Belvidere, NJ 10/5/2011

An interesting day. We left our nice motel (53 degrees), no coffee etc, and rode down town to the diner recommended by the deer hunters also staying at our motel.  We had a good breakfast and caught a bit of the conversations going on in the rowdy end of the room.  General talk about deer hunting, bears, and one guy was telling some one about a lady he knew.  She got married and on her first anniversary she went to a heavy equipment operator business.  They told her they were not hiring and she told them she was not looking for a job but instructions on how to work the back hoe she got for her anniversary present.  Fellow said she got a D-6 Caterpillar for second anniversary.  It seems I have heard a similar store before.

We headed out of town to the bridge over the Delaware from PA into New Jersey and the toll taker directed us to the walkway along the side of the bridge away from those "crazy drivers."

We anticipated a relatively easy riding day as our route took us through the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area.  Our first few miles were very nice, no cars, relatively flat riding, cool sunny weather.

The first thing to make the day interesting was info that the road was closed due to damage from the hurricane that went through.  We had seen lots of damage along this secondary, low priority road including several places where they had to cut trees that had fallen across the road; numerous places where the water had run across the road leaving a lot of gravel on the road.  We called the Park Service, Yep, road is closed to all traffic, including bikes.  Only recourse is 12 miles back, cross over to the Pennsylvania side of the river.  Then I recalled Steve, the cyclist we had met in New Hampshire, had told us he had made it through on his bike.  So, off we went around the road closed barrier.  Nice riding with no cars; however still some debris on the road.  We were taking it easy in spite of discovering the route included some pretty steep climbs. Rudy was heading down one hill and hit something, flattening a tire.  We stopped, sat in the middle of the closed road and put in a new tube which exploded when it had about 90 psi.  Big bang, we jumped, it was the first time that had ever happened to either of us.  Anyway, put in another new tube and were ready to hit the road when we discovered his front tire was also flat.  No problem, another new tube and down the road we went.  We came the damaged area and were able to navigate through with no problem.

We continued on down the road with some more good hills and only met three cars for the first 30 miles of our ride. We arrived in Delaware Water Gap, Pennsylvania, crossed under I80 and stopped for a bite to eat at a pizza place. Called our wives and got up on things on the home front.  The TV was showing snow was falling on I80 in the Sierras in California! And then we headed back into New Jersey along a  busy highway through the Gap. We shared our road through the Gap with the Delaware River, I 80, and the railroad which did not leave much room for our road.  I was in front and pulled into an overlook for a photo op and Rudy did not see me leave the road.  I yelled at him as he was passing but a large truck was going by and he could not hear me. I took my photo (it was not a good overlook) and then called Rudy to tell him I was behind him and to not and try to catch up with me.  The call went to voice mail.  I got back on the road knowing that if he was trying to catch me, I would never catch him, but he would get my message.  About 4 miles down the road, I find him in a parking lot overlooking the river.  His face is long.  I asked if he got my message, no, He does not have his phone.  He knew he left the pizza place with it and we figured that if he lost it along the road it would be in a million pieces by now.  Lets call the pizza place just in case. I got out the receipt and discovered it is the first receipt we have on this trip that does not have a name or phone number on it. Neither of us could remember the name.  I walked over to a gentleman sitting in his car in the lot. I told him what had happened and  asked him if he knew the name of the pizza place and he did. I called 411
and answered the question, "City and State Please" with Delaware Water Gap Pennsylvania which confused the poor lady and after asking again she said she would have someone else help me which translated into she hung up on me. I tried again and got the number and was connected to Doughboys Pizza.  No Rudy had not left his phone in the shop but a customer had found it in the parking lot and brought it in.  Neither of us wanted to ride the 5 miles back through the Gap to get the phone and Joe, the gentleman in the car who came up with the name of the shop volunteered to drive Rudy back to get his phone.  Nice guy.  I stayed with the bikes and Rudy went and got his phone.  People are nice.

Back on the road toward Belvidere where we have reservations.  We continued along the crazy busy highway for a while and then our route takes us down a nice quite road along the river. So Rudy has another flat.  Probably my fault as I was leading and missed a rock and Rudy never had time to avoid it.  Anyway, tube out, used a new pre-glued patch the bike shop guy said worked great.  It did not, so changed the tire again.


By the time we arrived at our hotel we were tired.  We showered and walked across the bridge into Pennsylvania for dinner at an old restaurant owned by John the Greek.  Our waitress was on her 3rd day in the job, her first job as a waitress, and must have been John's grand daughter to have lasted three days in the job.  Food was good and we walked back to New Jersey and our comfy room in our hotel which dates from the 1830s. Adam, whose family has been restoring the hotel for a number of years, used to race bikes in the Velodrome near Allentown, Pa when he was younger.

Long day, 57 miles