You Can't Tell A Book By Its Cover: Day 7. Friday, October 1. Rockwood, PA to Adelaide, PA. 47 miles.

It was 5:00 am; I was struggling to get out of my sleeping bag and to get up off the concrete floor. “Where the hell am I, and who are all these old guys moaning and groaning,” I thought? Slowly, several things came to mind. "I am one of the old guys, about 15 of us had spent the night in sleeping bags on the concrete floor of the basement of the campground owner’s house, I had to pee really, really bad and I ached from head to toe". And the day before, I had, along with these guys and about 30 other folks, ridden in a hard rain 22 miles up the side of a 2300’ hill, crossed the Mason Dixon line and crossed through the Eastern Great Divide and 23 more miles down to a little town, Rockwood, PA, where I was now struggling to get out of that sleeping bag. Other than that, Ms. Lincoln, how was the play? A couple of months ago, when I signed up for this, it seemed like a really good idea. This morning, not so sure…

Looking around, I marveled at the collection of guys stretched out in their sleeping bags, or just barely moving like me, unwinding legs and arms after a long night on a concrete floor. Tall guys, fat guys, wiry guys, average guys, old guys and older guys. And the noises. I never heard so many noises coming out of a group of men in my life. Stretching, moaning, sneezes, farts, burps, groans, coughs and noises I couldn’t begin to define the origin of. All we needed was a piccolo, a trombone and some fruitcake strutting around with a baton and we’d have a band John Phillip Souza would be proud of.

How could this group of guys, along with the other 30 or so men and women crapped out around the camp possibly have the physical will and capability to ride up that mountain in the rain yesterday? Hell, even without the rain? But they did. All 43 of us rode up that hill and lived, although some in various states of pain, to ride another day. And we had two days to go.

Today was going to be another special day for me. Our route this day would take us past the little western Pennsylvania town of Connellsville. It was in that small town that my grandmother’s mother was born, where she met and married my great grandfather and after moving to Uniontown, PA just a short distance away, had two daughters, my grandmother and my great aunt. And it was in Uniontown, PA, that my grandparents had two daughters, my mother and my aunt Jean. It was from there that they moved to Los Angeles in the early 1920’s, where they built a home in Hollywood on Martel Street, a home where I would be raised by my grandparents after my parent’s divorce. On my maternal side of my family, it traces back to Connellsville, and I would be there in a few hours of bike riding.

The rain was gone, although the air was wet and heavy with morning mist. The trail was again beautiful and we began to see the very first sign of autumn coming to the hills of southwest Pennsylvania. Here and there, the leaves were golden and red as they fell from the trees, or covered the path in a blanket of yesterday’s greenery. Another week, I thought, and this would be beautiful. But my mind was on Connellsville and as mile after mile flew by, I thought about my childhood in Hollywood, about my grandmother and grandfather who raised me in their home until I went away to college. I remembered my grandfather telling me as a little boy about how he had to quit high school when his father died and had to go to work in the foundry to support his mother, brother and sister. I remembered my grandmother telling me about how when she was a little girl, going out with her country doctor father as he called on patients around Uniontown. About helping him from time to time with amputations and other major surgery. I remembered all those stories as I rode along that morning.

And the most amazing thing happened as I was riding. Suddenly, just in front of me, a vision of my grandfather appeared, clear as any photograph. Just out in front of my face a foot or two. It came up so fast my reaction was, “Whoa”, what is that? And it stayed with me for as long as I wanted it there. I tried to pull up a picture of my grandmother and it took a little work and time, but I got it. Not as clear as my grandfather, but there nonetheless. Those two people who influenced me greatly accompanied me for several miles. Their spirits were there with me on that sunny Friday morning as sure as I’m sitting here writing this.

I rode into Connellsville around noon. I stopped a couple of folks to ask about where the library was and when asked why, I explained I wanted to explore a little bit about the history of the Longanecker and Mathiot families. Directed to the library up on the hill, (of course), I parked the bike, went in and asked the librarian where I might find microfilm copies of old (1850??) newspapers or some history of Fayette County. She came out with about a thousand page book, (yes, it’s true!) of the history of Fayette County, (Who knew?), and I spent the next hour and half, sitting in the reading room of the Connellsville public library, out of place dressed in my sweaty biking gear, my helmet on the table, reading about my great grandparents on both sides of my mother’s family, their ancestor’s immigration to the colonies in 1733, their settling in western Pennsylvania in the early 1800’s and enough additional information that I will have great fun filling in the details this winter when it is cold and snowy out. God Bless Judith, the librarian in the Connellsville library, the History of Uniontown and the internet. I will go back there soon to finish the search for deeds, birth, marriage and death certificates.

As I rode down off that hill, through old city streets, I wondered if perchance I might be riding on the same streets where my great-grandparents rode in their buggy 150 years ago. Could’ve been…

It Doesn't Get Any Better Than This

Back on the bike trail, I was just several miles from the last stop on this tour. The sun was out, the day was beautiful, I had experienced the spirit of my grandparents who I had not seen since they passed away in 1965, had read their history, visited their hometown and was now going to be, for a last night with new friends with whom I had shared a wonderful week of riding, laughing, swearing at inclimate weather, praising my Trek 7500 and all of whom had survived to ride another day. Dinner that night was wonderful and the laughter loud. Small groups of new friends gathered around tents here and there. This was all coming to an end and it had snuck up on us too fast.

Tomorrow we would ride the last 45 miles to Pittsburgh and be bussed back to Washington DC, our departure city 8 days earlier.