It’s always fun to end the wedding season with a little outdoor adventure. usually, i go on a few days backpacking trip to the a.t. with a group of guys. but, this year was cancelled due to one of guys breaking his foot. ouch. hopefully, we can reschedule it for the spring. anyhow, i’ve always wanted to do the ride from (near) pittsburgh to d.c., on the allegheny rail trail linking to the c & o towpath. all said and done it was pretty much 350 miles of dirt road only occasionally crossing a road. we had perfect weather, considering this time of year, and were lucky we did it right before they closed this long tunnel for the winter. my brother, who is an avid cyclist, went and paul, an old friend and my partner on a 1995 coast to coast bike tour, went along. unfortunately, paul had to end his trip early due to a pretty bad cold. riding 60 miles a day is pretty strenuous on those bumpy trails, but being sick makes it unbearable. we were really bummed to see him go. we kept pushing along and got done a few days later. it was hard work but so worth it. we camped in beautiful places. the leaves were still gorgeous. we met some really neat people (one of my fav things about bike touring). it was the perfect amount of time to be gone too, because i really started to miss leesa and sophie. cheers!

for the last three years myself ,and the three other esteemed gentlemen you see below, have been making our attempt to through hike the a.t. one 30 or 40 mile stretch at a time. the first year was a rookie run. last year we just plain froze our tails off. and, this year we really hit it just right. we may just have to come up with trail names if we keep this up. can’t wait to see what happens next year.













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