Mile 279: Getting to Philadelphia

It is my last day in Malvern, Pennsylvania.

About a week ago, Willie Dodson (a friend of mine and Abis) and I left Berea to begin our journey to take a long bike ride to visit Abi in Pennsylvania. It was hard day, Berea College's graduation. Where many of our friends were throwing festiviites and moving on, and a day where for many people, we could feel Abi's absence and knew it was Abi's day to walk across the stage to graduate---and to begin her vision--however it was good that we had each other and to have a trip to look forward to.

The trip began with a long car ride catching up on Willlie's life in Berea, and my life after leaving Berea in January. There was never a shortage of things to talk about and after a night in Charlottesville VA and our last night in Keezletown, VA we loaded our bikes, crossed our fingers, waved goodbye to our friend Hannah Johnson, and hit the country roads to Winchester.

During my ride, I didn't realize how significantly different Virginia was from Kentucky, tucked away in the mountains, and a seemingly endless amount of colonial towns of brick buildings, haunted by the many lives and events that founded this country, I was amazed by the beauty and history, and didn't even seem to mind the hills--I noticed, when not being on the highway you could see how the country changed--little by little, the mountains, the architecture, the accents, the size of towns..little by little..but enough to feel the change.


Willie had met a couple on a previous bike journey in Winchester--and this was our first step on our bike trip.
They were an intelligent and hospitable pair, the husband being an activist of the hills and more recently writing books about characters that played a significant but often overlooked role in Virginia's history. When we walked in from a little bit of rain, we were greeted with bath robes and warm and clean socks, as well as a home-cooked meal, a whole wall-selection of tea, and pleasant conversations.

ONC Trail

Though I would love to go into so many details about each night, it would be best to just say the next couple nights were spent trekking through Harper's Ferry (a small touristy town on the edge of the Appalachian Trail), crossing ten miles in the rain on the very rocky and muddy ONC Trail, while Willie forged for Dryade mushrooms and stinging nettles in the thick forest, where families of turtles swam in the channel alongside the trail, and canopies of trees mostly shaded us from the rain, and we took our wild-harvest treasures for

Entering Lancaster, PA

a home-cooked meal in Frederick with a nice gentleman that let us take over his kitchen---in short, these few days were spent biking through some of the most beautiful parts of America--including the Shenandoah and Potomac Mountains crossing breathtaking rivers.

The last couple stops before we hit Malvern, PA, we spent two days going through Hanover, York, and finally landing in Lancaster, Pennsylvania with a last minute plan to hang out and spend the night with parents and family of a friend of ours and Abi's--Mr. Cory Shenk...we were greeted with smiles, hosted with unlimited amounts of tea, sleeping in a warm and pleasant loft, after trekking through torrential thunderstorms, and having a victorious defeat of, what seemed to be a  never-ending winding road up to the house--it was epic. The next morning, while Willie snuck off to play music at the longest-run farmers market in Lancaster, I decided to drink a couple more cups of tea with Corey's family as they let me tag along to visit a local greenhouse run by one of the many Amish families found in Lancaster Co.


The journey from Lancaster to Malvern was beautiful, I was happy to be able to avoid the city, and was amazed by the many Amish and Mennonite buggies, the small farms, the quiet roads, and the overall beauty that I didn't know existed in Pennsylvania.

When I reached the rehabilitation hospital in Malvern, there were deer grazing by the sign--frightened when I approached...and I had a feeling that Abi would think this trip was amazing, and I was proud to have reached the hospital. I rushed into the rehab center, since I only had thirty minutes to see her before visiting hours ended. It was good to be there, I was glad that she could smell the road, the scents of the farms, and maybe experience some of the beauty that she inspired from this trip.

Reaching Abi's Rehab in Malvern, PA