As we transition this blog site from my ramblings to our rambling around the country in Rocky, our home away from home, let us take a look back at one of our adventures.
In October of 2018, Mike and I traveled with Rocky to Shawnee State Park near Bedford, Pennsylvania. After bicycling 150+ miles down the Great Allegheny Passage from Pittsburgh, PA to Cumberland, MD, we decided we needed several days of downtime. And we must say that Shawnee State Park was a beautiful choice!
The campground had numerous loops and 1 with full hookups, but we decided to camp in an electric only hookup. We filled our water tank at one of the full hookup sites before unhitching at our spacious site. That is one good thing about state parks – the spacious sites. We’re also becoming fans of camping during the week when the crowd numbers are down. On the negative side, we could hear the PA turnpike (not bad) and could only get 4 TV stations. We quickly tired of watching Big Bang Theory re-runs in the evenings!
The highlight of the trip was a drive up to Altoona to Horseshoe Curve National Park. We had been wanting to go there for years to view this engineering marvel and were so excited. Well, Mike more than me, but it was pretty amazing. Unfortunately, track work was being done and we only saw 2 trains pass through the curve with one coming when Mike was in the bathroom! We did manage to snap several pictures and overall had a wonderful time enjoying the spectacular views.
Bedford, PA is a quaint little town. Naturally, I found Mary’s Quilt Shop and we tried to visit it on Wednesday, but learned when we arrived that it was closed that day! However, we did find some amazing popcorn at Bedford Candies in downtown Bedford. We returned the next day and had a wonderful time visiting with the owner of the quilt shop and walking around town.
On Friday, Mike rode the Pike to Bike Trail, an abandoned section of the PA turnpike outside Breezewood, PA. The road was in poor shape and not one he’d do again. It was interesting to cycle on the abandoned roadway and reminisce about the travelers from yesteryear. The highlight was riding through 2 tunnels. The local kids had been super busy leaving their marks and by the looks of the graffiti, had a lot of pent up sexual frustration.
On our last day, we drove to Black Lick, PA and cycled the Ghost Town Trail rails-to-trail. It paralleled Black Lick Creek, and the scenery was absolutely beautiful. We cycled a little over 25 miles. Come to find out the railroad left after the floods of 1977 and the county took over and developed the trail. The Ghost Town Trail derived its name from numerous mining towns that once existed along the railroad corridor. Wehrum, the largest of the former towns, once had 230 houses, a hotel, company store, jail, and bank.
The Bedford County, PA area is one we definitely want to come back to, but next time we think we’d stay at Blue Knob State Park up I-99 towards Altoona. There are more trails we’d like to explore, including the Huntingdon and Broad Top Rail Trail: https://www.traillink.com/trail/huntingdon-and-broad-top-rail-trail/.