14 miles!

Today was a beautiful, sunny, hot day. Our second bike ride. Testing our mettle! George bought a bike rack for his pickup truck, fits in the hitch. Much easier~no loading them into the back of the truck. My Honda Fit would tip over backwards if we put a hitch and two bikes on it!

We found a webpage that lists bike trails in our area, mostly Rails to Trails. This particular one is about a half hour away from my house. We packed one of our goofy picnic lunches - grapes, cheese, and rice cakes. Then off we went!

The trailhead is at the Pennsylvania Power and Light Riverlands Park, across from the nuclear plant. It's approximately 10 miles long.

We started off. The trail didn't look well used. It's gravel, but overgrown a bit. I wanted to make sure we were going the right way, so took out my Iphone. Thank God for them!

The website assured us we were in fact going the right way. We trudged along, passing mile markers  :) The river was down below us to the right, and highway 11 to our left. There were some odd places where we had to get out onto Route 11, ride around a junk yard, then back onto the trail. Once we got past the junkyard, it actually turned nice! There were nice wildflowers.

About 4 miles into our ride, we went through the town of Shickshinny. They have a little park on the trail, so we decided that would be a good time to eat our picnic.

We needed the break! The trail was for the most part, level and flat, but it was HOT today!

At the 6.5 mile marker, there was a sign pointing towards the 'Search Cemetary. Pretty cool old family plots.





There weren't too many gravemarkers, but a cool find, nonetheless.

At this point we were trying to decide if we should keep going, or turn around. The whole trail is 10 miles long, so 20 miles round trip. It was pretty hot, and we weren't sure we should push it. So we flipped a coin (so to speak) and pushed on a bit longer. I'm glad we did!

We got to the point where we could ride down closer to the river.

This was our turn around point. Next time we'll start from the other end! We made our way back, stopping to drink lots of water. Did I say it was a hot day?!

Got back to the truck, loaded the bikes back on the hitch rack, and took off. Of course, our travels always end with a search for a local ice cream shop. This time it was 'Big B'. Their cones were terrific!