Skaneateles sits at the north end of one of New York's finger lakes: Skaneateles Lake. Not sure at all how you pronounce Skaneateles. Anyways, the town and lake are pretty. :)
As we continued heading east on Hwy 20, we drove through more farmland,
a lot of apple orchards,
and up and down some pretty steep hills.
After reaching I-81, we traveled on it all the way to the exit for Pine Grove. We drove through rain the last half of our trip and it was still raining when we reached the campground: Twin Grove RV Resort. It was still raining when we disconnected the car in our pull-through site and as we were getting set up on the site. We have been very lucky with rain though. Chuck and I agreed that there have not been more than 3 or 4 times that we have had to set up or take down in the rain. That's pretty good for over 3 1/2 years of travels.
On Friday, we woke up to beautiful skies and slightly cooler temperatures. A perfect day for a bike ride! Swatara State Park is located across the road from the campground and the Swatara Rail Trail runs through it. We drove to a parking area near the campground to unload the bikes. The road to the parking area was very steep and rutty. Chuck often wonders what I'm getting us in to! :)
We unloaded the bikes and headed west on the Swatara Rail Trail.
After riding a short distance, we came to a bridge that would take us across the Swatara Creek to the Bear Hole Trail which was a hiking and biking trail within the state park.
We continued heading west on the Bear Hole Trail which was much hillier than the Swatara Rail Trail.
The trail had speed limits posted and I'm pretty sure that only non-motorized bikes and hikers were allowed on the trail.
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| Chuck, you better watch you don't get a speeding ticket! |
we crossed back over the Swatara Creek.
As we crossed the Waterville Bridge, we were actually biking on a portion of the Appalachian Trail.
If you want to go to Maine,
you go across the street, and start hiking up that hill. Maine's just a few hundred miles up the trail. :)
We began heading east back on the Swatara Rail Trail which was actually an old abandoned road for the first mile or so.
And then, we were back in the woods on the packed rail trail.
We passed the parking area where we had left the car and continued heading east on the trail.
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| Swatara Creek |
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| Swopes Mountain |
I walked out to Hwy 443 and took a picture of what I thought was an old barn. We had seen it on our drive to the campground yesterday. After seeing the door and windows, I realized it was an old house rather than an old barn.
By the time we rode back to the car, we had ridden about 11.5 miles. When you ride these rail trails, you can't help but think what it must have been like for the men who constructed these old railroads, the engineers driving the trains, the people running the train stations or living in the nearby homes. I bet they never thought they would see people riding bikes where those trains used to run!
After we got back to the camper, I took some pictures of the campground.
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| Need any firewood??? |
Later that evening, we sat outside enjoying the nice weather while Chuck grilled our supper as the sun began to set behind the hills.
We FaceTimed with Avery on Friday (sister Hannah was asleep) and then with Hannah on Saturday. They are growing so fast! Hannah even said "Pa!"
On Saturday morning, I got all our laundry caught up again at the campground's laundry and then we watched football games off and on for the rest of the rainy afternoon and evening. Our Tennessee Volunteers lost in overtime to Oklahoma University. :( Let's hope they've learned from their mistakes and improve for the next game and the rest of the season!
Tomorrow, we're looking forward to moving to Hershey and meeting up with Ken and Bonnie again!
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