Indiana, PA

Despite our rough entry into Prince Gallitzin State Park the night before, Eric and Katy and I were saying nice things about it by the time we left.

We headed into the town of Paton for breakfast. Paton is an old town with great brick sidewalks. Each brick says "Paton." We found an old cafe in the Central Hotel on the main street.

An old man sat on the stoop outside, wearing a straw hat with a huge flower. He looked like a man from another age. He looked so interesting, that in fact, I was afraid to look at him, because I thought I'd offend him by staring. I figured he was a local, known to everyone else who might walk by. But I don't think he was. As we went into the restaurant, we heard a passing lady tell him that she liked his flower. He didn't answer. When we left he was gone.

Inside were a bunch of old booths. It was around 11 a.m. The waitress brought us lunch menus and seemed shocked that we still wanted breakfast. Luckily, she was still serving breakfast, too. So we had our usual five breakfast special (two each for me and Eric, just one for Katy).

Near Carroltown, we saw a mini-golf. When Eric and Katy did a bike tour of Massachussets, New Hampshire and Maine back in 1991, they made it a point of honor to stop and play at every mini-golf. When we saw this one, our first thought was no way, we've got a lot of riding to do. But the more we thought about it, we realized we only had 40 miles to go that day, almost all of it downhill. So we stopped to play.

[ERIC: It was not all downhill but it was more down than up. The Carroltown is very close to the continental divide between the Mississippi drainage and the Chesapeake Bay drainage.]

It was a good course, and cheap--only $1.25 each. The flowers were gorgeous, the greens well kept, and the windmill shot was classic. We kept a scorecard, but smartly, we didn't add it up til later. So whoever lost didn't have that horrible feeling all through the game that they were falling farther and farther behind. It turns out we were all surprised at how we did. Eric won, I was second, and Katy came in third, but she had the only Hole in One.

Afterwards, we headed into Carroltown and stopped at Mr. Bob's Carroltown cafe. It also sold jewelry, which we thought was odd. The waitress was a hoot. She was just two years out of high school. She and her family had just moved to Carroltown from Maryland, to be closer to her mother's mother. "Mr. Bob" was the waitress's stepdad. Her name was Candy.

Candy said she and her family had supported themselves by working in restaurants for years. Then they decided to buy the one we were at in Carroltown. Part of the reason they left Maryland was that their city was too violent. Candy said her high school had had 16 bomb threats her junior year, five of which were actual bombs. At least one actually went off--a nail bomb in a bathroom. It sent nails through the tiles, but luckily, no one was in the bathroom when it exploded. When I was in high school I heard about knifings and the occasional shooting, but never about bombs.

We had a great lunch at Candy's place. She told us about the town. She said it had a lot of bars and not much else. She said after the bars, the mini-golf place and a drive-in theater, "you pretty much have to be an alcoholic."

After leaving Candy, we made the final push into Indiana. We took a lot of photos of cornfields and flowers that day, partly just as an excuse to take a break from riding. It was really really hot. Just before Indiana, we found a soda machine next to an old fire station, and then spent at least half an hour lying on a lawn, drinking soda and snarfing down peanut M&Ms.

On the phone the day before, Eric's Aunt Helen asked when we might be arriving. You can never tell when you're traveling on bikes. So Eric was vague. He said that we'd make it sometime before dark. But Aunt Helen pressed for a time, so Eric said around 7 p.m. He never told me or Katy that, so we were completely oblivious to the time all day.

After leaving the fire station, we started in on the last nine miles or so to Indiana (late actor Jimmy Stewart's home town). The terrain was super hilly. At one point, we found ourselves forced onto a large 4-lane limited access divided highway, U.S. Highway 422. We were already halfway up an onramp when we saw a sign that said non-motorized bicycles were prohibited.

At that point, to get off, we would have had to ride in the wrong direction on a highway that we weren't supposed to be on in the first place. So we figured we'd take a chance, and just keep riding forward until the next exit. Besides, we noticed that the highway was nicely graded, wheras the surrounding hills looked ominous.

Almost immediately, another onramp joined the highway. We thought about riding that off the highway, but again, it would be the wrong direction. So we stayed on, and rode forward.

It turns out Highway 422 was under major construction. One of two lanes going in our direction (west) was entirely off limits, so all the traffic was funneled into the remaining lane. We rode on the super-wide shoulder. The traffic was moving at a steady, but sane speed, maybe 45 miles per hour. I thought about how dangerous it was for us as cyclists, and I decided that it was way more dangerous riding those twisty mountain roads around blind curves. So we stayed put on the highway.

We did worry about getting busted by the cops. I was especially worried because the day before, I picked up a silver road reflector that had fallen off of a guard rail. I tucked it under a bungee cord on the back of Kate's bike, to give her extra visibility. Just for the heck of it. I never told her. So most of the time we were on U.S. Highway 422, I kept thinking that if a cop stopped us, I'd have to run right up to Katy's bike and throw that reflector away, or he'd think we had broken it off the highway ourselves.

We ended up going six miles on 422, and most of it was a really sweet, steady downhill. Around us the mountains were totally jagged. Katy said grading that highway was the best use that was ever made of any of her tax dollars.

[ERIC: We averaged over 20 mph on that stretch.]

Without 422, it would have taken us at least an hour to make those last nine miles. We wouldn't have arrived at Aunt Helen's until 8 p.m. at the earliest. But with 422, we were winged beings. We rolled off at the first exit, 6th Avenue, which happens to be just a few hundred yards from Aunt Helen's, just before 7 p.m. We literally rode into Aunt Helen's driveway at 7 p.m., the exact time Eric had said we would. After years of having Eric's family show up hours late, Aunt Helen was shocked to see us arrive on time.

She and Uncle Clint were in the driveway when we came, working on their garden. We went right inside and had great showers.

Then we drove over to the hospital, where Eric's Uncle Bob, a World War II veteran was recuperating from a rare blood disease. Uncle Bob has been through a lot. He was once missing in action for months, after his plane was shot down in the South Seas, near New Guinea. When his plane crashed in the water, he lost consciousness, but woke up bobbing in the ocean. Then he made it to shore, where he was cared for by some South Pacific natives who hid him from the Japanese occupying the island. Eventually he made it into the care of some Australian spies, who helped get him off the island. It's an incredible story. Anyway, he got malaria somewhere in the South Pacific, and he's had horrific bouts with it ever since. These days he's very sick. We all thought it was malaria, but it turned out to be a blood disease.

Uncle Bob wasn't in great shape, but it was good to see him. He told us that he had received a wooden toy we sent him from Poland. He's big on carving wooden toys, and he had asked Eric to keep an eye out for any new toys he might be able to carve.

While we were in Uncle Bob's room, Eric's and Katy's mom and dad showed up. Later, we all headed back for dinner. It was a great chili Uncle Clint had made. It felt good to be back in the hands of relatives.

The next day, we could have rushed off to ride towards Johnstown, but we decided to forgo that in favor of a second night in Indiana. And we were glad we did. We had a great time loafing around. We visited the Jimmy Stewart museum and got a tour of the Indiana Gazette newspaper (where Eric's and Katy's cousin Tim works).

That night, Aunt Helen's six visiting choir boys arrived, so Eric and Katy and I spent the evening visiting more aunts and uncles and cousins.

We slept in the trailer that night. There was a tremendous storm but we were dry inside.

next: U.S. Chapter 8, Home Stretch

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