Packing Ice,Louie Louie, and Packing Heat

08/31/12 232# 37m

Kind of a hot August day, but in February I'll be wishing for 91F so I tried to look at it that way. I did pack several frozen water bottles which made the ride a bit more pleasant.

Got a late start, so I drove to an impromptu "nearest" trailhead at I376 and Route 30/Clinton Road at the Airport Connection Trail. Generally the cars parked there are waiting for an arriving passenger to ring their cellphone so that they can go pick them up without paying for parking, but today I started my ride there. It worked out pretty well.

I rode the Airport Connector trail and I was very impressed to see that they've put up emergency information signs, telling you where you are and who to call in the event of an emergency. This trail runs through airport property so they're extra disinclined to have trail users freelancing their navigation across the property, and I really like the idea behind the signs. They answer the essential questions for a transient cyclist who needs help: Where am I? Who do I call?

At Enlow I turned right onto the Montour Trail proper and rode out to MP13½, then reversed and rode east. Around MP9 I passed a young family, mother carrying a baby, a young child, and a father carrying a pistol on his belt (I guess he doesn't have a concealed carry permit). It looked like a real light pistol, maybe a 22 but that really doesn't make sense. Anyway, it just seemed way out of place and it left me wondering about the implication for his four-year-old; "Daddy brings the gun when we go out on the trail". It was just a slice of different.

Reached Groveton, saw the work on a new concrete deck at the shelter, and reversed course back to Enlow. Saw the "Friday night lights" of a football game in Imperial, I guess it's that time of year again.

It was fully dark by the time I got back to the car. As I came back to the highway and crested the hill, I could see the bright, low glow in the distance of some Marcellus Shale wells at Route 18 and Route 151 that were burning off their gas, it was quite bright even at that distance.

A very nice (if warm) ride. While riding, I heard this song on WYEP, The Ballad of the Kingsmen, by Todd Snider. If you're too young to know about the FBI investigation, or too old to remember it, here's a wiki-brief.


You know, every ten years or so our country and some other little country,
We start firing all of our newest weapons
At each other for some reason or another, right or wrong,
Like it or not, it happens, and when it happens
People get shot and when people get shot,
They show it on tv a lot every night at six o clock

And you don't even have to be eighteen to see it
you don't even have to be in first grade,
First grade where they teach the kid pride
They tell him he'll need to thrive,
In a world where only the Strong will survive,
So he's taught the art of More
To compare to and to keep score
Monday thru Friday while He stares at the floor
til' Sunday
they make him go to School once more
only this time they make him wear a suit and a tie
And listen to some guy who claims to know Where people go When they die
tell him that only the Meek are gonna inherit the earth
Well shit,
By this time the kid doesn't know what anything Is worth,

now brothers and sisters I am only one guy
And I don't even know the words to that song Louie, Lou-eye