At the hotel breakfast, while cursing whoever decided it was OK to play TV news with the sound on in the lobby, I considered my plan for the day. I was on the north side of the Schuylkill River, which is where Adventure Cycling’s route would take me from Phoenixville, along the Schuylkill River Trail. But given yesterday’s musings on rail-trail placelessness, it felt more appropriate to head south of the river to check out the Valley Forge National Historical Site, a spot I had visited numerous times on school and family trips as a kid.
The best thing about Valley Forge is the preserved land. Almost all the buildings there are historical, and the open space doesn’t even have farming, just trails and nature. Growing up in New Jersey I’d exhausted my lifetime interest in George Washington Slept Here, but the site is beautiful. I started with Pawling Farm, a little-visited area on the north side of the river.
There’s no legal camping in Valley Forge, which is kind of ironic. Pawling Farm is the kind of place that scofflaw bike tourists could easily find a secluded spot to set up for the night. Not that I would ever do something like that.
I then crossed the river to the main forge site, little changed since my childhood.
The Adventure Cycling route follows a bike/walk path through the park, but I decided to climb the steep hill up to the historic camp site.
It turned out to be a good choice, because there are beautiful roads up and along the ridge that have virtually no traffic; some of the best riding of the whole trip.
Returning to the valley floor, I reconnected with the Schuylkill River Trail, which was heavily used, and much more pleasant than Highway 23 yesterday, though it does suffer from the problem of placelessness. And no one seemed to be smiling.
In Consohocken I got to transition to a new Adventure Cycling map!
Nearing Philadelphia, shortly after getting obnoxiously “ON YOUR LEFT”ed by a lycra club ride, I was able to jump onto the Manayunk Canal Path, which was more fun because of curves, changing surfaces, and public art.
Once the route reconnected with the Schuylkill River Trail it was pretty close to downtown Philly.
I set to finding a good spot for a cheese steak. Previous research had suggested Sonny’s. Seems legit.
And, for local color, Sonny’s happened to be next to Ben Franklin’s original Post Office building.
It so happened that I’d next be crossing the Franklin Bridge to New Jersey. It was quite a nice ride because the bike/walk path is 20 feet above the road deck; good views and fairly quiet.
The bridge lands in Camden, where I’ve not spent any time (though I did participate in two productions of The Happy Journey to Trenton and Camden in high school). I was expecting the ride to be post-industrial, as Camden is one of the redlined areas which was impacted by mid-20th-century racism and disinvestment. It actually turned out to be surprisingly pleasant, with a good set of paths and roads along the Cooper River.
My sister’s place in Cherry Hill was just a block off the Adventure Cycling route; I landed there, cleaned up myself and my stuff, and got to hear my nephew practicing violin, and my brother-in-law (the violin teacher) barking instructions at him from the other room. Family time.