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Saturday, August 23, 2008-For awhile, I've been wanting to ride my motorcycle somewhere far away and go camping. So I decided to ride to Gifford Pinchot State Park, PA and spend the weekend there. I took off Saturday morning and set off on my 180 mile trek. The weather was perfect that weekend. I left around 7AM, stopped at the Mountain House Restaurant in Thurmont, MD for a great breakfast and then went on from there.

mapquest.com had a nice backroads route planned for me. It had me going east on US30 towards New Oxford, PA, then turning north and taking all back roads. That sounded good. However, between roads being closed for either paving or for local parades I had to make my way back over to US15, take that to PA74, take that to PA177 and I was at the park.

Finally, I arrived around 11ish, got my tent set up and ate a meal around 12ish. Then I decided to hike the Mason Dixon Trail west to the park boundry at Squire Gratz RD and then back again. It was a 3 mile up, 3 mile back hike. I did see a few other day hikers out. I hiked mostly along the southern edge of Pinchot Lake and then along the creek that feeds into it. It was a good hike.

Got back to my campsite around 4PM. I finished a book that I was reading about the Pacific Crest Trail, ate dinner and then did a 2 mile loop along the Lakeside, Old Farm and Ridge Trails. What was neat was that people would come up to me at my campsite and told me that they also rode and that it was interesting seeing someone camping with a motorcycle. They would then tell me about their bike. One guy even gave me a bunch of free wood since he was a fellow rider.

I was going to retire early that evening but after getting the free wood, I started a great fire and stayed up watching it and listening to music on my walkman. I also got some calls from my son and sister about the dismal score of the Redskins game since I could not pick up the game on my radio. The couple at the site next to me came over and introduced themselves to me and told me about the $700 pickup truck that they had bought that day. I have to admit it looked like they got a good deal. I gave them some of my leftover wood and soon went to sleep. It was great sleeping weather that night. I think that I like my new tent that I got.

Sunday, August 24, 2008- Got up at first light, which was about 6:30AM. The days are getting shorter already. Where did the summer go? I ate breakfast, packed up the bike and was on the road by about 8:30AM. Due to the light traffic on the roads, I was able to make it back home by 11:00AM. The bike rode very well for this trip. I think that I have this camp & bike thing down to a science now. I'm going to have to do this more next year.

Mike C