The route for today included some scenic roads and a little bit of interstate riding.  I wasn’t quite sure what to expect.  One thing for sure, I didn’t expect what someone left on the bike for us this morning.  Maybe someone from PA is reading my comments about how unfriendly the locals are and tried to make up for it.  (see picture below)

The weather guys were giving us the impression we were going to get wet at some point today.  I felt that we had been really lucky to have sun for 2 days so I was mentally prepared to sit and wait out any rainstorms we might encounter.  In anticipation of this, I cut our route down considerably by deciding to bypass the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania and heading straight to Monticello, NY.  That cut out about 100 miles of a planned 300 mile day.  It turns out that was a good decision.  Not because the weather turned nasty but because the roads and traffic did.

I always thought Indiana was the road construction capital of the US but we aren’t even close to what’s going on in PA.  Every road we were on had flagmen and stoppages.  At one point we made 25 miles in about 2 hours.  That will teach me to try to find great 2 lane roads without checking the construction info on the state web sites.  Live and learn.

There was so much traffic even on the side roads I wondered if there were special events in every town.  One part of the problem is that there is a lot of pipeline construction going on in this area.  Pipeline work brings big equipment and lots of people.  Big equipment means more road damage and subsequent repairs.  That’s a vicious cycle I could live without.  US-6 is probably a very scenic route – it’s marked that way on the map.  The sections of it that weren’t being worked on were bone-jarring rough and filed with all kinds of traffic.  I should have stayed on the interstate.  At least we would have kept moving.

Once again we didn’t take many pictures today.  I didn’t even bother to take pictures of the diners we ate at.  Jana snapped a few pics while riding and strangely enough they all have signs of road construction in them.

Tomorrow is a visit to the site of Woodstock then the front wheel points west toward home.  Once again rain is predicted and I’m hoping our luck holds.

Something to smile about first thing in the morning.

The orange flowers match the construction warnings.

Little orange placard indicating river construction I guess.

Orange barrels and gray skies – my mental vision of PA will always be this.