Weather forecast was gloriously wrong again today. The chance of precipitation this morning was supposedly 0%. It rained the entire morning, occasionally moderately hard. I had to wait for a break in the rain to make breakfast, and then I had to pack up in light rain.
The campground owner asked me some friendly but pointed questions about my intended route. I got the distinct impression that the state police had been following up on me which, if true, seems awfully silly.
Stopped for second breakfast just down the road in Thompson rön at a pizza place (the only option). Had a black olive and mushroom pizza -- decent overall, but the mushrooms were out of a can.
I took the shortest possible alternative route for going around the 8km of missing old highway before Millerstown. This would have been fine save for the rain and the often very steep gradient. (The roads were woods roads mostly but in good shape.) I had to walk much of the way up and brake for dear life on the mad Tumblr back down. Turned out bikes definitely aren't allowed on this section anymore as the "motor vehicles only" sign was quite prominent this time. (I didn't bother to check at the western end, but I came out directly at the eastern end.)
Stopped for coffee at the Christian coffee shop on the square in Millerstown -- chance to dry out and warm up a little. Took the next section of old highway to Newport, where I turned off to head over the "mountain" ridge to the one-room schoolhouse where my friend Bill lives and where I, long ago, used to camp in the yard, on my own or with Billy and Abe. So I learned that Dottie passed away some years ago already from a recurrence of her cancer. It couldn't have been so long after John. I was tempted to stay and tent in the yard again for old times' sake (and the possibility of meeting Abe) but also eager to reach Middletown. So after an hour I bid my farewell and headed down to Duncannon to see if the underpass under the Norfolk and Southern line was flooded out. It was. Didn't look deep so I started through only to discover, a third of the way through, the water getting surprisingly deep very quickly and the current not so surprisingly strong. When my bike threatened to float away I knew I had to turn back.
Taking old 11/15 south through town posed another problem. The old highway came out onto the new a quarter mile before the motorway ended -- with again a prominent "motorized vehicles only" sign on the ramp. So I headed down the dead-end stump of the old highway from which I had to climb a ridiculously steep embankment to continue. I should just have broken the law for a quarter mile. Ended up tearing my shorts on one of the guard rail posts at the top of the embankment.
The road was not nearly so dangerous as I'd remembered it, though the one place where there was virtually no shoulder had to be in a work zone with only two very narrow lanes for the traffic. Stopped at a portapotty in another work area to take a leak, only to find out occupied by another cyclist! Passed through Marysville where, when I was younger, we would turn on PA850 to go to church camp. Crossed the Harvey Taylor Bridge into Harrisburg about twenty past seven. Here I was, back in the city where I was born.
On arriving Middletown I suffered my first flat tire of the trip -- not surprising it happened given all the rain and all the broken glass of been doing my best to avoid. Walked the last couple hundred meters to the church, where all my wet things are drying out in the pavilion and I am camped just to one side. The last time I tented in this yard -- in the very first tent I ever owned (a $30 orange pup tent) -- I was either still in high school or not more than a year out. My how the neighborhood has changed! (...As I knew it had but only got to see for the first time this evening.)
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