Day 31

After a lot of deliberation on the best route to take today, we left the RV boys in their beds at 07.15 hrs and headed East from Lisbon, 112 miles to our next stop which was a small town named Ebonsburg. This journey saw us having to climb some really steep hills from the start and travel some pretty poor road surfaces at the same time. It was a hot sunny bright morning which in conjunction with the terrain soon had the pair of us sweating buckets and drinking fluids at every opportunity we got. It was heavy going and after an hour travelling we had only covered a distance of 12 miles. We savoured our 10 min rest period before heading on once again. After another hour, we came into a large town called Beaver and stopped for a rest and a coffee. It was during this break that we decided to change routes and head south to Pittsburgh. From there we headed east once again on Highway 22. This route proved a lot easier for us, although it was a much busier route on the traffic front. Unfortunately after approx 35 miles we entered onto some major roadworks which saw the hard shoulder disappear (which is what we like to travel on) it became to dangerous to continue so we were forced to put the bikes on the back of the support car until we came to a point we could continue and complete the days leg. It was a hard and indifferent day and one we were glad to complete. We met up with the RV boys as normal at a site that proved to be very basic. We found some info on the local area and realized that we were only 40 mins car ride from the crash and memorial site of Flight 93. This was one of the terrorist hijacked planes that the pilot purposely crashed on 9/11 killing all on board but saving many other innocent targeted lives in the process, as this was bound to crash into the White House. It was an interesting and poignant visit and we were glad we had made the effort.

Till tomorrow

Nick