It took a week into our epic Great American Rail Trail trek to the Mississippi River. But it finally happened.
For the first time since we left D.C. last Sunday, the sun came out. The rain went away. The wind died down. It was chilly but not bone-cold.
Listen, we knew it was gonna be a great day because even the bushes were wearing sun glasses.
And after experiencing two wet, chilling, mud-caked days on the Great Allegheny Passage, the GAP finally deigned to sparkle for us.
And so we rode. And we rode. And we rode. And as we rode, the landscape slowly shifted from rural to suburban to urban.
Oh, along the way I saw this odd thing. At first glance it appeared to be a golden waterfall. And I thought…wow! How cool?
But it wasn’t.
Turned out that rather than being a work of natural art, it was an unnatural abomination.
Apparently a coal mining company back in 1900 tapped into a vein laden with iron and sulfur pyrates. And it’s been spewing acid water into the local environment ever since.
I also came across this trailside sanctuary with seats and a cross. A sign invited me to “appeal to heaven.” I thought about it but then moved on.
Seconds later I saw a sign proclaiming “Dead Man’s Run.” And I had second thoughts about passing on that appeal.
Almost before we knew it we had left the bucolic countryside and entered the hardscrabble city of McKeesport. Here the GAP becomes a series of half-paved alleys riddled with potholes.
No question this town has fallen onto hard times. We passed an abandoned pipe manufacturing roundhouse that, in its prime, employed 9,000 people. It closed in 1987 and sits unused to this day.
On the other hand, a few miles later we saw a steel plant that Andrew Carnegie built in 1875. It’s still cranking out product.
Not sure if I mentioned this before. But if you ride the GAP you are going to see, and hear, a lot of trains. Around here, the rails never sleep.
Speaking of relics of the rust belt. This display of “teeming ingots” harkens back to a time (legend has it) when if a worker was killed by the intense heat of molten iron, a portion of an ingot was buried in his memory.
I dunno. Sounds like an urban legend to me.
The best thing about the final miles of the GAP is that gravel has given way to blacktop and you can turn on the velocity. Joe actually overtook this coal-laden barge.
Of course, he was riding an e-bike. And the barge really wasn’t moving all that fast.
After six days of riding the C&O Canal Trail and the GAP are in our rear view mirrors.
Tomorrow we take on the Panhandle and the Cotton Creek trails into Ohio.
But first, lunch at the Double Wide. An old gas station repurposed as a restaurant.
Listen, sooner or later everything around here seems to get repurposed. Is this a great country or what?
It’s been a splendid ride. Can’t wait to see what happens next.
FreeGNV 