July 9, 2024 – Welcome to Pittsburgh

    I went down the street in Meyersdale to get some pizza from the Fox's Den Pizza Cafe. It was really tasty, but it made me bloated. I've got to remember to eat one big healthy meal a day with several snacks in between. The pizza grease really got to my gut. I'm not doing that again. After eating, I headed up to the top of the hill on Main Street. Low and behold, guess who I ran into? David—the former professional baseball player turned vagabond cyclist—greeted me with a smile. We keep leap frogging each other. I talked with him for a while. David is a really great guy. We would ride together, but we ride at different speeds. He has smaller tires and less gear so he goes faster than I do. He was going to do some things in Meyersdale and I set out going west on the GAP Trail. The trail follows the Youghiogheny River all the way to Pittsburgh and flows into the Ohio River. What a great ride! I went through several small towns and mid-sized towns along the trail. Let's see if I can recount some of them in the order I cruised through: Garret, Rockwood, Casselman, Markleton, Fort Hill, Confluence, Ohiopyle, Connellsville, Dawson, Perryopolis, Smithton, West Newton, Boston, McKeesport, and Pittsburgh.

    I finished the Great Allegheny Passage! Woohoo!!! The first leg of the journey is over. Let me digress a night. Last night, I camped at the Dravo Cemetery campground. I situated my campsite, and took a bath in the Youghiogheny River. Then, low and behold, David pulled up on his cycling steel steed...bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, but a little tired. He pedaled over 70 miles yesterday. I pedaled about 65 miles. Good rides for both of us. We camped together, made a fire, shared snacks and stories, and slept under the stars. It was a great night. David is a traveling gypsy vagabond. He rides his bicycle from town to town, gets a job for a year or so, and then he moves on. He's been to Las Vegas, Bakersfield, Seattle, Pittsburgh, Arlington, Jacksonville, Boise, Dallas, Washington D.C., and many places in between. He's going to Omaha, Nebraska now. He may stay there and get a job, or he may move back to Boise. He's going to play it by ear and flow where the winds of change blow. We met down at Point State Park in Pittsburgh, took some photos, and laughed joyfully at the travels behind and the travels to come. Good riddance to him. I hope we meet again somewhere down the road. 

    Pittsburgh is awesome!!!! It's a huge city, with a booming downtown and industrial steel mills. I'm just passing through. I'm just like Dave...a traveling gypsy/vagabond, riding a steel steed! I'm a bicycle hobo; at least for the time being. Until next time, God be with you!