It was a beautiful morning yesterday, but the forecast was for afternoon thunderstorms. I did a load of laundry and hung it out to dry, then took off for my usual towpath ride — I figured I could get back before the rain started, though by then the sky was starting to look ominous.
Well I basically did a hot lap, got home in plenty of time to beat the storm, got my dry laundry in and… it didn’t rain until the middle of the night.
Today is a rainy day. Anne is out doing some bike event (in the rain, she’s tougher than me) while I went over to the Easton Market, to brunch with Emmi and Iris.
I just got back from an overnight trip to Alexandria, Virginia to pick up a new bike. It’s a huge cargo bike that Jenny found online, like eight feet long and maybe 85 pounds, with a cargo box up front (the brand is Bakfiet, for those following along). Anne arranged to borrow Sarah’s pickup, and I drove down yesterday with John R to get it.
It was not quite a buddy movie, no adventures or anything — we just drove down, dealt with Baltimore and DC traffic (nothing major), and met the owner at a parking lot near Mount Vernon. Owner Vince seemed to be a pretty nice guy, and told me about how he used to use the bike to transport his daughters around, before they got too big and started riding their own bikes. I assured him it was going to a good home, and would soon be transporting another little girl…
A little bit of wresting (we also removed the bucket for transport) and we had the bike secured in the truck bed. We drove over to our hotel and checked in, and then took an Uber to a local brewpub called the Aslin Beer Company for dinner.
Neither of us had ever heard of them, but apparently Aslin is a local powerhouse, with multiple brewpubs in the area and even one as far away as Pittsburgh. The place we went to was packed — it was Trivia Night — but we found the last two seats at the bar, and had a great meal washed down with some really good west coast IPA’s. (My meal was a pepperoni and hot honey pizza, which I was prepared to have my doubts about but it was amazing.) We had a good time, but we were tired and didn’t really last long, we just did what we had to and left.
Back at the hotel, I discovered that my room was just close enough to the lobby that I could hear the horde of teenagers (some group on a bus tour) coming and going from the elevator to the pool. That died down by about 11:00, thankfully, and probably when the pool closed, and I slept fine from there out.
Today was an easy return: I met John (along with a horde of hungry teenagers) in the breakfast area, and after breakfast we had an uneventful drive home. We arrived just after 1:00, just about 25 hours, with a round trip total of maybe 450 miles.
I just added a page with links to some of my Sals maps; you can also find it in my “other projects” menu. I’ll be improving and adding to it as time goes on, but there it is for now.
I was hiking at Sals the other day and bumped into Eric riding with a few others; they asked me what I was doing and I told them I was tracking down the last of the trail marker posts, to add to my map.
Eric was like “uh, what map?” and I said I’d been keeping a map of Sals for decades, so he of course asked me where he could find it — and that was the motivation for starting my new page.
We did our annual group ride and camping trip last weekend, beautiful Fall weather if not quite peak foliage (it was still pretty good), and some really nice riding.
Friday: Up To Mauch Chunk Lake
We started at the CAT office and rode up to where we could pick up the Nor-Bath Trail at Bicentennial Park, which brought us to the D&L at Northampton. We then rode the D&L all the way into Jim Thorpe, stopping for lunch at the Slatington Farmer’s Market, passing the newly repaired/reopened sections near East Penn and Weissport, and grabbing supplies in Jim Thorpe at the grocery store in East Mauch Chunk — the west side of town was a madhouse, the Fall Foliage Fest basically took over downtown. Luckily, we rode through the crowds easily enough and back into relative calm, and finally made it up to our campsites at the lake — we had three next to each other, and all along the lake shore. Sweet!
CAT Riders at Bicentennial ParkCAT Riders On The D&LRepaired Towpath Near WeissportWeissport: Foliage on the DLLehigh River, Just South of Jim ThorpeJim Thorpe from the Mansion House BridgeMy Trusty Steed at the Mansion House BridgeMauch Chunk LakeCAT CampersAt the Campsite
Saturday: Rockport and Back
This was our recreational ride, up through the Lehigh Gorge to Buttermilk Falls, just little past the Rockport Trailhead. Our first stop was back in town, where we bought our lunches for later in the day, and from there we continued on to the Glen Onoko Trailhead, where a bunch of other people were joining us for the day’s ride.
It’s a fairly straightforward ride up through the Gorge, beautiful sights all around and the occasional excursion train passing by. We were traveling at different speeds, and some with children and time constraints turned back early, but the bulk of us regrouped at Penn Haven and continued on to lunch at Rockport. A quick trip to Buttermilk Falls, and we were on our way back down the Gorge, and through town again, and back up the hill to our campsites.
Some of the Saturday crowd set up camp with us, and others just went home after hanging out for a while, but this was our night around the campfire. The evening was gorgeous and the views of the lake and ridge were spectacular, but I couldn’t tell you more past sunset — I was in bed by 9:30.
Home Sweet HomeMeeting At Glen OnokoOn The TrailLehigh Gorge TrailThe Crew at Luke’s FallsJim Thorpe From Nesquehoning BridgeNesquehoning BridgeGolden Hour at Our Campsite
Sunday: Homeward Bound
My Garmin ran out of juice some time before Sunday morning, but Sunday’s ride was mostly just Friday’s in reverse. We stopped at Hug in a Mug in Weissport for breakfast, and at the Slatington Farmer’s Market again for lunch, and when we got to Northampton Anne and I broke off to take the roads more directly home.
Good Morning Mauch Chunk LakeMorning MistMorning, Mauch Chunk LakeLunchtime Bike Parking at Slatington
This was a short bike tour we took, a loop south along the Delaware, then west and back home by way of Vera Cruz. We took some liberties, but it was at least nominally meant to follow some of the old native paths in the area south of us.
Day One
We left Bethlehem, heading cross-country over to Riegelsville, brunched at the Riegelsville Inn (we got there just as it opened), then we continued downriver on the New Jersey side, crossed back into Pennsylvania at Milford, and rode down the towpath to Tinicum Park, our stop for the night.
Riegelsville BridgeRiegelsville InnThe Delaware At RiegelsvilleRiegelsville BridgeRiegelsville BridgeAnne On The Milford BridgeDelaware RiverTinicum: Delaware RiverTinicum: Delaware RiverTinicum ParkTinicum: Polo PlayersTinicum: Morning Deer
Tinicum was fairly primitive as far as campgrounds go, but it was very pleasant, and we got to watch some local equestrians play polo for a while before we crashed for the night.
Day Two
This was another beautiful day. We got up and out early, got breakfast at a diner not far from the campsite (again arriving just as it opened), then rode down the towpath and Rt 32 to Point Pleasant.
Point Pleasant is where Tohicon Creek meets the Delaware, and just above that is where Geddes Run enters Tohicon Creek. This area had a substantial native population once, and the mouth of Geddes Run was once a place where Native Americans worked a local stone called argillite (aka “mudstone,” or “blue jingles” as the local quarries later called it). The actual native quarry site is now on private land, but we could get a view of the general area from the road.
Tohicon CreekTohicon CreekGeddes RunWismer Road At The BridgeAnne At The Covered BridgeAnne In The Covered BridgeIn The Covered Bridge
Our route from there took us west on the Point Pleasant Pike, generally following an old native path to Schwenksville, through scenic little roads, and into more built-up and heavily trafficked areas, until we finally made it to Green Lane Park, our second night’s lodgings.
Day Three
From Green Lane we went north, again following the general outline of a native path — this was the path from the Phoenixville area to the jasper quarries at Vera Cruz. The route was a bit of a surprise; I expected it to be fairly flat (something I’d heard was a hallmark of native paths) but it was actually fairly hilly and rolling.
We got into Vera Cruz, stopped to explore Jasper Park (sorry, no pictures this time), and then we went into Emmaus to get lunch. We came home on our usual route from Emmaus, which was once also a native path. And that was our little holiday!
I had a slow leak on the Santa Cruz’s rear tire, which turned out to be a stuck valve and relatively easy to fix (disassembled and cleaned it), but then the next day the front brake felt super soft. I got new brake pads, replaced the front brake — fixed! I did the back brake as well the next day, and I also finally got the shifting dialed back in. It feels like a new bike…
I took it out on the towpath Tuesday after the front brake fix, then again on Wednesday with the rear brake and shifting done as well. Both times were awesome, but on Wednesday I took the little alternate “fisherman’s trail” in Freemansburg. Big mistake!
The whole trail was completely overgrown with downed trees, sticker bushes and nettles. I fought my way through — it took forever, I had to shorten my ride I took so long — and when I was back on the towpath I got a good look at my arms, which were completely covered in blood. Yikes! It was from the stickers, and it was really just a bit of blood from the tiny sticker scratches, mixed with sweat and looking worse than it really was — the nettles were far more annoying to be honest. But it sure looked dire; I took pictures but I won’t post them here.
Post-ride shower, and my arms looked like it never happened. Bike is still great.
We went kayaking at Merrill Creek Reservoir on Sunday, with Anne’s brother and his wife. It was a beautiful day for being outside, and a wonderful way to spend the day. Anne and Joe both brought binoculars and were checking out the local birds, I saw a bunch of turtles sunning themselves on a branch, but the best part was when Anne said “Look up there, a bald eagle!”
It was just above us in a tree, a fully-grown (huge) adult watching the water for fish. We watched it watch the water for about ten minutes before it flew off, and Laura told us she’d heard that there were two nesting pairs of eagles living at the lake with their juvenile children.Not long after, we crossed the lake to another area, and saw another, smaller adult bald eagle, watching the water from a dead tree. Bonus!
After that we paddled back to the boat launch. We were out on the water for about two hours in total, and afterward we got lunch in at a diner Washington, and a beer at a local brewpub before heading home. What a lovely day!
Anne and I planned to get kayaks as our Christmas presents to each other, and were doing our research when her brother & sister-in-law gave us two of theirs as a gift. We tried to pay them, but they refused — I think we did our part to help them clean their garage out.
We got life jackets and paddles from them too, but we still needed some way to transport the kayaks. We did a little online searching, found some used roof racks for pretty cheap, and installed them just the other day.
Today we put the kayaks on the roof and took them to Mauch Chunk Lake for their “New (To Us) Maiden Voyage.” Driving with them on the roof was a bit unnerving, but they did just fine. We got to the lake, got them in the water, and despite the windiness of the day, we had a great time with our new toys.
So now we have the boats, and (some of) the infrastructure, and we’ve christened them — we are kayak people now!
Anne and I just did a section hike on the Appalachian Trail, walking the New Jersey portion with several friends. More (probably much more) on this later, but one of the things that struck me was how meditative just hiking along can be — songs, other earworms, and various musings would take up a lot of the mental landscape.
I’d built a QGIS project before our trip, with info about our section of trail, and put it on my phone. It had some distances in miles and others in kilometers, and I was mentally converting back and forth when it struck me: a kilometer is about 0.6 miles, while a mile is about 1.6 kilometers. In other words, their reciprocals differ by one. Is that true, and if not, what number would it be true for? I worked out the quadratic equation:
(hmmm, seems familiar)… and I found the answer to be:
otherwise known as φ (phi), the golden ratio. Interesting, and a fine bit of mental bubblegum to chew on as I walked along…
When I got home, I broke my internet fast with some Reddit, and the first thing I see there is a photo of a tee shirt, with the golden ratio written on it — meaning, in this case, the “most irrational” number, as in “I am most irrational.” Anyway, just a coincidence, but a strange and striking one.
The other thing I carried with me in my head? “The Alley Cat,” a perfect earworm for my hiking rhythm, though I noticed that I changed the tempo as the terrain changed.
Jasper is a type of stone, sort of like an agglomeration of quartz-like minerals. It’s very pretty when polished and has been used for millennia for ornamentation, and it’s also very good for high quality stone tools like axe heads, arrowheads, and stone knives. There is a seam of jasper going through Lehigh and Berks Counties, and there are small sites all along the seam where natives once dug it up, but the biggest and most important site was an actual jasper quarry just south of Emmaus, at a place now called Jasper Park in Vera Cruz.
This quarry was worked for thousands of years, making it one of the oldest industrial sites in North America, and it really only shut down with the coming of European traders and their more competitive iron wares in the 1600’s. The site was studied by Henry Mercer in the late 1800’s, and was included as the destination for one of the native paths in Wallace’s Indian Paths of Pennsylvania; Wallace also noted that several other paths came together nearby, which was likely how the jasper made its way into the native trade networks — the jasper from here has been found as far away as New England.
As part of my native paths project, I’d put together a bunch of bike rides that more or less follow the old paths, and I have two — one a short ride, and one a multi-day trip — which visit Jasper Park. I have been meaning to go out on the shorter ride for a while now…
The Canal Museum is currently putting together an exhibit about Pennsylvania’s native paths, and just posted something on Facebook about Jasper Park. That, along with the recent nice weather, was enough inspiration to get me off my duff and out on my ride.
I started with some climbing, crossing the Lehigh and cutting across the college campus over South Mountain, then I picked up a few sections of the now-fragmented Old Philadelphia Pike/Old Bethlehem Pike (which name depends on where you are and where you’re heading), which I suspect followed the “Delaware River Path.” From there I headed southwest, skirting the southern flank of South Mountain out to Vera Cruz, and picked up the “Perkiomen-Lehigh Path” which led to Jasper Park, were I stopped to explore on foot.
Jasper Park is a Little League baseball field, some pavillions, and a small fitness trail; the quarries are off the fitness trail, in the woods behind the ball field, and tucked up against the Turnpike Northeast Extension right-of-way.
There wasn’t really much to see, no spooky vibes or anything, though it was cool that the ground still showed the indentations after almost 400 years. The top stone in the pile might have been what’s called a “turtleback:” these were once considered a very primitive form of stone tool, but are now thought to be stones that were partially dressed for trade, which would be shaped to their final form (arrowheads etc) by their end users.
After my expedition I got back on the bike and came home via Emmaus. I was essentially following the “Perkiomen-Lehigh Path” to the “Oley Path,” and it was pretty obvious that I was following the native paths more closely on the way home: the route was much flatter, and traffic was heavier — native and modern routes both preferred to avoid the hills.
In the end, the hilly parts were not historical, and the historical parts weren’t hilly…
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