Washington, PA to Ohiopyle,
PA
57 miles
"I feel like I swam here." [Mark Bazerman to an employee of the Subway's sandwich shop in Uniontown, before the air conditioning helped us evaporate the copious sweat]
Today was another hot (low 90's) and humid day with plenty of hills and probably a higher percentge of urban landscape than we've seen to this point. The worst for me was a hill about 3 miles long on the road up to the town of Summit. The road was wide, fairly busy, and radiated heat. It wasn't the hardest (see below), but it just wasn't much fun in the hot conditions.
Near the end of the ride we had a choice between taking the same route as last year's group, or a shorter one with less climbing. Most people chose the tougher route, which had a killer climb of maybe 14-18%, but was shorter than advertised (the steep part was about 1/2 a mile). I used my granny gear for the first time since the Bighorns in Wyoming, but still ended up taking a break before what turned out to be the last turn.
Unfortunately, Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater, which is nearby, wasn't open late enough to get to today.
A couple of scenes along highway 40, which we followed most of the day
(as you can tell, it was hazy today):
Hill's Tavern, in operation since 1794 along highway 40, which is the
original National Road:
A view of the Monongahela River, near Brownsville:
Searight's Tollhouse along highway 40 was erected in 1835 to collect
tolls on the old National Road:
Along the road into the Ohiopyle area (obviously before the killer hill):
Click here if the sight of blood doesn't bother you.