PA Forest Ride

I was up home for the weekend of August 6th for our family reunion. Nothing was going on until the evening of the 6th, so Dad, Mike & I headed for the hills on our respective rides. Before we could go, though Mike had to pull a screw out of his rear tire. I broke out my never-used fancy, well advertised plug patching kit that I'd bought from some web site but after two failed plug attempts, Dad broke out his kit that he bought for $3.99 from Tractor Supply (I think), and we had the thing plugged and inflated in less than five minutes. So much for my fancy kit taking up space in my saddlebag. 

We finally got underway and Dad was in the lead since we were heading to his riding/hunting/camping area. We started by heading north on Rt. 19 but the ride almost ended before it began. We were rolling through Leesburg when some jackwagon on Leesburg Station Rd. went blowing right through the stop sign and crossed 19, nearly taking Dad with him. I would've liked to have had a idiot-seeking missile mounted on my Raider; that joker would've been toast.

After collecting our wits and continuing north, we came into Mercer and turned east on Rt. 62. This is a nice road, and it gets nicer as you get into the hills. We split off on Rt. 965 near Jackson Center and rolled on north east, rejoining Rt. 62 just outside of Polk. As we came into town, I noticed what looked like a nice college campus on the hill to the left as we moved east. I thought I'd heard something about it, though - and I later found out that it's a mental hospital. Not the kind of campus I want to spend time on!

We turned left on Valley Rd. and as we topped the hill above the hospital, we were greeting with a fantastic view of the hills and valleys of western Venango County. We rolled around Valley Rd. until we came to Noggle Rd. where we turned right and moved on north. At some point along these back roads we turned right and rolled into Franklin. I'm thinking it was Georgetown Rd., but I'm not sure. I do know that we left Franklin on Rt. 322 toward Cranberry. Once we got into town, we turned left on Rt. 257 towards Oil City where we got back onto Rt. 62 towards Tionesta, a great stretch along the Allegheny River.

Once we crossed the river into Tionesta, we turned right onto Rt. 36 and then cut back on a hard left onto Nebraska Rd. at Newmansville. The road comes to a Y and we slid to the right to continue on Nebraska Rd. At some point this becomes State Route 3004 which rolls right into State Game Lands #24, and I found myself in the Allegheny National Forest. I could probably spend a couple days riding around the forest; very little traffic and lots of cool riding through the shade of the canopy of trees all over the place.

We hit Rt. 66 at Roses and turned left to ride into Marienville. Going on through town, we turned left on Beaver Meadows Rd, taking us back into the National Forest to check out the campground that Dad has stayed at. We turned into the campground but had to take it easy since the road going in and all around the campground was small gravel with some muddy spots thrown in. We pulled over at one of restroom facilities which was essentially a permanent, two-room porta-pot. It may sound crappy (no pun intended.. well, maybe a little) but it was clean.

The loo.

Dad inspecting the blueberry plants.

We left the bikes and took a walk down a trail to a big blueberry patch that had been put in for the enjoyment of the campers. We checked out a couple handfuls to ensure they were good enough for the campers, then we walked back to the bikes so we could head back out for some real food. Back in Marienville we pulled into the Route 66 Dinor for lunch. No, spell checker, that's how they spell it. The hot roast beef sandwich with fries (and gravy covering the entire plate) was pretty good, and the coffee was better. This was my kind of joint; something that's been around for a long time (on that location in some form or other) since 1939.

I was hoping the food was better than their spelling. It was.

Don't come hungry on Tuesday.

Time was getting on so we figured we'd take a more direct route back home. We went back out on Rt. 66 and headed toward Clarion but turned right on Rt. 322 for a quick trip before turning left on Rt. 208 Shippenville. This was a nice ride along rolling countryside with I-80 running parallel to the south. Coming up to Barkeyville, we turned left on Rt. 8, cruised through Harrisville, then right on Rt. 108 to go through Slippery Rock. We got back to Harlansburg and turned left on Rt. 19 which took us on back to the house.

The sign guy had his lunch while waiting for the oncoming traffic.

We pulled in with 199.9 miles on Dad's trip meter. It was a great ride with a great mix of hills, valleys, sweepers, river runs, and lots of forest.