Still Trekking East

(we actually wrote this yesterday, Thursday, but we couldn't get internet to work in our b&b...got back late from the Phillies game and will write more about it hopefully on Sunday).


Hi from Smith’s Laundromat in historic Columbia, Pennsylvania. Yes, one of us had to lose the ‘who’s going to run out of clean clothes first’ game and this vacation, it was me. This will be the only time this trip we need to wash though so that’s good. We realize it’s been a few days since we’ve written but we’ve been, in true Matt-and-Jennifer fashion, vacationing so hard we’ll need a vacation when we get back home just to recover.

So where were we last? Oh yes, chilling out with Jennifer’s Uncle Bill and Aunt Charlotte in Cincinnati. Apparently a bad weather day in Cincinnati is 75 degrees with a slight drizzle because it put a damper on our ability to lounge by the pool and hang with the mallard duck mama who had built her nest under some flowers just above it (she would sit in the pool before flying up onto the nest). It also meant we had to eat our Cincinnati sausage-themed lunch, consisting of metts, brats and more metts, inside. For the afternoon, we just chilled out in the house where, in the basement, I wrote the last e-mail. That turned out to be some much-needed rest because we had to be prepared to scarf down all-you-can-eat ribs at the Montgomery Inn, a famous rib joint in town. Unfortunately for Jennifer and I, they were in the middle of their All-You-Can-Eat-Ribs for $19.95 which was a steal. I took it as a personal challenge to eat enough ribs so that Bill, who was paying for the meal, got his money’s worth and then some. It was a lot of ribs but they were goooooood. A lot of famous people apparently eat there but nobody came over to take Jennifer and my photo, eh.

But that wasn’t all. Our stomachs quite full, we headed down to the Ohio River waterfront to catch the Cincinnati Pops’ special July 4th performance. We had some time beforehand to wander around the waterfront which mainly consisted of Coney Island Theme Park but we also got to appreciate the immense power of floods. The Ohio is a monster river and apparently the biggest flood ever to come through, in 1937, was 80 feet above flood stage. Flooding is such a a presence on the Ohio that the covered outdoor ampitheater where the Pops performs was designed specifically to be floodable and easy to clean mud out of after the floodwaters recede. The concert, thankfully under cover since it was still drizzling out, was super-duper fantastic, full of patriotic anthems and spiced up with Broadway tunes sung by a couple of Cincinnatians who had made it big on Broadway (Pamela Myers and, as the conductor always introduced him, Mr. Lee Roy REAMS). The concert was so much fun that we thought intermission came too soon and that it ended too early.

But that wasn’t all. It was July 4th, after all, so there needed to be fireworks baby! And boy, were there fireworks. As we were walking out from under the protection of the ampitheater, the rain stopped and the fireworks started. They were fired from down by the river but we were so close that it felt like we were underneath them when they went off. Not only did it hurt our necks to watch them (Jennifer made me prop up her head with my forearm) but we were occasionally dusted with scattered bits of fireworks. The finale was so loud that Jennifer had to cover her ears and I decided to lose some of my hearing instead. It was great.

The next morning we said goodbye to Bill and Charlotte and headed out down Ohio Highway 52 to follow the Ohio River to Wheeling, West Virginia. This was definitely not the most direct route but how often do you get to drive along a major historic river. I mean, the road went right by the river almost the whole time. We spent a lazy day without incident tracing it, stopping at Ulysses S. Grant’s birthplace (did you know his real name was Hiriam Ulysses Grant but that his name was mangled on the application to West Point so he stuck with it?), an old lock-and-dam community (where people lived who worked the locks before this particular one was removed for a bigger one) and a currently-being-used lock-and-dam. We almost made it along the whole river road except for a batch of construction which shut down parts of it as we got close to Marietta, where we would be staying the night. We would shuttle over to the nearest parallel highway, go north for a bit, cut back to the river only to find it closed for construction there too. In fact, there ended up being so much construction on the Ohio side that we had to cross into West Virginia for about ten miles just to get to Marietta. On the plus side, West Virginia’s tourist slogan, prominently displayed on the ‘Welcome to West Virginia’ sign that greeted us as we crossed the Ohio, is ‘Wild and Wonderful’ (we’re still looking for a worse one than Washington’s ‘Say Wa?’ campaign).
Also, and this is important, if you are ever in Gallipolis County, Ohio, there is a company that will deliver pizza AND beer, anywhere in the county, or so they claim. Must not be a big county. Anyway, we must’ve seen three of their billboards during our drive but sadly don’t have any photos. We did get one of ‘Southern Moon BBQ’ though; use your imagination.
Marietta was a neat little town with our Best Western (no point staying in a B&B when you’re just passing through) being located on the backside of town on the Muskingum River. It sounds more scenic than it was because the Muskingum was wide, flat and frequented by guys on jet skis. Since it was a Sunday and Marietta’s not that big, our choice of restaurants for dinner was quite limited. One of the options, however, was the restaurant El Tampico (at least, we think that’s what it was called). Anyway, for any of you familiar with the song by Bowling For Soup – Ohio (Come Back To Texas) (at least, we think that’s what it’s called, eh), we wanted to test the accuracy of the lyric in the song stating that ‘the Mexican food [stinks] north of here (Texas) anyway’. Well, we’re not prepared to stereotype the quality of all Mexican food north of the Red River but, as our friends who were science majors would say, the hypothesis was not disproven.
The next day found us following the Little Muskingum River northeast for an hour and then cutting over to our good buddy the Ohio River for another hour or so. We then caught an interstate to cross the Ohio again to Wheeling, WV before immediately jumping onto US Highway 40 into Southwestern Pennsylvania. See, US Hwy 40 is built upon the National Road that the US Government started building in the late 1700s to help people settle west of the Appalachian mountains in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and elsewhere. It’s a very historic highway and we wanted to check it out and see if we could learn more about the history and experience some of what the settlers went through. Well, the state of Pennsylvania made that task rather difficult by doing the following to their roadside historical markers: 1. they put them right next to the road so that, in order to read them, you would have to block traffic and risk getting rear-ended by that eighteen wheeler who was riding your tail and 2. when you can read them, the information is very, very slim. Here’s one we saw today while wandering Columbia:

Originally Wright’s Ferry, founded by John Wright in 1726. An early center for turnpike, canal and railroad activity, at an important Susquehanna River crossing. First bridge built in 1812.

That’s it. Can we get some more information please? Didn’t anything interesting happen in this town?!!! In Texas, we would’ve known what country Wright’s family came from, which famous person was born there and the high school’s mascot. Oh well. The road itself was also well-used although it was only two lanes for most of the way. It seems there are few highways that run east-west across the Alleghenies/Appalachians so the ones that do are pretty popular. It was still a scenic road and was especially interesting when you could look in the distance and see the green Alleghenies rising up to the sky. The Alleghenies aren’t super-tall like the Rockies; the highest point in Pennsylvania is only something like 3900 feet but that’s more than high enough for us. We stopped briefly in the town of Washington to eat pizza at an Italian restaurant (we haven’t eaten as much pizza on this trip as we usually do) and for me to have to run back down the very steep hill in downtown to put quarters in the parking meter because I’d fogotten to do so. This was also the first time all trip that we truly felt hot (it was in the low 80s, whoa). We’ll see if we can bring some cool weather to those of you in Texas when we get back.

The one spot we stopped at along the National Road was Fort Necessity, a small fort built by some British and colonial soldiers led by George Washington in 1754. Actually, it’s more like a circular privacy fence surrounding a small log cabin with some trenches outside. Washington and his 293 men hastily built it while they were expecting a counterattack from the French and their Indian allies coming from Fort Duquesne (present-day Pittsburgh). The French prevailed and Washington surrendered the fort but was allowed, along with his surviving men, to go back to Virginia.

Oh, looks like the laundry’s done!

Ah, back in the Columbia Inn B&B. I’m actually sitting on a windowseat listening to the proprietor play Los Lonely Boys outside and inconsiderate people riding loud motorcycles down the street. We haven’t decided which we think are more annoying: young guys playing loud rap music in their cars or older guys riding loud Harleys. Anyway, we got a little tour of the fort by two rangers dressed as militiamen and walked up a hill to see the Mount Washington Tavern (which was closed). It was a little odd to see one of the ‘militiamen’ driving a minivan up to the Tavern though.

After Fort Necessity we turned north through backroads in the mountains and found our new home, the Log Haven B&B out in the middle of nowhere. These two retirees had a big log cabin built with half being reserved for them and the other half being a B&B. It was very cozy and perfect for us; they even had homemade cookies and fudge set out for you every day, eh! Of course, their idea of breakfast was something to get you jumpstarted with a big sugar high. The first breakfast was a giant apple pancake, the second was pecan swirl rolls and today’s was a big honkin’ sticky bun loaf. Maybe they were making up for the fact that we weren’t drinking coffee. The cookies were pretty good but luckily enough not too good; I only ate five each night.

So two days ago, on Tuesday, we went hiking in Ohiopyle State Park in the Alleghenies. It’s a big park located on the Youghigheny River. Quick, how do you pronounce Youghigheny?

WRONG!

In an another attempt to distinguish the locals from the tourists, it’s pronounced ‘yaw-keh-gay-nee’. Anyway, Ohiopyle has a ton of hiking trails, many of which go along the northeastern version of a creek, called a ‘run’. So instead of Bear Creek, Jonathan Creek and Sugar Loaf Creek, you have Bear Run, Jonathan Run and Sugar Loaf Run. We kept waiting to see a Beer Run but never saw one. We spent about three hours hiking four miles or so with about six hundred feet of elevation change as we walked down close to the river and then back up. The undisputed highlight was scaring the bejeezus out of a black bear. Actually, it was probably thirty feet off the trail but we could definitely tell that it was a bear hightailing it through the underbrush. Our hosts said they’d only seen two bears in eleven years in their log cabin so we feel really lucky. It certainly made the rest of the hike much more exciting as I kept looking around for other bears. Actually, this trip has been decent for wildlife because we saw an osprey in Kentucky (building a nest on a high school football stadium lightpole), a fox bounding across the road in Ohio and tons of chipmunks. After the hike, we spent some time wandering around the small town of Ohiopyle (in the middle of the state park), checking out the rather large waterfall on the Youghigheny and wandering some of the nearby trails. One really cool thing Pennsylvania has done is taken an unused rail line spanning the state and converted it to a monster hike-and-bike trail. It’s ingenius and gives you lots of cool pedestrian bridges that used to be monster railroad trellises.

We weren’t done with the day though. We’d found out that there was a nearby ski resort, Seven Springs, that had an alpine slide. An alpine slide is a plastic half pipe that switchbacks down the mountainside; you traverse it on a little skiff with wheels and a brake handle. The idea is to go as fast as possible without flying off the track (it feels like such a thing is possible as the barriers to flying off are few). Jennifer and I used a 2-for-1 coupon we’d found in a coupon book at the B&B and got on for $7. I’m a lot more daring than Jennifer on these type of things and thus went much faster on the way down though was unable to catch any air on any of the drops. Supposedly it dropped 1,980 feet in altitude but that sounds more exciting than it really was. Definitely worth $7 though and it’s always interesting to see what ski resorts do in the summertime to get people to show up. This one had a bowling alley, arcade games, mountain biking trails, a disc golf course, ‘mountain jogging’ trails, a rockwall, European-style bungie (where you’re on a trampoline with a rope on either side) and shopping.

The next day was the crown jewel of the trip so far: a rafting trip down the Yough (yawk). Holy moly. Neither Jennifer nor I slept too well the night before due to three reasons. 1. The Lower Yough has Class III-IV rapids. We splurged and got a raft that would have a guide in it steering and telling us what to do as opposed to having a go at it ourselves and having a guide in a kayak giving us directions. 2. Rather than ride back to our car on a bus, we were going to ride back by bicycle. After several hours of grueling paddling, a seven-mile bike ride would be just the ticket. What were we thinking? 3. I was also going to slide down a natural chute on Meadow Run. It would be great except the water was going to be freezing and the temperature, not being above 75, would undoubtedly do me in. So neither of us slept too well.

The day started out on the wrong foot as we got to Meadow Run at 10am. The water was wayyyy too cold to get in and besides, no one else was down there so if my body became frozen stiff I was only going to have Jennifer around to pull me out. We hung out in the car listening to some more of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (can you believe it’s 17 CDs? we only finished it today) and then walking around a bit. We checked in at the appropriate place (after being directed to the wrong one at first) right on time at 11:30 and prepared for our rafting excursion.

This excursion was set up rather interestingly. We had maybe 70 people going on one outing with about six staff people. The rafts would hold anywhere from 3-7 people and most of them would have only customers and not staff. Having sprung to have a guide, Ferg, with us, Jennifer and I got a raft pretty much to ourselves and would get to have him tell us when to paddle forward and when to backpaddle. Most everybody else would have to follow the instructions of a guide standing on a rock in the middle of the rapid to know what to do. That seemed really strange to us. Essentially, before every big rapid everybody would stop by the shore and we’d all get a pep talk from the main guide, telling us exactly how to run the next rapid. Then he and two or three others would go on ahead and stand on certain large rocks so as either to give instructions (using hand motions or, better yet, yelling), to throw a rope or to paddle in on a kayak to help pull somebody out. We all had on lifejackets (pulled SUPERTIGHT by our buddy Ferg) and helmets and if you fall in, we were told, keep your nose and your toes pointed to the sky. Anyway, we were stress-free since we had Ferg with us though some of the rapids looked pretty hairy. Of course, they were hairier for all the people who got bounced out of their rafts or had their raft flipped. You’ll see the photos. I think the highlight was the one rapid where we went first, then pulled off to the side so Ferg could stand ready to throw a rope to anyone who came drifting out. Before too long an empty raft came floating through. Jennifer tossed Ferg a paddle and poor Ferg had to swim out into the river in order to retrieve it, pull it onshore upstream 50 yards and then paddle it over to the other side while Jennifer and I, paying customers, sat and watched. Anyway, Ferg did a good job and kept both Jennifer and I from falling out although there was one rapid he misjudged that sent him flying forward on top of me. It took a lot longer than it should have to float the seven mile stretch because we had to keep stopping so the rapids could be explained but it was a ton of fun. It helped that the only civilization around the Yough was the railroad track. No houses, condos, campers or anything else. Very cool. We had a lot of fun and it was definitely a highlight of the trip. The only bad thing was that I had taken a waterproof bag with us that had sunscreen and my digital camera (I had bought a waterproof camera for the trip but I wanted to have the digital for, well, I wasn’t sure). I’d bought the bag the previous day from our outfitter but somehow it contrived to develop a hole which, unfortunately, ruined the camera. I was not enthused but was determined not to let it ruin the day.

Oh yeah, but then we weren’t done. Still had the bike ride (and the chute) to go. The biking was done on the bike trail on the old rail line so it was fairly smooth although Jennifer made sure we took the ride at a leisurely pace. It didn’t help that neither of our tires were properly inflated either. Poor Ferg drew the short straw and had to ride back with us as apparently a guide was required to. It was a nice ride though as we also got to cross the Yough twice on railroad trestles.

Once back at the car, we drove over to the outfitter shop to return the bag and let it be known their merchandise was faulty. They offered us a new bag in exchange which we scoffed at; why get the same crummy bag? They wouldn’t offer a refund but told us to call in to speak to the manager the next day. Thanks for the great customer service guys. (Note: the manager wasn’t in the next day either)

Oh but we weren’t done. I still had to hit the chute. I’d voluntairly jumped in the Yough a couple of times during the rafting and it was c-c-cold. So I was determined to do the chute regardless of the temperature because, well, because it was there and who knows if I’d ever have another chance? Jennifer, smart woman she is, decided to skip the opportunity but would take my photo. I was heartened to see several little kids going through it so I had one of them instruct me on proper technique and then followed them in. It was super cold of course and really not that much fun, probably because the water flow wasn’t strong enough to push me all the way. I dragged my rear end several times which of course always makes you wonder whether this will be the time you get a big rip in your suit. Plus you’re never sure if you’re going to conk your head. I went through once and then, after realizing I was shivering like a maniac, decided to defer another opportunity. Once was enough. Jennifer and I split a pizza at Fox’s Pizza Den in Ohiopyle and then returned to the B&B for the evening.

On our trips we have some usual standbys in the food department. First and foremost are Pringles because a) they taste good and b) you can’t inadvertently crush them because they’re in a can. We’ve only had one can so far because we’ve found a new travel food: ginger snaps. We love ginger snaps and look forward to scarfing another couple of pounds before we return home.

This morning we woke bright and early, said goodbye to Ron and Betty the innkeepers and hit the road for Eastern Pennsylvania and the Amish Country. I would write more but it’s late, this missive has already surpassed 3600 words and Jennifer wants to proof it. Will write more later as we tour Amish Country and Philadelphia (we’ll be at the Phillies/Pirates game on Friday night). Hope everyone is doing great, wherever you happen to be.