What a fantastic weekend to get out riding!  For the first time this year, we had sunshine and warm temperatures.  In fact, Jason and I both agree that it got too hot on Sunday.

We both had pretty hectic weeks, but that didn’t stop us from throwing together food and camping supplies for a Friday evening departure.  After work, around 5, we were ready to leave just as a bit of rain was letting up.  

Our path took us south from State College.  The first 6 miles or so were on pavement en route to the State Forest system, then we were on traffic-free gravel roads through the forest.  It was cool, and the riding was good.  We were in high spirits… until we realized that the sun was setting and we had forgotten our headlamps!  This was the first of a number of important items we left at the house.  Because of the waning light, we made camp early at the Roebuck hunting cabin.  Originally we chose this spot because we saw a nice ‘picnic table’…  which turned out to be some sort of shooting seat with a rifle rack and a far-off bulls-eye.  Ha!  It did make an excellent picnic table for us that night.

Beans, rice, and veggies.  Yum for us.  We crawled into the tent just  before a bit more rain started to fall.  We were so tired from the week that we didn’t even bother reading the Kindles we had carried with us.  Straight to sleep!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The rain was gone by morning, leaving behind steaming fields and roads.  As we rode out of the State Forest we heard a suspicious rubbing sound coming from Jason’s front wheel…  Uh oh! Luckily it was only the mud and grit built up from the dirt roads and we could easily clean it out with a stick.  It did mean that we found we were missing yet another essential item: our bicycle multitool!  We had no real way to fix our bikes, or even change a flat tire. Silly us.

We made our way to Huntingdon, a little town about 30 miles south of State College.  On our way in to town we found a tiny bicycle repair shop housed in a garage.  We asked for some tire levers just in case we did get a flat, and the man there was so kind that he just gave them to us!  Huntingdon is also home to a wonderful coffee roaster / sandwich shop / laundromat.  The kind of combination touring cyclists can only dream about.  We stopped for first lunch.