PA ECG Team

 Today we had a long ride, 1.7 miles from the hotel to the train station! We are ready to go home.  We took the Amtrak Carolinian from Durham NC to Philadelphia PA. Then with a long wait for the Keystone line from Philadelphia to Mount Joy! As we approached Philadelphia, we noted an earlier train to Mount Joy. We all switched our tickets to this earlier train and arrived in Mount Joy at approximately 11:30 p.m. instead of 12:30 a.m. We said our goodbye's and everyone rode home. Gary loaded his vehicle at my house in Mount Joy and headed to Lititz!  Our total trip was 820 miles +/- and about 29,675 feet of climbing!  Combined with our first leg of the trip in 2021, we have logged about 1,615 miles on the East Coast Greenway.  Thanks for sharing our journey!

 We departed Oxford NC on a sleepy Sunday morning! There was very little traffic until the church goers woke up! Our phones chirped out the cues. Once we got on the outskirts of Oxford, we received a cue that said, “In 26.8 miles, turn right.” This one road was gently rolling and took us all the way into Durham.  We met my son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter at the Museum of Science and Life in Durham. They had come from their home in Statesville to the Raleigh/Durham area to meet us as we finished. We enjoyed spending time with them today.  Gary brought to our attention that there is a low underpass in Durham that actually has its own YouTube channel. If you are interested, you can go to this address to view the video of past events!  https://youtu.be/3AbU_CnkBiE Here are several photos of the underpass shown in the video! And here are a couple of photos of the camera taking the videos! I took the opportunity to take some additional photos in the same area. Sign...

  This will be our last “full” ride day. Tomorrow is just a short jaunt into Durham!  As we were leaving South Hill, a policeman flagged us down and ask about our route out of town. Our route was on Plank Road. He asked us to detour as there was a major working fire on this road. We diverted to Route 1, which runs parallel to Plank Road in this area. As we continued south on 1, we passed through very thick black smoke. We are thankful for the men and women in blue and volunteer firefighters!  We later learned that this was a large apartment building fire. No one was injured, but several people were displaced.  This area is also very rural. It seemed that almost every household had dogs. We were continuously serenaded by hound dog barks. Additional, dog owners in this area were not real keen on keeping their animals contained. We had several of these critters decide that bicyclists were fair game for chase! There were no injuries or close calls, but it definitely kept...

Today’s ride is through rural Virginia. Lots of farm fields, tobacco, soybeans, and pine tree farms. We saw three flocks of wild turkeys. Each flock contained four birds. Only one jake (male) could be identified.  We spent a lot of time on Route 1. It was very lightly traveled in this area and all drivers were very courteous, either going into the left lane, where applicable, or crossing well over the centerline to give us adequate berth. Route 1 in this area is also called the Boydton Plank Road. There were other areas where we rode on a road called Plank Road. I searched for the origin of this name and found the following. The Boydton and Petersburg Plank Road, built between 1851 and 1853, was the first all-weather route connecting Southside Virginia's tobacco and wheat farms with the market. Pine and oak planks, 8 feet [2.4 m] long, 1 foot [0.30 m] wide and 3 to 4 inches [7.6 to 10.2 cm] thick were laid across paralleled beams slanted toward a ditch. The road boos...

  Today promises to be a short and relatively flat day. We modified the route this morning to include a biking tour of the Petersburg Civil War Battlefield. As we worked our way into Richmond the route put us on Monument Ave. The first statue we encountered was General A. P. Hill.  Monument Ave. took us right into the heart of Richmond. I was very surprised at the lack of traffic in Richmond, especially for a Thursday morning. We went by Virginia Commonwealth University and the Virginia State Capital.  A right turn at the Capital took us to the waterfront along the James River. We came upon the American Civil War Museum located in the former Tredegar Iron Works. I enjoyed seeing that much of the former building has been preserved, at least for show. The most highlighted feature that has been preserved is the water wheel. I thoroughly enjoyed watching this wheel in operation, at least if it is only for show.  Leaving the iron works, we climbed up to the bridge and cro...