Go West, Young Man

Our writer traverses Pennsylvania on bicycle, and (barely) lives to tell the tale.

by Isaiah Thompson

[ travel stories ]

Matthew Smith

Since I moved to Philadelphia in June 2008, the idea's been taking shape. Weekend after weekend, I bike the Schuylkill to Valley Forge and stop; the road beckons west, but obligations call me home. Summer comes and summer goes. I stare at Google Maps; I follow the digitized terrain with greedy eyes.

Finally I do it: I announce my vacation, pack up the bike, and start pedaling the 380 miles to Pittsburgh with the notion of seeing something of this "Pennsylvania."

But having left a healthy six hours late, I soon realize plans to spend my first night in the verdant foothills of Appalachia must be scrapped. Normally, I'd knock on a door and beg the comfort of a patch of lawn. But normally, I'd have actually gotten somewhere. Is it possible, camping in the near-suburbs of the sixth largest city in the United States?

A nervous knock just outside Phoenixville yields the answer. Before I finish my plea, friendly husband-and-wife team Nell Hazinski and Doug Gunn say yes, sure, I can camp there. And could I use a hot dinner? God bless America, Pennsylvania, greater Phoenixville and the Hazinski-Gunns.

Outside of Morgantown, my route lures me from the main road, and suddenly I am floating through the heart of Amish country — real, live Amish country. Simple clothes dry on simple clotheslines. A man — and what a man — stands astride a harvester powered by a team of eight horses. Fresh squash sits piled like so much gold.

I come across a little building: "Amish-Mennonite Information Center," it announces to a horizon of farmland. Inside, I am greeted with a big "Hello there!" from as pleasant an old man as ever grew a beard. His name is Paul, and he's a Mennonite. Turns out, he went to school right there, 70 years ago, when the place was a one-room schoolhouse for Amish and Mennonite children — "simple folk," he calls them. Now, his job is to man the fort, among a plethora of crafts and books, waiting for someone like me to buy something, ask something, or seek the truth.

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HALF OFF DEPOT

Why live life at full price?

Which, for Paul, is Jesus.

"You're Jewish?" he says when I tell him. "Well, you'd better sign our guest book, then!" I check. I am the only Jew in it. Like an old country doctor filling a prescription, he gathers a handful of tracts and puts them in my hand, urging me to get to know Jesus. "It's the only way to go!"

Not too many people stop by anymore, he laments on my way out. He thinks maybe it's the Internet. "That there affects us, too," he says.

Peddling into Lancaster, though, a different side of the Amish world shows itself. Billboards pop up, everywhere. "The Amish Experience," advertises one. "Abe's Buggy Rides," proclaims another. "One-Room Schoolhouse — Tourists Welcome," says a third.

Business, it seems, is booming!

It does seem strange, doesn't it,that an industry should be built around people getting in their cars and driving out to snap digi-pics of other people whose main selling point is that they make do without either. I think of Paul, alone in the one-room schoolhouse, charging no more admission than a friendly ear. It's not just the Internet, I think, but the tidal wave of American consumerism that says get big or perish, sell or die. I ride through Pennsylvania towns where shuttered local diners have ceded to thriving, shiny new gas stations. I get breakfast at a Rutters, where I order a tasteless egg sandwich from a computer.

It is an issue, here in America — the small giving way to the big, the personal to the anonymous. Amid a swath of farmland near York, I knock on a farmer's door, only to discover he's not the farmer at all but a renter. He barely knows who owns the land, he says, suggesting I camp beneath a nearby cell phone tower. There are "No Trespassing" signs everywhere, I point out, but he just laughs. "It's a big farmer, he don't hardly come here," he explains.

Still, Pennsylvania's defense against anonymity is its small towns. Wanting company, I take a brew at JR's, a biker joint on the edge of town in York. "YCJCUABFTJB," says a sign on the wall. When I ask what it means, the bartender tells me: "Your Curiosity Just Cost U A Buck For The Jukebox." With a pregnant pause, he asks if I need change.

Here, it's not October but "hunting season." And as conversation at the bar turns to deer — behold! — the men before me become the poets laureate of the commonwealth! So eloquently do they describe the minutiae of hunting, the cunning subtleties of position and anticipation that I'm halfway tempted to pop a buck myself.

And then, approaching the mountains, the unexpected happens. Coming downhill after a long climb through Pennsylvania apple country, the road wet from rain coming off the mountains, my bike slips out from under me and I fall sideways, my head moving in a perfect arc to the concrete with a loud, loud smack.

And, for just a second, everything goes black.

I listen to the cars pass me by —assholes — and wonder abstractly if the sound was my helmet or my skull. I wonder if I'll be getting up again soon. Meanwhile, it's all swirling in my head — life, death, insurance, Jesus, computerized egg sandwiches, America.

But the helmet, it seems, came through. I'm fine. I take comfort at the Milky Way Restaurant in Fort Loudon, where a "burger basket" simply means two burgers instead of one. It's a good place, and local,and full of old men — hunters, apparently, though not in any rush to quit talking and eating pancakes and go hunting. Who can blame them?

And, at last, Pittsburgh. It's a wonderful town. Like people here, they talk funny. Like people here, they eat funny: "Eat a Primanti!" everyone tells me with all the passion of a Philadelphian plugging cheeseteak. The sandwich's defining characteristic? French fries on the sandwich. Yup. To our South Street they offer East Carson Street, an insane 22 blocks or so of bars and eats. To our Italian Market they offer the Strip District. The parallels are remarkable. We ought to set up an exchange program.

And they've got a casino. Owned largely by the same Neil Bluhm who hopes to open SugarHouse here, the Rivers casino opened last August and already it's making headlines, mostly for failing to make any money. And for declining to keep its promise to help pay for the Penguins' arena*. And for celebrating its own opening by posting "private property" signs along the waterfront and having security guards force bicyclists to dismount. Good neighbors.

But — what the heck —I go, and watch the loyal clientele with their zombie stares and tired eyes, mechanically pushing the ever-glowing buttons. Good times.

To get home, I rent a car. It's an expensive decision. So I throw a last-second ad on Craigslist and wind up driving home with Topher, a University of Pittsburgh student who tells me on the phone that he is in "dire need" of the ride — that he simply must get to Philadelphia.

Death in the family? The love of his life about to leave forever?

"My friend's been planning this bar crawl on South Street since August," he explains in the car. "It's gonna be epic. "

(isaiah.thompson@citypaper.net)

* NOTE: In the print edition of this article, the stadium subsidized by casino funds was incorrectly identified as the "Pirates' stadium," and not the "Penguins' arena." City Paper regrets the error.