On Saturday it happened; my brain slipped into touring mode. When we started out in the morning everything felt calm and peaceful and gentle. We rode lazily along quiet back roads along the Delaware River, and later on the D&R Canal Bike Path. We stopped for lunch in Lambertville after about 35 perfect touring miles. And yet again the ever-threatening skies held off and we got only the occasional stray raindrop.
After lunch we turned west and left the river headed for Norristown. Bucks County, PA is very pretty with prosperous looking, well-tended houses. It also seems to be growing fast with new housing developments going in everywhere, making the roads probably more trafficed than when the route was originally laid out. The roads here are laid out mostly in a grid pattern and we were traveling across the grid at an angle so we made a long series of right and left turns until we finally arrived in Norristown. The route actually skirts the town coming down to the Schuylkill River and it's bike path at the western edge of Norristown, so when we got there we turned east on Main Street and rode into town looking for a nice place to stay. Well, we kept riding and riding until we rode right out the other side of town, and all we saw was slum after slum. Norristown is evidently a city on the wane and no place I would want to spend a night of my vacation, so we turned around and rode back through town and finally located a nice hotel out in the western suburbs located in the middle of mall hell; the typical suburban sprawl of big box stores and chain restaurants. After a tough 80 miles we didn't care and had a great night in our comfortable hotel room.
Happy Anniversary Jodi Mary Silver, and thank you for agreeing to marry me!
As I mentioned we made 80 miles on Saturday, putting us 480 miles from home.
Allen Freeman
allen@allenf.com
www.allenf.com
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