Day 60 Binghampton to Dalton

Today we passed into the state of Pennsylvannia. We left at 7:30 under cool and cloudy skies. We had a heavy dew last night so again, the tent flies are packed away wet. The border of NY and Penn state was early on in the ride, at the 33 k mark. There was a big descent right after the border.

At Halstead PA, a guy had set up an old Shell station on one side of his house and even had Superman in a phone booth (pics). The area is really nice, but everything seems a little backwoods. We stopped at Janet Leigh's Country Kitchen for some food around 10. We sat with Ed G and Ralph F (ON). One of us ordered blueberry pie (probably the best on tour) and one of us had blueberry pancakes. By the time many more cyclists stopped by the restaurant's blueberry and other fruit pies were all consumed. This restaurant was just before a town called Hop Bottom.

We cycled underneath a really neat old rail road bridge used by the Lackawanna RR (pics). Apparently it is still used although I wouldn't have thought so. It didn't look in great shape up close.

The final 10 k of the day is when we had some serious hills to climb, some with grades of 14%. That was the start of the Poconos mountains. The hills were steep but never really long (nothing like the western mountain passes) and of course the down hills were great. We got to Lackawanna State Park at 12:15. As the gear truck wasn't ready yet we hung around the park concession stand. A man named Bob asked me about the tour and ended up giving me $20 to add to the Sea to Sea pot, my first donation from a stranger while on tour.

Totals for day: 92 k, 3:30 cycling time, 26.1 kph avg (15.7 mph avg)