Kevin was invited to be in a wedding which was going to take place near Scranton, PA. When you are in a wedding, you typically have things that you do all day with the bridal party – and I didn’t know anyone else that would be attending this wedding. So I started looking for things that I could do close to the hotel that would take up some time until the wedding would take place. I thought about taking a tour of Scranton to see all the places The Office was filmed, except there are none. Then I noticed a bike trail really close to the hotel we were staying at – The Lackawanna River Heritage Trail. BINGO.

I researched the trail and when it’s completed it will be about 70 miles long. As of now, it’s just sections. When looking at maps online I noticed that if I rode on the trail north from the hotel I could get on the D&H trail or the O&W trail and head pretty far. There were several connectors between those two trails so the plan was to take the Lackawanna River Heritage Trail, then get on the O&W trail, cross over to the D&H trail an then head south back to the hotel. I read that the O&W trail is pretty rough and rocky so the plan was to cross at the first connector that I could find.

The day of the wedding, Kevin headed out to go golfing with the guys. I grabbed my bike (thankfully, even though the hotel was pretty fancy, it was bike friendly and let me keep my bike in the room) and headed out. I followed google maps on the roads for a bit to where the trailhead was listed, except it wasn’t there so I kept cycling down the road. I eventually spotted a bench and realized I was cycling NEXT to the trail. After cutting through some grass I was on the first section of trail. I cycled the short distance to where I would have to leave the trail again to get onto the O&W trail – but the trail looked like it continued even though it wasn’t on the map. I continued cycling to see where it went and it eventually turned into the D&H trail. Cool – I’ll just do what I had planned in reverse.

The D&H trail was awesome – wide and smooth with butterflies everywhere. It was a very nice, well maintained trail. I rode up into Forest City and then turned around.

When I got back to the cut-through I hopped onto the O&W trail to check that out. They were not kidding – it was VERY rocky and difficult to cycle. I immediately realized how lucky I was to be going downhill on the trail instead of uphill like I originally planned.

After making my way down that trail I crossed a fairly busy road to get back onto the Lackawanna River Heritage Trail. Once back on that trail it was an easy few miles back to the hotel – until a groundhog jumped out of the bushes and ran head first into the front wheel of my bike. I slammed on the breaks – not sure what was going on at first. I heard the movement and then looked down to see something large and furry – body on one side of my bike, head through the spokes on the other. As I slowed, it was somehow able to back up as I sort of kicked it while pedaling. It all happened so fast! I jumped off my bike to see the groundhog scurry across the trail behind my bike. WHAT ON EARTH?!?! I got really upset, but at least he was still alive. I couldn’t tell if he was hurt but he did move to the other side pretty quick.

After calming down from my heart attack, I got back on my bike and followed the trail back to the hotel – on another new section that wasn’t on google maps which is why I missed the trailhead when I started…because it was moved.

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WHAT A RIDE.

After that, I went back to the hotel, enjoyed a lovely Beyond Burger for lunch (plant based burger that is out of this world) and then got ready for the wedding.

I have to say it was one of the loveliest weddings I have ever been to and we had a great time! 🙂 CONGRATS ED & JANELLE