Lancaster, PA 10/8/2011

We picked up our bikes from room 103 and took them down stairs and parked them outside the motel. Returned to our room, 208, and picked up our bags and loaded up the bikes and headed up the much quieter street from last night to Nuddie's, the recommended breakfast place and discovered John and Wayne just finishing up and getting ready to hit the road. John is new to long distance biking and we were amazed at how much stuff he had on his bike. We keep trimming back on what we carry. We had a good breakfast of ham and eggs and hit the road, following Charley from REI suggestion. It was a beautiful morning and the road was good with some nice hills and numerous yard sales along the road. Nice homes, lawns mowed to the edge of the pavement. We took route 23 to 345 and headed south to 82 towards Coatesville. We stopped for some gatoraide and a very busy little corner store and chatted with a lady from the area. We commented about all the traffic and she pointed out it was Columbus Day weekend, great weather, winter is coming and the tourist love all the attractions in the Lancaster area, Amish farms, car shows, out lets, etc. We called for reservations at a Rodeway Inn near Lancaster and got the last room. We pulled into Coatesville and started looking for a place to eat. In one block we went by a Jamaican, Chinese, Mexican and chicken place, none of which looked very good. We stopped at the fire department and asked Craig one of the young firemen on duty about a place to eat and he recommended the Little Chef on down the road toward our planned route of highway 372. I asked about swapping patches and he had none to swap.We got ready to leave and I noticed my back tire was flat. We changed it in front of the Fire Department and I washed my hands in the fire station. There is a very large steel mill in Coatesville and old row houses etc. We stopped in the Little Chef and split a club sandwich with chips. Based on the people we saw in Coatesville, Weight Watchers has not hit town yet but I suspect dialysis clinics are doing great business.

A pleasant ride west on 372 looking for Cherry Hill Road to head back north to our hotel on Hwy 30, the main road in the area. We entered the Amish farm area and began seeing buggies on the road, horse drawn wagons hay balers in the fields. Nice looking farms, laundry hung on very high clothes lines and busy people.

We found our road and headed north past a roadside farm attraction with around 200 cars parked in their parking lot. We love the Amish because many of the roads have an extra wide shoulder reserved for their buggies. We joined the buggies of course and rode to Hwy 30 and turned left toward Lancaster and found the traffic was extremely slow. In the 8 miles or so we rode up 30 to our motel, we passed cars sitting in traffic in every mile. We arrived at our motel and found the worlds oldest Rodeway Inn. We checked in, carried our stuff and bikes up stairs to our room. I took a shower which was the worst on our trip. The water went from scalding hot to cold on its own. There was an Applebee's Restaurant across the parking lot as well as a Texas something restaurant and a Chinese place. The parking lot was full and there were maybe 15 people waiting outside Applebee's with pagers waiting to eat. We walked in, put our name on the list, picked up our pager and noticed two ladies sitting at the bar with an empty seat on either side of them. We went and asked them to move over which they did. We returned our pager and ate at the bar. The ladies were Mary Kay reps and had been sitting there for a long time doing business, eating little, completely unaware of the long line of people waiting to eat. Amanda and Nick the bartenders were in constant motion and yet pleasant young people and we chatted about the crazy traffic and our ride etc.

It was an early night and we were making plane reservations for our flight home and the blog never got written until the next day.

A good day in Amish country. 56 miles.