Road Trips and Hike Reports

It seemed like it had been planned for a year but it’s finally here.  Our first night started off Thursday after work around 4 pm.  We headed southwest through the Allegheny’s and, after a fun casino visit, into Pennsylvania.  We stayed in Clearfield PA at a Best Western that was especially quiet, nice and well thought out for the modest price we paid.   After a somewhat short night of sleep we began what will probably be the longest drive and longest day of the entire trip.  Brian drove us from Clearfield down to the Flight 93 Memorial site in Shanksville PA.  I had been to the memorial once before but Brian had never been.  It was a very quiet somewhat blustery visit to the memorial which added to the somber tone that place already has. On the way: At the memorial: I think the photos I’ve taken accentuate the abstract nature of some of the memorial elements.  There are much more straight forward pieces to it.  For example, the black brick ...

After spending our no hike day Wednesday at a casino in the Poconos, we wanted to make sure we got in a qualifying and worthy hike today.  Our overnight last night was in York, PA.  This hike, just across the border in Maryland wasn’t a lot of distance but the elevation change rate was pretty high per mile. The rock formation that makes up ‘the seats’ is very impressive and seemingly an unlikely location.  The first third to half a mile of the trail was very steep uphill and got us to the most flashy element of the hike quickly.  My favorite part was more of the ridge line rambling and the portion that was at the very top of the knob we were hiking on and around.  It was another warm and humid hike but we had a handful of trail mix and some water at a low spot near an interpretive loop and surprisingly, we felt less taxed after that, even on the climb back up that was ahead of us. After finishing this hike we continued on towards our last stop on this road trip,...