It ends, Angela and my two-week long, 300+ mile bike tour of the C&O and GAP Trails, with an extremely long ride out of Ohiopyle.
“People make it to Pittsburgh in one day,” one resident of Ohiopyle told us.
Apparently, we are not those people. Then again, Angela and I didn’t set off on Friday until mid-afternoon, reason being we couldn’t resist taking a tour of Fallingwater, the famous Frank Lloyd Wright-designed house that sits on top of a waterfall. Amazing.
Since the trail by now is leaving the Allegheny mountains, one might assume there are more places to stay en route to Pittsburgh. There are not. As the sun sets, Angela and I are working all the angles (do you think that guy with the pick-up would give us a lift?), but come up with zip. Then, at our darkest and weariest hour (about 7:30 p.m.), we happen upon “trail angels” who set us up in a cozy cottage for the night and feed us farm-fresh eggs in the morning. Kindness abounds.
You know you’ve reached Pittsburgh when the trail turns from dirt to pavement. It being a Saturday, we encounter traffic–not only cars, but bicyclists. During the final few miles Angela and I are swarmed by “beer riders” pedaling back from a beer festival. They slow their pace to match ours and ask us where we’re from. Word passes up and down the line: “Seattle” “Germany” “They made it all the way from DC.” which puffs us up with pride and keeps our tired legs pumping along. Ten or twelve of us barrel along for a good stretch, until we reach a major intersection.
The woman next to me shouts: “Are we veering?”
“We’re veering!” Someone else yells.
The group splits, riders heading off in several directions. Back together again, Angela and I head up over our last bridge of the trip, which siphons us between two highways toward the official end of the trail at Point State Park. The Park sits at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers, which join together here to become the mighty Ohio. We stare out over the water for a while, then turn to look behind us and capture this iconic view of Pittsburgh.
And that’s how it ends.
