East Stroudsburg, Blakeslee

July 22-23

by Joan

Waking up in Worthington State Park (in New Jersey), we were a little worried we would get in trouble for not formally checking in. But we got in a talk with the camp host, and he said not to worry, a ranger would be by to collect our money.

The camp host was an interesting guy. He was basically retired, and traveling around the country to work as camp host a different parks. He really liked Worthington State Park because it had a lot of wildlife: bears, deer, you name it. He said he saw more wildlife there than he had seen in several months in a previous stint at a park in the Ozarks.

He was really into being a free spirit. He said down in the Ozarks, he had met a young woman who was with her aunt. The niece was on a long backpacking adventure; the aunt was lamenting the fact that she'd never done anything like it. Our camp host told the aunt she should pal around with her niece and have a great time. He was amazed that the aunt hadn't thought of that herself.

[ERIC: One thing he told us gave me a bit of a chill. A bear had ravaged one of the campsites the night before we were there. This is not a big deal except we had taken no bear precautions and Katy even slept with a half full bag of Cracker Jacks in her tent. Thank God the bear didn't come back.]

We took time breaking down camp. A ranger did come by, but he didn't ask for any money. So we ended up getting the place for free.

We rolled south out of the park about five or 10 miles down to the Delaware River. The map showed that the only way to cross the river was on I-80, but luckily, the part of I-80 that crosses the Delaware has a pedestrian bridge, which doubles as a portion of the Appalachian Trail. So it was no problem crossing at all.

On the other side of the bridge, we rolled into the edge of E. Stroudsburg, and ate at a great place called the Trail's End Cafe. It's called that because if you're hiking the Appalachian Trail, the trail dumps right into the cafe before continuing down the block to the I-80 pedestrian bridge. It's actually much closer to the middle of the Appalachian trail than the end.

I was so high on the diners of New Jersey that I was reluctant to eat at a non-diner, if I could help it. But it looked great. It had wooden chairs and tables and nice little curtains. So we went in and had the best French toast of my life, made with huge slabs of raisin bread.

A white guy with dreadlocks took the table next to us. He turned out to be Austin. He was from Massachussetts and was hiking the Appalachian Trail from south to north. Since he was doing the whole trail, that made him a "through hiker" which seemed to be a point of pride. I would be proud if I were doing it. Austin was definitely into the rhythm of long distance hiking. He was gloating a bit about how he was having such a great time and some people he met only dreamed of walking the trail. He was in his early 20s, and had that supreme confidence that comes with a small stash of money, lots of time off, no debt, and a long life ahead.

While we were eating, the waitress mentioned that the town was having a free potluck for hikers that night. It was a Thursday, and the town apparently does this every Thursday of the hiking season. Austin was so impressed he decided to stay an extra night. The night before, he had slept in a gazebo in a small park across the street from the restaurant.

We spent hours in that cafe, and then rode just a few miles into the center of E. Stroudsburg. I had to do some errands (photo developing, overnight shipping, etc.), so we ended up blowing most of the rest of the day walking around town. The photo store was great. Then we found an awesome used book store.

For six months now, I've been trying to find another copy of Mark Twain's "Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc" for some friends in France. That book is so awesome that I don't want to lend out my personal copy. I've looked for other copies in Borders, and in small book stores in New York and all over Europe. So I didn't have high hopes of finding it in E. Stroudsburg. But there it was. I bought it on the spot and mailed it to France less than an hour later. Borders, by the way, had told me that it was out of print but the rather knowledgable woman who ran the bookstore swore this was a lie.

Right after Stroudsburg, we hit the second "wall" of a hill. That made two walls in just three days. It was a doozy. We were all hurting on that hill. I was amazed that Katy made it up, since she hadn't had any time to train for the NYC-Pittsburgh ride. The hill hurt especially for several reasons: it got steeper as it went along, we never got any great views, and it was really really hot. Essentially it had all the suffering of a mountain climb but none of the payback, not even a long descent.

When Eric and I first started our bike trip more than two years ago in Vancouver Island, British Columbia, I was absolutely killed by the hills, and did a lot of pushing. Plus, back then, we were only going 30 miles a day maximum. The part of the trip we did with Katy, we averaged about 50 miles.

After a brutal push up into the Poconos, we arrived at our 'lunch' spot at 5 p.m. It was a Poconos diner. We spent the rest of daylight riding through backroads over the Poconos to the Jack Frost campground, right on I-80. It rained quite a bit. We were surpised to hear later that the East Coast was in the midst of a big drought.

Just before the campground, we stopped at a gas station so Katy could call Randy and let her know she was alive. We had sent an email to that effect from a Net cafe in E. Stroudsburg. But Katy had promised Randy she'd call the night before, and that night, we couldn't find a phone. He was happy to hear from her.

It was Thursday night, just one night before a major car race somewhere nearby [ERIC: Pocono Raceway]. Fans were piling into the Jack Frost campground early. The camp had hundreds of sites, but they were filling up. At first, we signed up for one right near the entry. But it turned out to be just a stone's throw from the Interstate, and way too noisy. So I went back to the camp office to change sites. The workers were frazzled. They said there was no way I could change sites, everything was full. I pointed out that we only wanted to stay one night, and that we'd clear out before the big race. So they gave us a better site way back in the woods.

The campground was mostly full of giant RV's with race flags on the porches towed by enormous pickup trucks.

We set up our tents in the dark, and took turns riding Katy's unloaded bike back to the shower area. It was really expensive camping, at $21 for two tents on the same site, though the site was large, secluded and in a great woods.

Next: U.S. Chapter 5, We cross paths with 191 cyclists

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