The mountains are BACH!

      For the third day the weather has been in the four star category, cool in the morning, high seventies to low eighties in the afternoon.  To make up for the lack of sweltering heat, the exertion put into climbing the foot hills of the Alleghenies has more than compensated. From Lake Erie to Pittsburgh, the terrain is UP and down the whole way.  I am thrilled!

      The landscape has become dramatically more forested with fewer crops of corn and soybean. No  more big sky because of all the hills. For weeks I have looked at farmland, the change is welcome.

        As I was cranking away in  my granny gear with only wilderness around me, a sign appears out of nowhere advertising deli food and grocery supplies. Down a gravel road  surrounded by mowed lawn, I stopped at an Amish store with absolutely the best food.  Great people, I talked with them for over an hour as I ate lunch.  Everyone takes picture of these people so I held back from using my iPhone. I did get their business card however.  This place could become a destination, that good!

      I checked into the Mercer Library for a wifi connection.  No Warmershowers places in the area so I found the local RV camping "Resort" and popped my tent.  Upon arrival, my neighbors and I exchange greetings  After the shower and general clean up,  April, Andy, Mark and Michael invited me over for a veritable feast.  Great people who rendez-vous every year at this site.  Four people, four tents; they met seventeen years ago via an online game they played; the "Wolf Pack" as they are known. We are hanging out by the camp fire having some good laughs.

       Having ridden over seventy miles today, Pittsburgh is now only sixty-five miles further south.  The GAP begins in the center of the city, probably at the train station.  I will do Warmshowers in the city so I can bicycle to it first thing in the morning.