MEYERSDALE, PENNSYLVANIA
Last year’s “First Ride With Dad” was such a success that my sister, Betsy, and I decided to do it again. She rode the Great Allegheny Passage trail from Frostburg, Maryland and I parked in Rockwood and rode to Meyersdale where we told our father to meet us.
I screwed it up last year thinking Frostburg was at a higher elevation than Frostburg. So we left Frostburg and rode much of our planned route uphill. I could not do that to Dad again.
I chose today’s route, this time fully aware of the elevation change between Meyersdale and Rockwood (trending downhill). And I wanted my dad to ride across the great Salisbury Trestle, a 2,000 foot span that crosses the Cassleman River and US Rte 219.
We were high up on the trestle. It is about 200 feet above the valley below. It was windy and I was afraid my dad might clip his handlebars on the side of the bridge. But we made it through safely.
Betsy and Dad taking a break
There are a couple of cuts in rock croppings but for sheer beauty the section between Meyersdale and Rockwood doesn’t quite compare to some of the other sections.
Just three weeks earlier my father had three stents placed in his heart and at age 84, was riding on the GAP. Not too shabby. He wanted to stop three or four times to rest and it was no problem.
When we finished at Rockwood we met a dad with two kids. He and his daughter agreed to take our picture.
There are a couple of bike sculptures in Rockwood. Turns out this man was the creator. He offered to take our picture by them but we didn’t. In retrospect, since he was the creator, we should have, but he didn’t tell us until after we said we didn’t want to walk to them.
