FreeFloat

The day dawned bright and shiny. I decided to check in to the "Friendly Net" before going to breakfast, and atomicbiker joined me. He got to witness how patient I was while the net control station took stringer signals first - and how I cunningly paused for an extra 1-2 seconds when he called for more check-ins, so that my callsign stuck out under the pile by just a little bit. It worked and I was warmly welcomed to the net. Satisfied, we went to breakfast.

After breakfast, we set about trying to figure out why the second vehicle belonging to the villa, a creakingly ancient Mitsubishi Pajero, wouldn't start. We figured it either had to be a dead battery, bad diesel (after all, it had been sitting for a number of months), or both. So we went into town in search of a jerry can to put some diesel into.

The gas station lady directed us to a hardware store around the corner for the jerry can, but the staff at the hardware store thought I was showing an indecent amount of skin (well, I was, being clad in beachwear, but I was sufficiently embarrassed to go hide in the car and leave atomicbiker to buy the thing himself.) A one gallon jerry was as large a can as they stocked. It cost us $5/gallon to fill it with diesel, and then we toted it back to the villa, hoping it would be enough.

After discovering that the lid to the jerry can was not the right type to accommodate the built-in spout (!), I very carefully poured the diesel directly from the can into the tank of the Pajero, managing to spill only a small amount on myself and almost none on the ground or the Pajero. We pulled the Mazda around to the side of the Pajero, close enough so that the jumper cables would be able to reach. But after popping the Pajero's hood, I was faced with TWO batteries. Huh??

I've seen military trucks with dual batteries, and they run on a 24VDC system. Hmmm. So I fetched my multimeter (so glad I threw that in my luggage as an afterthought!) to see what was up. The Pajero's two batteries measured 17V. That seemed very odd to me - I expected to see something around 9-12V. Curious, I measured the Mazda's single battery - and it came out as 23.5V. Waitaminute..... I ran downstairs and stuck the meter on the output posts of the 12V regulated power supply. Sure enough, it read 24.2V.

Okay, so the meter is still kinda usable, but for some weird reason it was reading voltages as precisely double what they actually were. That meant the Pajero did have a 12V system, but it was under 9V at the time (not sufficient to crank over). And that confirmed that the Mazda's battery was perfectly fine at just over 12V (it has had no trouble starting). So I gave the green light to attempting a battery boost between the vehicles.

Unfortunately, even with the Mazda running (with someone nursing above-idle speeds out of the gas pedal), the tired old Pajero cranked over a few times, then started audibly slowing. I went to readjust the booster cable and it was hot - almost too hot to touch despite its insulation! We pulled the other cable out of the Mazda and tried attaching it to the second Pajero battery. This went even worse, with the Pajero's started engine running out of cranking power even quicker. The booster cable didn't heat up this time, at least/

We gave up and placed a call to the local gardener/handyman/problemsolver.

By this time, I was in a pretty bad mood. Partly broken multimeter, failed attempt to start car, and being embarrassed by the reaction at the hardware store to my outfit. To cheer me up, atomicbiker took me out for a drive, bought me a latte at a quaint bistro, then took me to the large new grocery store that just opened all the way on the west of the island, so I could buy more of my favorite non-soft-drink, Vitamin Water.

When we got back to the villa, I got bored. Everyone else was prepared to relax and read books but I was still discontent from all the frustrations of the morning. So I went downstairs to play radio.

Despite not having pre-arranged a frequency to be on, I decided to see if I could just build a pileup by myself, by using a bit of self-spotting on the DX clusters and a lot of patience and calling CQ. I checked my propagation map to see if the same 17m frequency that had worked so well yesterday would also work today - although other bands were just as probable, I decided to stick with the proven.

I did a little self-spotting, and thanked the first couple of contacts for their offers to "spot" me as well. (Spotting is the act of posting a contact's callsign, location, and calling frequency to an internet server so that others can seek out the same contact). I also emailed both clubs back home and mentioned I was going to stick around on-air for at least an hour, if not longer. Then I picked a good frequency, and started calling CQ.

It didn't take too long for word to get around, this time. 17m was in fair shape and I got signal strength readings from 5/1 (readable, but signal so weak the weeds are obscuring it) to 5/9 (crystal clear and very readable). From time to time I did have actual pileups, with 2 or 3 callsigns overlapping at once. Once in a while, when a lone callsign presented itself and the signal was strong, I chatted a bit. By the end of the hour or two, I was working a pretty steady stream of calls from all over the place. It got so that I fell behind in logging them on computer (some of these guys liked to deliver their exchanges fast, clipped and precise, as if we were contesting) and resorted to just scribbling them down on my paper log, and entering the data as soon as there was a pause in the action.

By the time atomicbiker came to fetch me for dinner, I had logged an additional 38 QSOs (contacts). Other than the many US and Canadian stations who were simply thrilled to bag a relatively rare Anguillan callsign, I reached hams in Japan, Colombia, and the Canary Islands.

Now that's a successful day of contacts!!

On the third day, I had a brainstorm. Or maybe it was at the end of the second day. Regardless. I was thinking back to the last time I'd used an expedient vertical HF speaker-wire antenna and recalled that the feed point was at the bottom of the mast - very near the ground. And - the ground radials all laid flat out from the feedpoint. So I went to my vertical antenna, let a little slack into the guy line, and lowered the thing until it was very near the ground. Then I walked the ground radials out straight, and even buried them just an inch under the wet pathway gravel (mainly so nobody might snag them if they walked by)

What a difference! Although there are still bands the radio won't comfortably tune - being as it does NOT contain an automatic tuning circuit - it very much likes most of the bands I take it to.

I also started paying more attention to the solar flux conditions, and making better use of the propagation software I have on this laptop.

The night before, I had sent up emails to both Kingston, Ontario clubs telling them to be on the lookout for my callsign on 15m between the hours of 1300 and 1500Z. (Since that's generally around the time we all get back from our morning ritual of espresso and pain au chocolat). Well, I hurried back to the villa and turned on the radio - and with not much delay, Carlyle and Paul from back home turned their great big beams in my direction and we made contact!

While I had Paul's attention I decided to switch between the new-and-improved vertical and the ELPA (which claims to be more directional, and I have it more-or-less aimed at Lake Ontario). He reported that my signal was definitely stronger when using the vertical. Okay, I'll just have to stay away from the bands that make the radio unhappy with high SWR, then. (The antenna tuner isn't much use to me without a functioning SWR meter to help adjust it). Two other hams, Tim and Al, tried to reach me as well, but although I could hear them, my signal was just too weak for them to be able to pick my voice out of all the noise.

However, in short order Paul (or maybe Carlyle) had announced on the local repeater that I was on-air on 15m (giving the specific frequency) and in almost no time I had a pile-up!

A pileup is where you out your call out on the air, along with the code "CQ" which means |I'm open to making contacts" and as soon as you shut up and listen, you get an immediate garble of multiple overlapping callsigns, each vying for your attention. From my contesting attempts in the past, I'd heard some stations smoothly and efficiently dealing with pileups so I had an inkling of how to handle it. It was so thrilling being the cause of a pileup on the air!

Shortly, though, atomicbiker came down to see me and collect me for a lunch excursion. I told him to give me just 20 minutes to work the pileup. In that 20 minutes I worked another 16 stations! While some were from my home neighborhood in Ontario, I also had Germany, France and Slovakia in the mix.

I was starting to get it! And I had such a blast being the cause of a pileup that I couldn't wait to do it again!

Day 2 dawned, and as thrilled as I was that I had made at least one contact, I was determined to do better. First thing I need is more antenna, I thought. So out came the ELPA 302A.

The villa next door is vacant, the previous owner having expired, so I figured nobody would especially mind if I rolled out some antenna into their backyard. Great theory. In actual fact, the backyard was so overgrown with native shrubs, trees and other miscellaneous plants that I couldn't even walk through it, much less lay out antenna line. I settled for deploying the ELPA in its "folded dipole 75' twin vee" configuration, mainly because I just didn't have 300' x 20' (for full deployment) to work with.

It took me part of the afternoon, but I did get the antenna laid out. I consulted the 80+ page original user manual to be sure I got it set up as optimally as I could. Now to test it.

One of the major plus points of the ELPA is that it boasts a (reported) 2:1 SWR or better on pretty much ALL bands from 80m up to 10m or so. It'll even load 160m if you deploy it fully, a configuration I couldn't use due to space limitations. At least I won't burn out the finals in my radio by risking high SWRs. The drawback is that the ELPA is rumored to radiate, as an antenna, about as well as a wet piece of spaghetti that's been cooked in salt water (as one my my ham friends from home has put it). And maybe slightly better than a burnt out light bulb.

So I proceeded to test this theory. However, despite calling CQ for an hour or so and posting my CQ frequency to a couple of lists I belong to, I only made one more contact, to a fellow in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. And I was once again frustrated by all the high DWR warnings the radio was giving me. In frustration, I emailed my local ham contact (who'd already graciously loaned me the 12VDC power supply) and asked if he had an antenna tuner lying about that I might borrow.

That was day 2.

Alright, so it has been a startlingly long time since I've updated my journal. Without apologies or attempts to try to catch things up, I may as well launch straight into my latest amusement/adventure. As past things occur to me in cohesive enough format to merit a journal entry, I'll tell the tales then.

---

So, we're in Anguilla. It's an island in the Caribbean. The British West Indies, specifically. It's pretty much the only country in the world, as far as I know, which, having achieved independence, actually revolted in order to be taken back by England as a British protectorate.

It's also a rather remote place, and doesn't have many hams.

I got my amateur radio ("ham") license in 2012. My last trip to Anguilla was in 2011, and I wasn't licensed yet. Last trip, I spent much time swimming, snorkelling, drinking pina coladas, and scuba diving. And driving on the 'wrong' side of the road (because its roads style themselves after those of its protector).

This trip, indeed I still brought the scuba gear, with a bit of arm-twisting by atomicbiker. But I also had to make room for my radio and its accessories.

I acquired this radio just before the trip - that was a saga unto itself - so I hadn't had time to power it up and test it out. It's a Yaesu FT-100D. Yaesu has more current models on the market, but all the reviews I've read suggest that this particular radio seemed all around better - easier to read screen, simpler controls, more stable frequency holding. Etc. I chose not to bring a power supply, reckoning that I could either purchase something locally to kludge together, or borrow one, or as a last resort, run the thing directly off one of the villa's vehicles.

The villa we're staying at belong to some cousin-type people in atomicbiker's side of the family. When they're not using the villa, we get to. They're kind enough to throw in the use of their vehicles; all we have to pay for (other than our obvious plane tickets) is basically our own food and shopping.

Before I left Canada, I told all the local hams and both clubs that I'd be travelling to Anguilla. I couldn't give them my call sign yet because I hadn't received it. I'd sent emails ahead to all the ham contact points I could find referred to online - all three of them. Eventually I forwarded photos of my Canadian license to the two who replied. Fortunately, the license was approved and I had my callsign within two days of my arrival. That's not too bad.

As soon as I had my new callsign, VP2EGC, I borrowed a 12VDC power converter and set about installing antennas. I had brought with me a piece of speaker wire - I think it's around 32' long but I'm not precisely sure anymore - as well as a surplus ex-military ground-laid twin dipole type pocket packable antenna called the Eyring Low Profile Antenna (or ELPA for short) model 302A. I figured one or other, or both, should get me on the air. I also brought along an expedient 2m/70cm dipole made of pallet strapping, duct tape, and 550 cord. I made that as a lark back in May, but the antenna analyzer said it loads up even better on 70cm than 2m... go figure. And besides, all these antennas pack up nice and small.


My first thought was to stretch out some horizontal wire from the edge of the pool deck across to the tops of trees at the corner of the villa's property. But I spent most of an afternoon swatting mosquitoes and getting stuck by prickly bushes in the process of stringing a pilot string across my intended wire's path - and was no closer to getting on air. In frustration I tied a loop of string to the top of a telescoping pool-cleaning tool and tied it to the lower balcony behind the pool, then ran the antenna wire up the pole and through the loop of string (and tied off the other end to a guy wire). In effect, I now had a vertical antenna. Laid out my 100' of coaxial cable as a feedline and bingo!


The SWR meter I had grabbed when packing turned out to be tuned for CB use. I quickly found that my signal strength improved when I took the SWR meter out of the signal path. Oh well. However, I was now faced with another annoyance - the radio was reporting "high SWR" (with the corresponding icon of a stylized antenna tower with a big X through it) on most of the bands I thought might be worth using. I did make one contact that day - it was the 19th of December - to Roberto in Milano, Italy.

This is where I set up - in the vacant downstairs apartment of the villa. That way, I wouldn't annoy the other occupants with lights or noise (especially HF static or maltuned nearby channels) especially if I decided to play radios late into the night)

So, for the first time ever, I think I'll actually attempt the National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for short. A 50,000-word fiction novel, on any topic, started no earlier than November 1st and completed (or, at least the 50,000-word mark reached) no later than November 30th.

Ya, piece of cake :P (what am I thinking?!?!)

...Anyone else on my friends list planning to join me in this insanity?

This year, green_hopper decided to coordinate his own paintball party for his birthday. The party itself, of course, being held a week late to get around Canadian Thanksgiving weekend.

Coincidentally, on the 12th, the exact day of his 16th birthday, he went to write his G1 test to obtain his first learner's permit.

So, in honor of this notable occasion, I created a cake:



(Do you have any idea how hard it actually is to create a nice, even, concrete-gray icing color using food coloring??)

He and his friends thought this cake was positively EPIC.

To be fair, he's really not too bad of a driver (yet). When we initially came rolling up to the paintball field, with me in the 'shotgun' seat, his friends swarmed his side of my vehicle, ostensibly to count how many phone books he just had to be sitting on *snicker*. To which he replied with the only appropriate hand gesture. :)

(atomicbiker also attended, as it was his birthday too,to try his hand for the very first time at paintballing, and I swear his perma-grin went from coast to coast. Despite the chilly weather and the high winds and the disorganized, tiny, somewhat run-down FIBUA* field, atomicbiker seems to have acquired a taste for paintballing....)

*FIBUA = Fighting in Built Up Area, what later came to be simply referred to as "Urban Ops"

At 4 in the morning, Squeak the kitten began crying. atomicbiker got up to go see to her. She was calling out and trying weakly to climb out of her nest box. I joined atomicbiker and, as she fell silent, together we tried to figure out what she wanted. We placed her in her litter (since that's what she had wanted when she mewed after dinner) but she just collapsed in it. I picked her up to look at her but she had fallen silent. We placed her back in the nest box but she just lay there. She kicked once. I couldn't tell if she was still breathing so I picked her up and atomicbiker took her in his hand. She was totally limp. He said he could feel her heart still fluttering but her sides were no longer moving.....

We both cried out "Come on, Squeak, you've come so far!" She opened her eyes and looked at atomicbiker, but her little heart had stopped.

We both cried, and still haven't stopped.

Goodbye, little Squeak. May you rest peacefully...

So today, atomicbiker took the little kitten to the vet.

It appears that the kitten is a she-cat, and she's in general good health. Slightly dehydrated, and definitely has ear mites, but that's about all. The vet gave atomicbiker some antibiotic eye drops to help clear the gunk from her eyes, and an overall pest-killer called Revolution to take care of mites, fleas, and any possible internal parasites or worms she might have. The vet figures her to be close to five weeks old.

We went to a pet supply store and I helped atomicbiker pick out a litter box, food/water dishes, and a tray of canned kitten food, which the doctor recommended as preferable over the cat-milk or dry kitten kibble. We went home with our loot and I fed the kitten. I set up the litter box and as soon as she decided she'd eaten enough, I set her on the litter box and she immediately set about using it!

She started to fall asleep in her litter box so I rescued her and swaddled her in towels. She slept while atomicbiker and I had our supper. As I cleared thing away, she awoke, crawled out of the towel nest, and began walking across the floor, making the occasional "meep" noise. She rubbed up against the black table leg several times before striking determinedly across the kitchen. I shadowed her because we really haven't had the chance to kitten-proof the place yet.

As she hiked across the kitchen floor, she began to call out louder and more frequently - "Mee-eep? Mee-eep?" I laughed to atomicbiker, "I think she's looking for you!" He got off the couch and came to the kitchen. Immediately the kitten stumbled over to his ankle and settled into an "I'm-not-leaving" crouch. atomicbiker picked her up and she stopped Meeping and fell asleep.

I think atomicbiker has been claimed by this kitten.

And, I'm not sure if it'll stick, but the kitten has a name, at least for now. When she first woke up after dinner, she emitted a few quiet "eep"s before going in search of atomicbiker. I turned to her and said, "If you keep that up, we might just name you Squeak." atomicbiker heard me and said, "Why not?"

Indeed, why not? Cats don't seem to care much what we humans call them, anyway...

So today, I installed the weather station I picked up a couple of weeks ago at a yard sale. It was a minor adventure, this installation, and one which I'd been putting off for a couple of weeks. Finally, today, I was determined to get it done.

I brought out our biggest ladder (it's not that tall...) and with it, could almost reach the roof of atomicbiker's house from his upstairs deck. But not quite. So I nailed a couple of pieces of wood to a 2x4 I found, and tried to make an expedient "extension" to the ladder. atomicbiker came out to "spot" me while I climbed, and ended up boosting me the last 6" up to the roof when the expedient extension ladder threatened to come apart. (well, okay, I spent all of 2 minutes building it and nailing it was faster than screwing the pieces together)

I attached the anemometer and wind vane to the high-speed internet antenna's mast, then climbed back off the roof with atomicbiker's assistance. I got the wireless transmitter to connect with its base station (an exercise in patience) and went to fasten the rainfall sensor and the outdoor transmitter to the deck railing. While attempting to screw the transmitter's mount to the outside of the railing, I dropped a piece two stories down, to the ground.

Grumbling at myself, I headed downstairs to go fetch it. But when crossing the lower level's deck to the stairs that would let me down to lawn-level, I heard the most piteous mewing....

We have feral cats around the area. What we don't have is a rodent problem, so we don't mind the cats' presence. They don't seem to mind us, either.

What approached me, slowly, hesitantly, was a kitten from these feral cats. It was crying as it stepped gingerly across the lawn. I pondered for a few minutes, then approached it. Its eyes were sealed shut.

I picked it up and it stopped mewing. I looked closely at its eyes and one of them looked a little swollen, but the other was merely crusted, and didn't appear swollen. Still, I could hardly just toss it back. So I called for atomicbiker, and once he came downstairs, asked him to bring me a bowl of warm water and some cotton swabs. And a hand towel.

I swaddled the kitten in the hand towel (partly to keep it from struggling or clawing me and partly to lend it a sense of security) and gently tried to swab the crusts from its eyes. I managed to reduce some of the crusting but never did get its eyes to open. We called my Dad (actually I was hoping to reach Mom, since she has lots of hands-on experience with kittens) and Dad and I discussed What To Do With This. We unanimously decided I could not simply set the kitten free near one of the feral cats' hideouts, as a jealous stray Tom would be more than likely to dispatch it, as that's what wild Tomcats do. And for it to have wandered so far from where I knew most of the cats hang out, without a mother cat to come looking for it, suggested to me that either it was already an orphan, or that the mother cat had abandoned/lost interest in it already.

atomicbiker and I went for dinner in town (because it was too nice of a day, this Indian summer, to resist riding our Harleys again) and while there, I picked up a couple of cartons of "cat milk" and a medicine dropper, as well as a couple of pouches of moist cat/kitten food.

After dinner, we rode home and I put the kitten on a towel on my lap and offered it some room-temperature cat milk. it lapped it up extremely eagerly and we heard teh click of its tiny teeth on the medicine dropper.

The fact it has teeth, its ears stand up and it can walk (it wandered at least 150', my best guess, toward our house from the feral cat hideout) suggests to me that it's probably about 4 weeks of age. Tomorrow I'll spend some more time soaking its eyes to see if I can get some of the crustiness to let go.

Despite his allergies, atomicbiker adores cats. He was having mixed feelings about my rescue of this kitten, but part of that, I discovered, was because he's lost a couple of cats in the past who were very dear to him. However, he's already extremely fond of this helpless little tyke...

After I fed the kitten, atomicbiker took him from me and cuddled him, still partly wrapped in the towel. The kitten promptly let out a tiny, raspy purr....

Today's leg of the journey was from Penn Yan, NY to Dubois, PA. (which we discovered is actually pronounced "doo-boyz" by the residents)

I got a bit of a slow start this morning, resulting in me fiddlefucking with strapping all my luggage to the Sportster for over 40 minutes while atomicbiker and egcrider stood around, sweating in their leathers and waiting to depart. Eventually we got underway only to have me stop about 5 miles down the road to readjust (which fortunately took mere seconds since I had figured out by then how it had to happen)

Once the baggage was (finally) secure, we were able to really and truly get underway (and I didn't need to touch or adjust the luggage at all for the rest of the day)

We followed State Road #14 southbound along the west coast of Seneca lake, one of New York's Finger Lakes. I must say, the views were panoramic and breathtaking, and for the life of me I can't figure out why the State placed the "scenic lookout" where they did - unless they consider a field of cows to be more "scenic" than blue-tinged rolling hills, valleys of vineyards, and sparkling azure water visible from pretty much every other point along #14.

We sought coffee around noon, and thanks to the (mis)guidance of egcrider's GPS, we got to experience a tiny, narrow, badly-pitted, barely-paved back road between Horseheads (yes, that's a real town name) and Elmira. It was fun... but I don't think I'll be seeking out that particular "short cut" again.

Eventually, coffee was located and imbibed, and thus refreshed, we got on the Interstate for just a few miles to turbo-boost us to our next State-level road. Doing Interstates on a motorbike can be an adrenaline rush, but you want to get off them as soon as the rush starts to wear away, since Interstates are also very taxing while being ungodly monotonous. State-level roads (as opposed to County roads) are best, in my opinion - the forerunners of the Interstate system, State roads were reasonably speedy and direct, but people still built services along them. Motels and diners used to be abundant, and today the ghosts of such infrastructure can still be seen. Sometimes, you still find a motel, gas station or diner operating very similarly to how it must have back in motoring's heyday.

For lunch, we made it to Wellsboro, site of the "Famous" Wellsboro Diner, where I had thoroughly enjoyed lunching last year during my OTR trip. Knowing that atomicbiker gets a real kick out of the old 30s-era stuff such as diners, I was really looking forward to introducing him to this place. However, even I have to admit that the place just looked tired - bare minimum maintenance, I suppose, and probbaly just breaking even. They didn't offer milkshakes (how can a diner NOT offer milkshakes!!) and the food was okay, but only okay, not fantastic. The staff were bustling around in chaos but didn't seem to have any extra time or energy to spare. They weren't unfriendly, just too busy. Regardless, I was disappointed that the Wellsboro Diner was not to be the trip mini-highlight that I had expected it to be, and my disappointment stayed with me for several hours later (and it was only later that I was able to identify the cause of my lackluster mood)

The Pennsylvania Grand Canyon, along State Road #6, was sunny, in great shape, and offered even more spectacular views. Unlike my trip last year, there were no slow-moving pieces of farm equipment for us to get stuck behind. The world was our oyster, so to speak, and we happily exchanged waves with many bikers heading in the opposite direction, their hair flying in the breeze under Pennsylvania's lack of mandatory helmet law.

We found another diner, just outside of Coudersport, which I hadn't noticed last year. It's funny how you become more aware of the interests of the people you hang out with regularly. Regretfully, Fezz's Diner had just closed for the day, but we were able to walk quickly through it and delight at all the genuine memorabilia it had inside. I marked it on my GPS for later visitation.

We stopped only once more along #6, at Mount Jewitt. We drank some water (and coffee for me) and this is where we identified the reason I wasn't having much fun with this afternoon's riding - my overall disappointment with the Wellsboro Diner. We decided to press on, although we were all getting a wee bit sun-drunk and it was starting to look more and more like we might decide to stop in Dubois for the night. We agreed to defer a decision until dinnertime, which was still planned to occur in Dubois. 10 minutes later, we had turned off State Road #6 onto #219 southbound.

We got to Dubois just before 6 and ducked into the Harley dealership there. I started to despair of ever finding a souvenir T shirt that could conceivably fit me - they had masses upon masses of Large through 3X-Large - but nothing in size Medium. I mean, I know we've all heard about the "obesity epidemic" in the US but c'mon. After a brief tour of the very sparsely stocked "ladies'" section, I approached the staff, who were obviously more concerned with just seeing us leave than with seeing us leave happy. They gave us a noncommittal non-answer about how they only get "one" of each design of shirt in size Medium, leaving atomicbiker and me to search the racks our own damn selves. Eventually, we did find a shirt in Medium (one of THREE in that size and style, might I add), bought it, and departed.

Across the street was the Dubois Diner. We parked the bikes in the designated motorcycle parking spots right out front, took some token pictures under the big, neon, Art Deco-style sign, then went in to enjoy the best damn burgers, fries, and FRESH HOMEMADE PIES in Pennsylvania. Seriously. It more than made up for the disappointment of the Wellsboro Diner earlier, and the waitress was cheerful, quick, attentive (refilling our drinks, without asking, before they ran out!) and smiled a lot while making conversation with us. We very quickly redesigned our morning departure plan to include a repeat visit to the Diner for breakfast.

Tomorrow we start the mountain leg of the journey. It's usually my favorite - State Road #219 starts resembling more of a roller coaster ride (through all three axes!) than merely a road.

Stuffed on good food and weary to the bone, we rolled the bikes a quarter mile down the road to the Best Western motel and checked in, almost too exhausted to drag our kit up to the second floor. Tomorrow will be an earlier day, to ensure we have ample travel time to go through the fields of Maryland followed by the mountains of West Virginia in time to pitch our tent at OTR before the campground gets too full.