Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
I did a load of laundry, ate too much at the buffet, and fell asleep with the Yankees
whipping the Tigers on television. I suppose it was balm for the rest of the day, but my
personal, doom-inclined crystal ball had me convinced they'd lose the next game and be
eliminated from the playoffs.3
3
But back to the McDonald's in Wellsville, which, as I sit here two days later, is worth
remembering. The manager there was a man about my age with an unfortunate comb-
over, a clip-on tie, and what looked like a paste-on mustache. As I ate, scarfing down a
double cheeseburger and fries with a weary expression on my face, he sat down with me
and peppered me with eager questions about my journey.
“How long have you been on the road?” he finally said, and when I told him, he said,
“Wow,” or “Huh,” or some other bland expression of faux amazement. He looked sud-
denly distracted and unhappy, and he gave a sigh that I interpreted to mean: “If only I
weren't stuck here I could do something like that.”
Then he shook my hand and stood up and disappeared into the kitchen. When he
emerged he brought me an apple pie, a gesture, it seemed to me, that was more than a
cordiality. It was a salute.
“My treat,” he said, and went back to work.
I was glad to see the skyline of Pittsburgh yesterday, because the last stretch, from West
Virginia through western Pennsylvania, was hard work. I negotiated the first thirty-five
miles with my GPS on meandering county and town roads—at one point, I ran into a
detour and ended up cruising around inside a gigantic housing development—and fi-
nally found the thoroughfare I was looking for, a homely two-lane main drag along the
Ohio River that changes its name several times as it passes through sturdy but well-worn
towns like Monaca, Aliquippa, and Coraopolis. It was a navigable road, just not an espe-
cially enjoyable one.
I'd written to the guy who told me about the GAP—Seth Gernot, who runs bike tours
for a local nonprofit agency called Venture Outdoors—and this was the route he sugges-
ted into the city. I'm not doubting his expertise (who knows what the other possibilities
were?), but the last fifteen miles of the day were hairy. I crossed a bridge onto Neville
Island in the middle of the river, where I rode for several miles on a commercial strip
that turned industrial, and then crossed back. At some point I officially entered Pitts-
burgh. Just before the Ohio River headwaters, where the Allegheny and the Mononga-
hela meet, I rejoined the road I'd been following—now called West Carson Street—and
shortly thereafter it ceased being a raggedy two-lane path through a downtrodden urban
landscape and became a busy four-lane road. When the shoulder suddenly narrowed to
