You’ve already got the brief summary of Day 1 and Day 2, so I’ll cover Day 3 and 4 now. I can also throw in a bunch of pictures – they’re usually much more interesting than my ramblings, anyways.
One thing I forgot to mention about our trip down on Thursday; having lost the lids upon entering PA, we settled in for some more sights and smaller roadways, stopping for lunch at a diner right off the main drag, on rte 209 (leading into the Delaware Water Gap). The highway was up a slope and in front of the diner in such a way that we could see only the tops of the 18-wheel rigs as they passed by. After we’d eaten and were mounting back up again, along came a flatbed on the highway above/in front of us, alerting all of his presence by jake-braking…when suddenly a sound blasted out like a shot going off…Jerking our heads in the direction of the truck, we saw strands and shards of exploding tire ricocheting everywhere, many of which soared over the highway's guardrail, and rained down upon the roadway in front of us (fairly entertaining for us, being in our safe position, but probably not so entertaining for anyone else up on the highway).
Coming out of the sterilizer. They are flipped just before going in, are sprayed with sanitizing water solution, then flipped back upright after they come out. Reminds me of a roller-coaster the way it moves, and this line is moving pretty fast!
The capper...
All different sized kegs - I'll take a large, please.
(Amazingly, when Prohibition was officially ended, the Yuengling Brewery was able to deliver an entire shipment of beer to the White House. Think about it; they’d…somehow…managed to come up with an entire shipment of beer in one day.)
After the brewery was a stop over at Pioneer Tunnel coal mine. An inactive coal mine which takes you on a tour; almost a half-mile into the side of a mountain, and (if memory serves), you're about 1,800 feet under the surface. Hop onto a trolley for most of the ride in, then get off and walk around some of the mining tunnels, seeing the veins of coal, learning how it's found, the various mining techniques used to remove it, etc. Pretty cool stuff.
Coal chute - when a vein is found, they go after it, up as high as they can (sometimes up to the surface, but usually it pinches down to nothing, between the layers of rock. They'd climb up, dig holes, set charges, fire them off, then the coal came down the chutes and was loaded into carts which were pulled out by donkeys.
As they got higher and higher, they'd brace the ceiling with sections of trees, with a pointed end to help it dig into the base and not slide/kick out. Keep in mind; this gap is angling upwards at a roughly 45 degree angle. And, this gap is no more than 2 1/2 feet high in this pic - so the miners would have been working on their stomachs, with the ceiling almost touching their backs. Yeah; not even a little interested in doing that, thanks.
This is an escape tunnel. The furthest light that you can see in the picture is only 1/3 of the full length of this tunnel. And keep in mind that back when this mine was actually being used, it wasn't wired. All you had was a tiny light on your helmet, so you were basically climbing, climbing...and more climbing, in total darkness.
After the coal mine, we rode up to Centralia; the town with the coal fire burning underneath it. There's all kinds of history on the 'net, but a quick summation is that about 40-some odd years ago, the town dump was burning trash near/on an exposed vein of coal. The coal caught fire and through a combination of slow-response and poor attempts to extinguish it, it found it's way down beyond reach and is now believed to have spread to a vein which allegedly has enough coal to burn for another 240 years. Yikes. The highway used to lead through town but the heat from the fire caused it to buckle and crack. The state has since re-routed the highway around the town and 'requested' that everyone leave (the ground is unsafe, and the town gained national notoriety years and years ago when the ground opened up underneath a young boy. Luckily he survived.) There are a few hold-outs still living there, but the town basically does not exist any longer (the post office has even revoked it's zip code). There are still old streets but the houses have been razed and foundations filled in, so that it just looks like open/overgrown fields, with roadways here and there. Small driveways lead off the streets and end at nothing more than tall grasses and saplings.
Here, the spot where the old highway is blocked off and a sign warns of the dangers that lie in wait...
There are many signs of a different nature, as well; Vandals have tagged the old highway time and time again. Most of the graffiti is the usual, mundane type of insults, boasts and myriad other shout-outs. However, this one garnered a laugh out of us - somewhere out there is a tagger with a good sense of humor...
Speaking of the highway, here are some pics of the buckling and gaping cracks which easily illustrate why the state would need to reroute around this stretch. The ground is quite warm to the touch in places, even steaming from some of the larger cracks.
That wraps up the pics from days' 1 & 2
Fast-forward to Day 3 (Saturday). We shot out to York, PA to check out the HD plant. We got there in plenty of time, and made it into the second tour of the day. We were a bit disappointed to find that there was not an official assembly line/shift working that day, so we didn’t get to see many of the machines in operation, nor see the bikes rolling along, growing from bits and pieces into full-fledged machines right before our eyes. But we were able to see the various stages of completion, along with stacks and rows of various components. Of the few machines that were running, my favorite was laser-cutting all the needed holes and access points in rear fenders. It was amazing to see how quickly and precisely it would slice those out. I’d love to show you some pics from inside the plant, but no cameras were allowed. So a pic of the entrance will have to suffice.
After that, we headed to Philly for the really hokie part of the trip; get a picture of the Rocky statue and then lay our mitts on some authentic cheese steak subs. We managed to find our way to the Art Museum which is home to the statue – here’s the obligatory picture. (Bear in mind that I had to stand there for almost ten minutes before I was finally able to get a long enough window to snap a picture without a bunch of yahoos standing next to it with their arms raised up in imitation.)
After winding down with a few road sodas, we cleaned up and found a restaurant for our final dinner of the trip. Turned out the place was a bit highbrow, but nestled amongst the beemers and volvos were a couple of righteous old time bikes so we figured we'd feel well enough at home to manage. We ordered this and that off the menu and washed everything down with fancy-named microbrews, some shots, and a slew of pricey martini’s and other mixed concoctions. Had some good laughs with the waitress, too. Turned out to only be her second day on the job and she said she was glad to have a table full of easy going guys who were more interested in laughing our asses off than anything else. After our stomachs (and wallets) had had enough punishment, it was time to roll back to camp. We hit upon the road sodas again, got the fire going and reflected back upon day 3.
Day 4 allowed us the luxury of sleeping a bit, as we had no where to go but home. We packed up and headed into town for some morning eats. Checked with a couple of the locals as to what our best route would be to take, and after verifying it against the maps, off we went. As mentioned previously; the interstate connection we were looking for did not appear and we wound up rolling back into Philly. Gassing up, we picked up 95 north for a while, then broke off in Jersey and found more appealing roadways back up through NY, CT, RI and finally home. Another successful trip had come to a close...sad that it's over, but now we're just that much closer to the next trip, right?
So I guess this is where I should do a summary of what we took away from this experience? Ok, here are some things that some/all of us learned…
I learned that a truck tire exploding can actually be entertaining, if observed from a safe distance, as opposed to being directly behind it when it decides to go (I've been there as well)…
We learned that navigation systems are fallible – sometimes to the point of being outright suspect…
We learned that one of us has a distinct problem with keeping head wraps on his head…
We learned that after Prohibition ended, Yeungling somehow managed to brew and age an entire batch of beer - overnight (wink wink)...
We learned that Philly is the city of red lights and wrong-way streets…
We learned that no matter how bad of a day we’re having, it’s still not as bad as being a coal miner. Those guys had/have it rougher than rough…
And...I learned it would be faster for me to walk to York and pick up my forks directly from the plant, than to wait for them to arrive at the local dealership. But I digress...
So overall, it was a good trip. We all made it down and back safely. We had some laughs, saw some sweet scenery, and met some cool people. Hell, we even learned a couple of things...who knew such a thing was possible. So until the next post...
Ride Hard, Take Chances
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