Adventures By Guy

Spring of 2024 Finishing up CPAAT TRIP
This past Wednesday I got a call from Mike C. About finishing up the last two days of the CPAAT (Cross Pa adv trail). We had discussed it but I never said yay or nay.
I said Yay and took off Thursday. Trailering the Super Tenere with the truck. I don’t want to wear off the knobby tires doing 12 hrs on the Interstate both ways. Thursday morning weather was great. I pull out and am reaching the Chicago traffic arena around 1030. Hmm, it shouldn’t be that bad this time of day… I was very wrong. The exit to leave 90 to get on 290 was backed up two miles! Got through that bottleneck and back to heavy flowing traffic and 5 miles later was a bunch of construction and it was bad traffic all the way to Laporte, Indiana. A lot of stop and go… Then it took the trucks another 50 to 60 miles to get themselves sorted out enough where there weren’t 3 or more trucks in all 3 or two lanes passing another truck going 1 to 2 mph slower. After that it was clear sailing until Cleveland, OHIO… 5 accidents later I finally get clear of Cleveland… I stopped once for fuel for about 15 minutes. What should have been 10.5 hrs took 12.5 hrs… but I made it all in one piece without any dents in the truck. In Western NY I had a young driver try to come into my lane because it went to one lane up ahead. I swerved left a little and laid on the horn. She got back in her lane. She stared straight ahead as I passed. Can’t blame her as she looked like someone with her permit and the parent in the passenger seat had large eyes. We’ve all been there and things happen. It’s all good if no paint is transferred. Hopefully she’ll look over her shoulder next time.
Pulled into Coudersport, PA around 930 pm EDT and nothing much open. I called Loraine and ate dinner… some Salami and a block of cheese that I had brought along.
Next morning dawned cool and clear. I got the bike situated and we were on the road by 0757 and it was 60°F with no wind. Cool riding and bright. Western PA is rural and beautiful. We were winding down narrow valleys with “mountains” around us. Not Western mountains but let’s say big hills and ridges. They are covered by deep green trees and beautiful green meadows with horses belly deep in the tall green grass. What a wonderful way to start out the day.
About 15 miles down the road we pull off on the first dirt/gravel road. In about a mile we start going up a steep hill and the road is a bit washboarded. My engine starts acting up like it is trying to die! What is up with that? Then Mike said… Hey, I have to stop and turn off my Traction Control.
Oh, Yeah me too! Duh!!! Problem solved.
Soon I found out that it wasn’t quite a perfect day. I could have used a breeze to blow away the dust Mike was kicking up. I faded back a ways to lessen the affect and I raised my thin neck gator to act as a filter for my body as I do like to breath. Soon we were in trees and they arched over the road. We were going through the Allegheny Forest. Lots of ferns under the trees and in some places you could look off through the woods. Not for long otherwise you wouldn’t be prepared for the pothole that you would be sure to hit. We dodged a lot of potholes and many of them had water in them from it raining a couple of days ago. Missed most of them but you can’t miss them all. That’s where my upgraded suspension pays dividends back to me. By 1 or 2 pm it was 80° and we came out of the trees and it was feeling hot. We did 175 miles today. Seems like our average speed was around 30 to 35 mph. Still bright and sunny but back home they were getting hit with ssome harsh Thunder Storms. We checked into the hotel and then we left and went to the Drake Well museum. Unfortunately they closed 2 hrs early for the Holiday Weekend. The gate to the grounds was still open so we went in anyway. Turns out the Drake Well is where the first “modern” oil well was made by drilling. Then capping the well and then pumping the oil out and putting it in barrels. They had a 6.5 horse steam engine driving the pump. A barrel of oil was worth $20 in 1859 That’s worth around $755 in today’s dollars. So the amount of oil they were pumping was worth 35,000 to 45,000 dollars a day . Eventually it went down because in a few years they had wells pumping out thousands of barrels a day. They would hit wells where it would gush out and it took them from 1 to 3 days to stop the flow of oil! Yikes! It’s all green around there now and the river is flowing clean. There may be people gritting their teeth about that… but just think about how many whales were saved because whale oil wasn’t needed anymore!
I’ll be attaching photos with explanations underneath.
Tomorrow we head to Erie to finish up the trail. Only 40 miles to go and then we wind our way back to Coudersport on pavement.