Day 24 of 30: Who Says you Can't go Home?

I packed quite a bit into day 24 of 30 Days of Biking. I awoke on a beautiful mid-Spring morning on Saturday with an ambitious but achievable goal of riding north on the Delaware and Lehigh Trail from my hometown of Palmerton up to Jim Thorpe, approximately 10 miles away. That's not a long ride (20 miles total) by any stretch, but I did have a late afternoon commitment to be mindful of, so that factored into my plans.

As I mentioned, the weather was positively gorgeous, with a slight crisp chill in the air that made it just right for some moderate exercise:

The D&L Trail (for those of you who are unfamiliar) utilizes former railbeds and towpaths for the majority of its length. As such, the terrain is mostly flat and very fine gravel, which is some of my favourite riding, even if I did pack the wrong bike for these conditions 🙃:

As you can see, the paths are very near the former Lehigh Canal, which was a major shipping channel during the coal and iron boom in the 1800's. Pretty fascinating history, if you ask me - check out the links above if you are interested.

In addition to keeping the 30DoB streak alive and getting in some always needed bike therapy, I had one ulterior motive in choosing this route, which was to see the new bridge that had opened near Jim Thorpe last year. Previously, the section of the D&L north of Jim Thorpe had been more or less cut off from the lower sections. It's pretty damn sweet:

Off the top of my head, this means you can ride for about 50 continuous miles on this area of the trail. Not pictured, the D&L Organization had a table set up at the end of the bridge to raise awareness of their current projects as well as their new app. I paused briefly and kicked them a donation to say "thanks."

I continued on a little further because I could, and made it all the way up to the Lehigh Gorge State Park. I used to love hiking around here when I lived closer. I'm pretty happy for the locals that can now ride up here with ease:

On the way back, I paused briefly in Jim Thorpe for a snack break and to support some local merchants. Remember when I mentioned coal earlier? There's a large "monument" in the town center to celebrate the role of anthracite coal in the region's history:

Extra nerdy coal fact: the less valuable variety of coal is called bituminous, and there's a type of it found in NE Ohio.

Anyway, if you are ever in the Northeastern region of PA, I do recommend checking out Jim Thorpe. It is very touristy, but I find it quite adorable:

I headed back to Palmerton to get cleaned up and ready for the actual main event of my day and weekend, my nephew's birthday party. The little guy turned 4 this year. I missed last year's in-person birthday due to COVID, and there was absolutely no way I was missing two in a row. He got lots of awesome gifts, but MY favourite - both because of personal preference and for the purposes of this blog - was this superb bicycle from his Mom & Dad:

It's going to take some getting used to. He was a little afraid of it because he's only had a tricycle and a balance bike before this. I'm pretty excited to return and go on some rides with him and our tandem orange bikes! I'd say the final week of 30DoB kicked off on a pretty good note.