Monday, July 20, 2009

Youngstown to Erie PA 98.2 miles - 3,317.9 miles cum
















Today we burned through another state. Goodbye Ohio, hello Pennsylvania!!! It was downright cold this morning when we left the hotel. I dressed like we were going for a ride in October not mid July. I put on an undershirt and wore my vest along with my arm warmers. This was an easy ride through the countryside. It was Sunday so there was not traffic at all until about 10:00AM. We discovered that President McKinley is from Niles Ohio.





Brian, Meiri and I rode together today. We arrived at the 1st Sag stop which was at a nice little diner/cafe. The food was supposed to be pretty good although I didn't eat anything. The three of us started out heading up Stanhope Kellogsville road. My son Steve was supposed to meet us in Kellogsville to ride with me into Erie. He was going to leave his car at a truck stop on I-80 and ride to the meeting place. He arrived a little early and started down the road to meet up with us. We met him at about mile 54 and the four of us proceeded on to the winery at mile 61. We stopped in the Tarsitano winery and met up with Bruce, Gerard and Judy. We sampled a few wines and had an appetizer. Everything was very good. we left there and rode 8 miles to Richardson's RootBeer stand for lunch. They have very good hamburgers, fries, and ice cream floats there. We had lunch and then set off for the Ohio/Pennsylvania border. After the picture taking session, Steve and I started off for Erie. My son Brad was coming to meet us in Erie and he was supposed to be there at 6:00PM. We made pretty good time even though Steve is not used to riding a road bike. He is a mountain biker and borrowed my old road bike for this trip. He did set a pretty good pace for us and we rolled into Erie at about 5:30 only to find out that Brad was running a little late.





While I was in the lobby, Sean asked me what we do all day that takes 10 hours to ride 98 miles. Sean is one of the hammers who likes to get in fast. I told him that we don't ride all of the 10 hours it takes to get there. We are seeing the country. We stop and take pictures, we talk to people, we eat lunch, we tell jokes. Sometimes, we sit under a tree or on a bench and eat our power bars and discuss everything and anything under the sun. We like a Starbucks or a Dairy Queen Blizzard at the end of the day before we get to the hotel. We are on a bike tour and we act like tourists!!!





That is the beauty of this trip, it is not a race, it is journey and the journey is what it is all about, not the destination!!!!

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