We got up this morning and had breakfast with Fran, the reporter who interviewed us last night. He offered to pay for breakfast which was very kind of him. It was delicious. The owner of the small cafe Pam, was also a kind person. And a great cook. The name of the cafe is "The Hubber Cafe." Fran explained to us that this was the name of the cafe because it was the town mascot, The Hubber. So, what exactly is a Hubber you ask? Back before cars were a thing and everyone rode on horseback, Smethport was the "hub" of Mckean County because it was in the center. All horseback riders had to travel through Smethport since it was where all the roads from the surrounding towns in the county converged. If I'm remembering correctly, Fran mentioned it was also where the county court house was. So if anyone had any legal work or permits that had to be handled, they had to travel to "the hub." Hence, today we have the Smethport Hubbers and the Hubber Cafe.
Fran was still cracking funny jokes throughout breakfast as he was yesterday when we first met him. All the staff new Fran very well and he even joked with all of them quite a bit. It was entertaining to watch and felt very human. At some point during breakfast he wrote down one of our addresses back home so he'd be able to send us copies of the Bradford Era when the story is printed.
After breakfast when we were readying up to leave in the parking lot, Fran warned us about a dangerous intersection a few miles down the road. It's where to highways cross and apparently a lot of accidents occur. I appreciated his forewarning. When I approached that intersection later in the day I remembered what he said, and slowed down a little extra sooner just to be safe. Thanks Fran. When saying goodbye we thanked Fran for breakfast and for covering us for his story. He wished us luck and we departed.
We had a very smooth ride today with close to no issues at all. Owen caught a flat towards the end of the day, but it was a quick fix and we were on our way again. We punched in our first 60 mile day today, covering 61.3 miles in total.
A very nice family said they had room for us on their camp grounds in Pittsfield, which is where we're set up for the night. It's mostly trailers and RV's with families who are here nearly year round. It's largely a quiet community of local families. A nice man Dave introduced himself later in the day after we arrived and he gave us the run down of the place. Dave said it's been nearly 5 years since anyone has passed through and camped at their site so everyone was interested in what we were doing. He said that everyone saw us walking in and were all asking "Where are they going? They must be going somewhere, right?" But he said everyone was too shy to approach us to find out which is why he walked over to us by himself. As he walked up he immediately apologized for being nosey and for bothering us, then asked where we were headed. We laughed, saying it's no problem and got to chatting with him. I appreciated his "nosey-ness" as it was accompanied with a pleasant conversation.
Here's today's stats provided by Tom's Strava. I am using his today because I was having difficulty uploading my own stats. He missed out on recording a few miles which explains the discrepancy from the 60 miles we actually covered, but I promise you we did actually cover 60 miles.
Solid day all around no large issues and everything has been going as planned for two days straight now. Let's see if we can keep it up.
We're nearing the end of Pennsylvania, with 433 miles traveled so far. If all goes well, we will arrive on Lake Erie at the end of the day tomorrow. The day after that we should be out of PA, signaling the end of Chapter 1 of this journey.
Time for some rest. Goodbye for now and thanks to those of you who have been reading. Be well.
- mike
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