Day 40 Morgantown, WV to Markleysburg, PA (29 bike miles;2712 cumulative miles)

With my wife Rickey and Charlie's wife Judy expected later in the afternoon, I became the SAG driver today. Using Google maps, we found a "walking route" that would allow us to avoid Interstate 68. The plan was for the three of us to meet near Exit 10 of I-68 around 11:30. That gave me a chance to further explore Morgantown.

In addition to the bike trail along the Monongahela that we rode on yesterday and today, I also rode on the Decker Creek trail that ran mostly east-west. I then biked around much of the University of West Virginia campus.

Later I heard from Charlie and Kriss who had taken a wrong turn because the street names on the directions did not match the street names on the ground, and had only "netted" a few miles from Morgantown despite having biked almost 20 miles. Driving Tiggy I also had difficulty finding my way out or town. Eventually we got together and back on the route. But part of the walking route turned out to be an extremely steep gravel road that was not suitable for either Tiggy or the bikes.

Meanwhile Rickey and Judy had made excellent time, so we arranged to meet in Bruceton Mills, WV, where Rickey could assume the SAG duties, with Judy the chief navigator.

We biked to Markleysburg, PA, which is on Route 40, also known as National Pike since it was one of the first highways to the West. We stayed overnight at the National Pike Motel, where we had an opportunity to get reacquainted with our lovely wives whom we had not seen for almost 6 weeks.
At this point, we happened to be quite close to the Great Allegheny Trail, a Rails to Trails bike trail from Pittsburgh to Cumberland, MD. Charlie had previously ridden portions of the trail on his hybrid bike and raved about it. We decided that we would test it out with our road bikes the following day.