The Ride to St. Marys
The ride north starts in the valleys — small towns south of Interstate 80, gun shops and farms, roads that step up and down through the ridges like the land can't make up its mind about elevation. It's fun riding. Not dramatic, not scenic-overlook-with-a-plaque riding, just good winding Pennsylvania two-lane that makes you lean and shift and pay attention.
Once you cross I-80 and get into the northern tier, everything changes. Twenty miles or so through state forest lands, and the elevation rises and the forest closes in. That's where it happens — the smell. Pine and hemlock and something damp and ancient underneath it all. The shadows get long. The light comes through tall trees in shafts, like a church nobody built. Camps and campsites dot the road. You could be anywhere in the forests of North America — Maine, the Adirondacks, Colorado. It all smells the same when the trees are that tall and that old.
A small gas station, long defunct, with a Gulf sign still standing. Cabins dotting the road, some occupied, some not, all of them looking like 1963. And then just trees. Pine scent and needles on the shoulder and nobody ahead of you and nobody behind you.
It comes to an end when you start the long downhill. A field appears, then another field, then a new road leading toward a factory or a mill or a storage facility of some kind — the architecture of small-town industry that doesn't explain itself. Slow roll into Ridgway, which seems bigger than St. Marys but really isn't. Diagonal parking, main street, old buildings and storefronts with that particular look of places that were built for one economy and are waiting for the next one.
A short ten miles to St. Marys and the Cozy Afghan Inn — a bed and breakfast that is exactly what it sounds like. Warm, small, quilts on the bed, someone who remembers your name at breakfast.
Heading home the next day just means the usual roads, good weather, and a longing for home after one night on the road. I used to be able to do a week. Then three days. Now one night and I miss my bed, my dog, my coffee maker, my routine. Guess I'm getting older. Lenny would understand. He'd also tell me that one night is enough if the riding is good, and it was.