115: Three states in a day!

Expecting hot and muggy weather again, we started our day early.  After carrying our packs down the 19 steps, we had to ferry the tandem down the steep and narrow passage. Ay yi yi! I was hoping we would not trip and end up in the emergency room!

We were looking for breakfast at Roy's Cafe this morning after leaving the hotel, but apparently it has closed. So we had a breakfast burrito at Burger King. Not great, but enough to get us to the next town, where we thought we would have something more to eat.  That was going to be about 20 miles out.

A foggy start this morning

The river is out there somewhere, making steam

In Port Jervis, we were just a bridge away from New Jersey. Before we'd gone two miles, we had crossed the river and were in our next state.  It was foggy and pretty humid for most of the morning, but beautiful riding along the river road. Before long, we were heading into the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. Roger had a long-ago memory of being in the area, and said that there was a gorge where the Delaware River went through. Well, there is something of a gorge - eventually. But first we rode through miles and miles of close forest, completely obscuring the river off to the right somewhere. When the sky finally cleared up, we could tell the river was over there by the fog that still remained over its course.

To our left, the Appalachian Trail was winding along a high ridge. And finally, we hit the spot where we hoped to have a second breakfast. But alas - it's "dinner only" and even that, only on weekends. Too bad. It looked like it would have been great! Zagat rated, and very picturesque. Instead of breakfast we had a peach from our packs and kept on our way.

Landscape at the Walpack Inn

Some cool bracket fungus

On the way to Delaware Water Gap, where we finally found some lunch, we rode some very steep and chopped up roads. One segment, in fact, was so steep and the road surface so bad that we just stopped and pushed the bike up it. Roger was trying to steer around the potholes and keep the bike upright while we were going 2.1 miles/hour and it just got to be too much. We kept the Garmins running as we were pushing the bike as fast as we'd been able to ride it!

Appalachian Trail crossing

Headed for Pennsylvania across the Delaware

We crossed the Delaware River and entered Pennsylvania - our third state for the day.  Delaware Water Gap is one of the communities on the Appalachian Trail, so I was pleased to see the "hiker crossing" sign near our lunch stop. A local church was set up with a hiker's aid station, water, etc.  I wished to see a hiker come down the trail, but no luck with that.

After lunch, we had another 15 miles along the Delaware River on the Pennsylvania side, and then we crossed the river again back to New Jersey.  (In fact, we weren't sure about the location of our hotel, so we actually crossed back over the river, and then had to come back to New Jersey again!)

We were going to eat at the pizza place here in Belvidere, but it's closed on Monday. Ditto the little restaurant on the main drag. However, there was a take-out Chinese place, so we got a couple of cartons and took them back to our room.  You gotta do what you gotta do!

The day's report: Port Jervis to Belvidere, 57.6 miles/5513 to date

The route for the day  (By the way, that vertical section on the route summary was the crazy steep section where we were pushing the bike up the road, We gained about 400 feet in .4 miles!)

The Delaware River below the gorge

The Delaware valley across the river