May 2, 2024 - Sterling, PA, to Cherry Ridge, PA

May 20, 2024

May 2, 2024 - Sterling, PA, to Cherry Ridge, PA

Start: Sterling, PA
End: Cherry Ridge, PA
Miles: 19.7
Feet climbing per mile: 104
Records of the day's ride:
https://ridewithgps.com/trips/177822680
https://ridewithgps.com/trips/172356317

I first started thinking about a bike ride to Lake Genero in July of last year. At that time I had some communication with the owner of the campground that I had found through the Hipcamp website. The owner also had a separate website www.lakegenero.com dedicated to the campground. I was surprised in early April of this year (last month) to find that www.lakegenero.com was no longer functioning. Through the Hipcamp website I wrote to the owner asking about www.lakegenero.com but never received a response. After I made my reservation to stay at the campground I wrote the owner asking why swimming was not allowed in the lake but again received no response. If I had applied the zero-tolerance-for-anomalies policy I wrote in Aphorisms and Exhortations, by this time I certainly should have recognized that something was wrong, having observed three anomalies.

When I discovered that there was no light in the shower house and no water in its sinks, toilets, or shower, I wrote to the owner through the Hipcamp app about the problems but received no response. I then wrote to customer support at Hipcamp asking for a full refund, which was promptly issued. I was told that the listing for the campground had been removed from Hipcamp.

My plan for the second day of this trip had been to ride a loop route, either 2 CW Lake Genero Loop or the counter-clockwise version of that route. But now that I was in a Comfort Inn several miles south of the campground, I needed to decide whether I would 1) ride a loop route that would bring me back to the Comfort Inn where I would spend another night, or 2) find another place to spend the second night of this trip. I chose the latter, and soon found Lake Wanoka Resort where I could rent a cabin for about $100 and which had a restaurant on site. I called the resort to ask some questions but never got a response. Because of my experience with the campground at Lake Genero I was somewhat concerned, but eventually I followed the directions on the recorded message and made a reservation through their expedia.com listing. My ride for the second day of my trip would consist of the 20 miles getting to the resort.

I took advantage of the Comfort Inn's free breakfast, making myself a waffle and a cup of tea. I was on the road at about 11:00, following a route I found with Google Maps. As you can see in the picture below, it was a beautiful day.

Bidwell Hill Road

After seeing seven deer, none of which stayed around long enough for me to take a picture, I soon came to what I could see was a short stretch of gravel with a gate blocking the other end.

I easily walked around the gate.

Below is a view of the other side of the gate. I wonder why the other end of the fire land didn't also have a gate.

I had put my cleat covers on my cleats before walking through the fire lane. As I was taking them off and about to continue riding, a man in a car stopped to ask whether I was ok and whether I needed a ride. I said that I was fine and that I had no need for a ride. I also sang him some of my alternate lyrics to the intro to the song I've Been Everywhere:

   I walkin' my bike up a very steep road
  When along came a car with barely a load
  The driver asked "Would you like a ride?"
  I said "Thanks, but if I took it, I'd feel so bad inside"

My plan for this trip included having dinner the second night at Mr. Yock's BBQ, which is located about a mile or so south of the Lake Genero campground. Since I would be spending the night be too far away to have dinner at Mr. Yock's, I stopped there on my ride to the resort.

I will let the people at Mr. Yock's know that the sign should say "TURN LEFT NOW!".

I sat outside and ordered the brisket sandwich and asked that the kaiser roll be omitted. I don't know why I didn't use my stainless-steel camping fork rather than the plastic fork I was given. The brisket tasted good but I had been expecting a solid piece of meat like I would get at Hill Country down the street from my home in Manhattan.

I also enjoyed a scoop of ice cream, for which I brought out my stainless-steel spoon.

The music at Mr. Yock's consisted of classic rock, including Three Dog Night's Joy The World (aka Jeremiah Was A Bullfrog). I was pleased to hear the subjunctive used in the first line of the second verse:

If I were the king of the world...

As I was writing this post I was considering adding a section to the Talk page of the Wikipedia article English subjunctive about the death of the subjunctive, but I saw that I had already done that in February of 2015: Death of the Subjunctive

While I was at Mr. Yock's I noticed that the rear strap of my top tube bag was not exactly horizontal, due to the location of the rear rack, perhaps pulling the bag down in the rear. I made a note that I would consider raising the rack a little to let the rear strap be horizontal.

A few miles after Mr. Yock's I saw a beautiful fixer-upper.

This fixer-upper even comes with a barn.

I wonder what the cows thought of my mooing.

At mile 14.6 I turned onto the gravel of Theobald Road.

Theobald Road

After riding a short distance I knocked on the door of a home and asked the man who came out if the gravel would continue for the next two miles. When he said it would I reversed course and looked took a detour which again brought me to a gravel road. This time the gravel appeared to be finer, and I would be on it only three quarters of a mile, so I decided to proceed, thinking that being able to ride on gravel is a useful skill. I completed the ride on gravel without incident.

After leaving the second gravel road I entered route 191. I had created the portion of my route that led to the gravel roads in order to avoid 191 which I had expected to have heavy traffic. I was glad the traffic on 191 was light and that there was a good shoulder.

At mile 18 I turned onto Ski Run Road and began a climb of almost a mile that would complete my ride. As I rode the climb I thought that it was a good thing that there was a restaurant on the sited of the resort, because I wouldn't want to have to make that climb after dinner with a full belly.

I arrived at Lake Wanoka Resort at about 2:30 and checked in to my cabin.

I took a walk around the resort, first heading to the pond where I met Brady who was running the filter for the pond's water. He told me that the pond was man-made and that the fish in the fish were put there by the sons of Katie, the owner, but that fishing wasn't allowed because hooks could damage the pond's liner.

Swimming in the pool was refreshing, but dealing with the rocks getting in and out was painful for my feet, and having fish bumping into and maybe nibbling on my legs was unnerving.

When I met Patty, who worked at the resort, she told me that the chickens were hers. She said that some time ago a fox had gotten into the chicken house and killed one of the chickens, and now the chickens wouldn't go into their house.

I noticed that I had three bites on my left leg that looked like they might have come from ticks. I sent pictures of the three bites to my doctor, Polina Liss, and told her that I had not removed any ticks from my skin but that I had a vague recollection of brushing off whatever critters bit me when I was at my campsite the previous day. She told me to take two 100-mg capsules of doxycycline daily for the next five days. I had with me the ten capsules she had prescribed for my Big Loop 2019 trip so I started the doxycycline that day. The bites diminished over the next few days and I have felt no ill effects of the bites.

After a shower, shave, and change of clothes I walked to The KCPepper Bar & Grille. I started with a Caeser salad and followed it with a hamburger, both of which were exceptional. Victoria, my waitress, used the term "mid-rare" in place of "medium-rare". She said she also used "mid-well". I told her I had never encountered those "mid-" terms and wondered whether they might be local to some part of Pennsylvania. My later research uncovered no evidence of them at all. Victoria said she learned them from her boyfriend who is a chef so maybe he made them up.

I thought my cabin looked especially beautiful in the evening light, so I took another picture of it.