Junior Graham Marathon

8/17/2014 26m #227

Of all the things most unlikely for me to be doing on a Sunday afternoon, driving to Billy Graham's son's tent revival at the Consol Energy Center would be like one of the top things on the list - NTTAWWT, I just don't roll that way - but I was chauffeuring my M-I-L for whom these are important things and she doesn't like to drive downtown. Maybe that makes this ride a chauffeneur?

K and I parked on the site of the Igloo, which was parked on the site of the Lower Hill, and had several hours to kill. We took our bikes out of the back of the van and rode to the Jail Trail, across the Hot Metal Bridge, and stopped at REI. I stopped and bought two Multi-Tools because I seem to be unable to keep them in my possession, and cannot locate any of the four that I believe I own.

Equipped (redundantly) for calamity, we continued out to the Pump House. Stopped, reversed, and went to Mitchell's Seafood to eat; they are so kind to leave cool water out on the bike trail, I've just got to support the business every now and then. Good food.

Departed and took the Hot Metal Bridge again. I was very pleased to come upon Roy Weil and Mary Shaw, the grandparents of the trail movement in the Pittsburgh region (and authors of Pgh-DC bike trip planning book). They were the subjects of a hit-and-run only a week earlier in Kittaning. Mary wrote,

On Saturday Aug 9 about 2 pm Roy and I were in Kittanning biking south on the Armstrong Trail in the cycle track beside Grant St. At Market St, we had a green light and started into the intersection. A car headed toward the river on Market St was not signalling a right turn but made a right hand turn into us, hit and dragged the bike (disabling the bike), and drove away without stopping. Fortunately we were not seriously hurt.
Please help us locate the driver. The license number I wrote down was Pennsylvania DTP 2784. The police say this comes up as a registration at the other end of the state, so it’s probably off by a letter, or maybe two characters are interchanged. The car was a station wagon or SUV; I thought it was grayish, the witnesses say it was greenish. Witnesses say a woman was driving.
If you know a car like this with a similar license number that was in Kittanning on Saturday afternoon, please ask the driver to contact the Kittanning police about their report on the Saturday afternoon bicycle accident and to contact us about repairs to the bike.
Thanks for any information you can provide.

It was so excellent to see them out and about on the bike (which does show some damage). It made me very happy to see them. We rode north on the Jail Trail to Grant Street, then took Blvd of the Allies to Point State Park and sat by the fountain for a while.

Departed via the Ft Pitt Bridge and Station Square, rode the South Side Trail and went over to Big Dog Coffee, best. coffeeshop. ever.. Left after consuming some biscotti and rode through SouthSide, took the Birmingham Bridge into the taint betwixt Uptown and Oakland, and rode Fifth into the Consol Energy Temple.

Put our bikes back in the van, found the M-I-L and we were shortly back on our way into exurbia. Distance was 26 miles plus a little bit, so we (roughly) rode a marathon. Really a very nice day for August.