Day 22 – Amish-Mennonite Territory

What a nice day of riding today.  My legs are very tired.  We rode 70 miles and there was a fair bit of climbing.  My bike computer logged right at 4,000 feet for the day, which I think ties for the most climbing in one day.  We were able to ride out of Philly on the bike path.  It extended for 16 miles and was being used by a lot of bikers, but it was fairly flat and away from traffic and that is always good.  It was good to see a bike path being so heavily used.  It sure is a good thing for bikers and I think if there were more around, you would see that people would use them for recreation and commuting to work.

We rode through Valley Forge National Park.  That is the place that Washington's continental army spent the winter of 1777-78.  That was real interesting.  I hate to admit it, but I have never realized the years of war and the things that took place during the revolutionary war.  I really enjoyed reading the history and realizing how much effort was put into the war for so many years.

We are in a place called Reamstown, PA and it looks to be an Amish or Mennonite community, or it looked to me like a little bit of both.  They have such nice looking farms.  I was able to see a horse drawn wagon out in a field and they were cutting tobacco and taking it to their barn to hang.  I also saw this young boy and, I would imagine, his sister in a dress herding the cows in from the pasture to be milked.  I wanted to take a picture, but the Amish actually don’t want you to take pictures of them so I respected that.

I really am dead tired tonight, so I am going to leave this as it is.  Hope all is well with each of you.