wife hundreds of miles from home with no money, wallet, keys, ID, or phone. Only then I started doing the math: we were 25 miles from the truck, and SFCG kid had stops to make. Best case scenario was a 50 mile drive on twisty country lanes with an overloaded truck - not much less than 2 hours. It was getting late in the afternoon and the sky was getting dark - a thunderstorm was coming. "Husband of the year" award looking less and less likely.
At SFCG, the fresh riders were dawdling, and the driver needed to hook up a trailer to carry some recumbent contraption. More time lost. The thunderstorm passed south of us, in the direction of Blackwell. I pictured Melissa cold, drenched, exhausted, and freezing.
Finally at Darling Run, I set up to re-trace the last hours' driving. I drove at my limit and a few times tested the brakes to the point of smelling them burn. After an eternity, I pulled into the Blackwell access to find Melissa half-asleep at a picnic table, completely un-phased by the whole experience. The storm had missed her, she took a little nap. We loaded up and were off.
The plan was to get shuttled back to the truck at Darling Run, from which a straight shot on rt 6 would bring us to Galeton, then Cherry Springs. With the truck now 25 miles south of rt 6, driving the gorge south seemed reasonable - there would probably be a road to take us across to rt. 44. On the one such rode, a sign warned us of a bridge out ahead - local traffic only. Committed and with no other options, we headed south all the way to 44, then back north to Cherry Springs - a huge detour.
We stopped at the Kountry Kitchen close to the park, then found a spot and I started leveling. A ranger showed up and we paid for the site. It was cloudy but the weather was supposed to clear. It was only a few days from a new moon, and moonrise was after midnight. I was hopeful.
At least the clouds made for a nice sunset.
Sunset in the truck door.
I fell asleep in the chair outside waiting for stars that would never come. Melissa woke me up after dark to 100% cloud cover. We called it and went to bed. At some point during the night, it started to rain. The sound of rain on the roof from the inside of a dry RV is a wonderful thing - almost payment for the sky we were cheated.
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