PA Biking Day 4 - Fog & Covered Bridges

Unlike the past 3 days, day 4 started out in fog rather than with clear skies. At perhaps 62 degrees, the temperature was warmer than the past couple of days. The humidity and temperature meant that it felt measurably warmer than previous mornings when climbing uphill, but the cool fog made it feel considerably cooler when moving quickly downhill.

One could look directly at the sun and see its boundaries sharply defined in the foggy glow. It reminded me of a full moon with a very thin layer of wispy clouds blocking out the stars and lighting the night but still allowing the moon to remain very visible.

Today’s ride was another day of covered bridges, I believe 8 of them, but I will not fill this blog post with photos of each as I did in my day 2 entry.

With the fog, I could photograph this barn with the sun directly above it in the frame without having the barn be almost black in the shadows. The muted palate of the photo also matches the muted background silence that surrounded us as we rode. The sounds of our wheels rolling on the slightly damp pavement and the creaks of our chains dominated our soundscape.

As the fog started to lift and thin slightly, the nearby grass and corn started to pop with a vibrance that contrasted to the muted sky and trees in the background.

The fog stayed with us for a surprisingly long time. I think we all expected it to burn off quickly, but shortly before 10am and over 90 minutes into our ride, the fog still lingered.

Eventually, the first patches of blue skies began to appear. Yet even then, bits of moisture hanging in the air muted the distant landscape as seen above.

And finally, shortly after 11am and more than halfway through our 67 mile ride, the fog had fully burned off.

Besides riding on roads, we had a stretch of over 5 miles on a rail-to-trail bike path. Despite its gravel surface which is slower to ride on, we averaged almost 20mph due to a rather slight but relatively constant downhill grade.

After departing the bike trail, still had a couple of covered bridges to traverse before completing our ride.

And I will end my posts of our 4 days cycling in PA with one final covered bridge photo, this time with Cathy and Mark in the foreground. This was a great trip, and I look forward to coming back another year for more riding.