For Christmas 2017, Carole surprised me with a gift of a bicycling mini-vacation on the Allegheny River Trail in the Titusville/Franklin/Foxburg PA area, which is northeast of Pittsburgh. The ART itself is 31 miles long from Titusville to Foxburg, but also connects to a several other trails.
We scheduled the trip for mid October, which is usually about the peak of fall foliage color in that area - but with the crazy weather this summer the only colors were green (leaves on the trees) and brown (leaves on the trail.) The weather also just changed from being unseasonably warm to being unseasonably cool, so we adjusted our plans a bit.
We decided to drive up to Somerset PA on Wednesday night, which would get us close enough to Franklin that we could arrive in time on Thursday to get some biking in. We went westbound on the Pennsylvania Turnpike - which was lucky for us, because there had been a horrific tractor trailer crash on the eastbound lanes which shut down that side of the Turnpike for over 70 miles between Breezewood and New Stanton. Our side was fine, but the other side was either miles-long backups or long stretches of no traffic at all.
We had a nice dinner at the Pine Grill in Somerset and the next morning took back roads up to Franklin PA - for some reason Carole made me take a very specific route to show me something:
We arrived at Franklin and checked into our very nice B&B, the Witherup House.
It was cloudy and about 43 degrees, so only one of us decided to bicycle that day, while the other decided to walk around the cute, cute, cute town of Franklin and lounge around the B&B. I am bound by a pre-nuptial agreement not to say that it was Carole who did the walking/lounging.
I biked from the B&B across the Allegheny River to the start of the Allegheny River Trail, which is a very nice paved surface with constant river views. I went about 5 miles south until the point where the ART intersects with the Sandy Creek Trail. Well, more like passes under the Sandy Creek Trail - there is a bridge that takes the old Sandy Creek Line over the ART and the Allegheny River and in order to get up to the Sandy Creek Trail you have to take your bike up some pretty steep steps.
Even with the ramp on the side of the steps, that was harder than I thought it would be. From the Sandy Creek Bridge there was a nice view of the river, the surrounding hills and the smaller bridge I biked across on the ART to get to that point.
The Sandy Creek Trail is a beautiful paved path through the pine trees and hardwoods, slightly uphill all the way to Van, criss-crossing a river and taking you through one short tunnel.
The Sandy Creek Trail ended at Van and it was pretty much turn around and bike back to the B&B for a total of about 28 miles.
After I got back we drove up to see what Oil City and Titusville were like. No matter what way we turned, the signs would always say "Oil City - 7 miles" so we never got there but we did check out the "Caboose Motel" in Titusville where for $69 you can rent your own fully equipped motel room in an actual caboose.
That night we walked into town and had a great dinner at the Trails to Ales Brewery - great flat breads, soft pretzel with dipping sauce, arugula salad and interesting libations. I had an "Apple Pie" ale brewed locally and Carole had a flight of 4 different flavors of mojitos.
The next day was supposed to be warmer and no slacking off from biking was allowed. Since the innkeepers were away, they had left us a gift certificate for breakfast at the Amazing Foods Cafe in Franklin where oatmeal and waffles were consumed in large quantities. We walked back and stopped to see the awesome Tiffany stained glass windows at the St. John's Presbyterian Church, which were back-lit by the morning sun.
We then drove south to Emlenton to bike a section of the Allegheny River Trail that included going through two tunnels.
The Rockland Tunnel is about 2800 feet long and has water cascading down from the top of the tunnel at the southern end. We walked the bikes around the water and turned on the lights - since the tunnel has a "dog leg" turn a few hundred feet in, you can not see the other end of the tunnel for a while and was very dark.
The next tunnel was even longer - the Kennerdell Tunnel is 3400 feet long but dry - but also has a dogleg turn and was pitch black most of the way through. Both tunnels were built in the early 1900s and bisected loops in the river to save the railroad many miles of track.
A few miles past the Kennerdell Tunnel we turned around and headed back for a total round trip of 25 miles. From there we drove a few miles to Foxburg, for some fancy chocolates and ice cream and then on to Grove City PA to stay at the Terra Nova B&B and have a great meal of home made pasta at Nonni's Corner Trattoria, which is now our second favorite Italian restaurant after Pasta Plus in Laurel MD.
The next morning (after a huge breakfast at the Terra Nova) we made the 5 hour drive back home, stopping at the Distillery Lane Ciderworks in Jefferson MD to pick some apples, apple cider vinegar and hard apple cider from this small apple orchard and distillery.
