The GAP & C&O Trail Day 3

We say good bye to Francis on the porch of her Hanna House B&B and start our 60+ mile day to Cumberland, MD.  

We had a beautiful day to ride into, lots of blue skies, mild winds and temps in the low 60’s for most of the morning.  We’re looking over the trestle to our latest river to ride alongside, the Casselman. 

Back in Confluence Larry told us they had a couple of smallish tornadoes about a month ago that chewed up a lot of the forrest but the volunteers and the county had done a great job of clearing and repairing the path. 

For lunch we swarmed into the G.I. Dayroom and Coffee shop in Myersdale for an old style, down home lunch.  They even had Jello salad with whip cream like our moms & grand moms made. I’m guessing that the G.I. in the name might stand stand for “Geriatric Infirmary Dayroom” because a good part of the “regular” clientele looked much older than our crew!

The ever present thick forests that limited our long views the last two days are starting to give way to more agricultural land and panoramic vistas like this one. 


On our trip we have one major goal, to ride to Washington, DC but we have lots of less ambitious ones that just get us through the day or the even next hour, like where are we having lunch today.  One significant interim  goal was to climb to the Eastern Continental divide.  You can see by the way we have overwhelmed the tunnel, which marked the divide, with our bodies scattered over the trail in celebration and talk with other cyclists we are excited. 

Just a few short miles (downhill!!) after the Divide we come upon the marker for the intersection of the GAP with the 233 mile long Mason-Dixon Line that was measured and marked every mile in the late 1700’s. Mason’s skill was surveying the sun and stars and Dixon’s was the traditional surveyor. Their story and the story of the Penns and Calverts dispute about what was the demarcation between present day Pennsylvania and Maryland is an amazing story. Donna decides to not pick favorites and puts her bike squarely on the surveyor chain that marks the line.  

Our blue skies and early stages of autumn leaves continues throughout the afternoon  

By 4:30 we had reached our interim goal, to ride the 150 miles from Pittsburgh to Cumberland, Maryland and Mile 0 of the GAP where we now stand.  The GAP has been a great ride and also a great time!! Tomorrow we embrace the C&O Canal Tow Path to DC. It should be interesting!