In the morning, I scrambled some eggs, lathered up with Deepwoods Off! and set out for the campground office on my bike. It hadn’t opened yet, but Brent, the park manager, was parked nearby and directed me to the park office, but not before talking a little about music, touring and a nice place in town with live music on Sundays. Cool guy.

Without a reservation, I hadn’t counted on availability for the holiday, but they had it, indeed, and I booked through July 5th, though I’d have to move one site down due to an incoming reservation. Then, I set out to find the French Creek bike trails.

Skirting the edge of Hopewell Lake, I followed the Boone Trail through the Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site. The furnace was founded in 1771 and the ironworks there were powered by charcoal, so all of the local trees were cut down for this purpose. The hills were barren until after the furnace closed in 1883. The Federal government purchased the land during the 1930’s in an effort to reclaim what had been lost.

I passed some of the restored buildings and then started up Colliers Trail when two things occurred to me.

One, to say the trail was rocky would be like saying that Nicolas Cage occasionally plays crazy people in the movies. Not only rocky, but at a steep angle of ascent.

Two, even if I felt like tackling uphill rock gardens today, nothing had prepared me for the vicious savagery of the buzzing, flying and stinging winged things that descended upon me the moment my tires hit the trail. I’ve never weathered such an attack, and I do a lot of outdoor activities. And these mothers were fast. I couldn’t outride them at all.

So, I nixed that idea altogether and took the paved road back up the mountain. French Creek State Park is pretty hilly. Half the time, I’m using the climbing gears and the other half, I’m hauling ass and riding the brakes. A little more technical than I like, but just the return trip to Imua satisfied my activity and calorie-burning goals for the day, which left a lot more time to edit video.

After relocating to what was actually a nicer site, I settled in for a full day of production; a new Disney Overload segment, Friday’s episode of Dulcimerica and a new addition to my line-up of programming on Patreon, Coaster-2-Coaster.

This took the rest of the day and evening, from 2-3 hours per 15-minute project, usually. I’ve always loved the work though, telling stories through visual means, from planning and getting the shots to putting them together in a way that creates an impact to scoring the music for the soundtrack. It’s fun, and it’s nice that people enjoy the results, which makes it extra special.

I typically nibble on veggies and hummus through the day with occasional slices of turkey or yogurt and fruit. For dinner, I baked some cod, microwaved some sour cream and chives mashed cauliflower and air-fried some diced sweet potato which I slathered with jalapeño catsup.

Some restored buildings in the Hopewell Furnace site.

Cel signal here is not great, so it’s basically local work that doesn’t require a connection. I also recorded a new tune for The Improv Files called “Just Once”, which I caught while sitting amidst a stand of trees between loops B and A. I actually did manage to get that one uploaded to Patreon, but that was before more cel users began showing up in anticipation of the fourth.

One neighbor arrived three sites down to my left while a lovely, shiny Airstream backed into the site I had previously occupied. Still no-one else in sight. Might still be a relatively quiet holiday!

Day 35

Day 34: Interstate Tour 2018