Our bike rides in Pennsylvania and Delaware from this and past weekends (photos).
Today was not the luckiest day: we went on the trail without checking the tires, which turned out to be damaged from the last time, and as a result, two punctures in one day. The last ferry to the island where Fort Delaware is located left shortly before our arrival. We had to go back and pick up Nadya by car from the last five kilometers of the route: after all, walking for an hour under the sun at 35 degrees Celsius is not the most pleasant activity. I quickly drove to the car, but retrieving Nadya from the trail turned out to be quite a problem. For instance, Google Maps indicates that there is a path between the 285 highway and Michael N. Castle Trail at its narrowest part, but in reality, there is a house of some burly guy who started yelling obscenities at me even before I figured out what to do with the private property sign and the maps contradicting it. Naturally, I wouldn’t have gone there, tried to be extremely polite, but the guy decided to be proactive and showed aggression, and I had to quickly retreat. Eventually, I still walked back and forth along someone’s lawn (I hope, along its edge), but it seemed much safer. Otherwise, it would be an hour’s push for Nadya with a punctured tire. So, the takeaway: carry not only a spare inner tube but also a spare tire.
Along the way, saw a lift bridge (Lift Bridge). A very interesting engineering structure. There are similar, albeit smaller ones, in St. Petersburg, and a similar one in Rostov-on-Don.
Hi, I'm Rauf Aliev. 