The Abandoned Turnpike Tunnel

For my partner's birthday, I arranged a trip for us. I kept the ultimate destination a secret, but I also made plans that I shared with her before we left: visiting an abandoned turnpike tunnel.

Background: when the Pennsylvania turnpike was built, they dug a bunch of tunnels through mountains. They were all two lane tunnels, which became traffic bottlenecks. So for the most part they dug a second tunnel next to each of the existing tunnels. But for whatever reason, three of the tunnels were abandoned and the road rerouted.

One of the tunnels is still owned by the Turnpike Commission, which apparently leases it to a racing company, which runs some sort of Super Top Secret Racing Experiments there. The other two are on one common stretch of (abandoned roadway) and are discreetly open to hiking and bicyling. They were sold at one point to a group that wanted to fix it up a bit, with lights and whatnot. That group has apparently not raised the funds they needed to, because nothing has happened.

I'm actually glad. The lack of lights is the experience.

I chose Sideling Hill tunnel over Ray's Hill tunnel because it's longer - something like 1.25 miles. The internet claimed that in the middle, you wouldn't be able to see out either side because of the tunnel's curve. Sadly, this was not the case.

The internet also claimed it was pitch black, can't see your hand in front of your face dark. Also not the case. At least during the day.

So despite not living up to those particular pieces of hype, it was still really neat.

The two of us walked the whole way. We only turned on our flashlight at the end because other people were coming in the other side and we didn't want to be jerks and scare the ever loving crap out of them. We rested and turned back. We took pictures at each side but not in the middle.

So what was it like inside? Well, you can't see the other side at first... but the light from the other side reflects off the ceiling. So you're always walking towards light. It's just far off and you can't see anything ahead of you. You're dimly lit from behind for a long time, though. So during the daytime, it's never pitch black.

I would call it a good amount of scary. I wouldn't have conquered it alone. But with my partner, it was fun to hold hands and enter the void. I was slightly the more scared of us.

As a postscript, we drove on and camped for the night at Coopers Rock State Forest in West Virginia. It has a nice overlook we went to just before dark. But mostly it was just a place to put our tent down.

Day 29: Home

And then we were home. <3

The odometer reading is about 4 miles off because I didn't remember to set it right away.

The day after we got home we went back to Lancaster to pick up our cat. This time my partner got to come.

I found a bass drum out on the curb, going out with the trash. But as seen below, I put it in my car. 

The kitty is back. I missed her.

We're off to see the world

I write from Lancaster PA today, our first stop on the trip of a lifetime*.

29 nights, 24 states, 4 national parks, over 6000 miles.
We're staying with something like 8 to 10 hosts from Couchsurfing, a few old friends, and camping a few nights.

I have to repack the car tomorrow. Things are stuffed in there all crazy. When will I figure out if I forgot something? Don't know. Departure was delayed a couple minutes today while I looked for my wallet. You probably shouldn't try to drive 6000 miles without any money. Or your license on you.

Lancaster's not very far from home, but we have friends here who will take care of our cat for the month. They were fostering her a time we came over last summer, and we fell in love with her and adopted her.
She's hiding under the bathtub and doesn't want to come out yet. I hope she does well here. I know she'll be very well taken care of, but I'm just being nervous and overprotective.

Two weeks ago we went to the beach and I noticed that the better camera (they're both point and shoots, but this is a newer one) has a broken screen. You can't see what you're taking a picture of at all, but it will snap the shot. Tonight, however, I realized the flash is messed up too (well, there's a chance it's just a setting, but we'll never know because we can't use the menu because the screen is broken).
So... not really sure that we're going to maximize our picture taking capabilities here. But I'll try.
Originally this post had a crappy cell phone camera picture of a cute dog. Now it's got a better version from someone else's camera!

Tomorrow - a 6 hour drive to a couch surfing host in Akron, Ohio.

*For now. Cause we're gonna do it again. Maybe even bigger and better. 
But most importantly we're going do it with my partner along too. "A family is everybody all together". That's not exactly true, but we're going to miss her so bad on this trip.

home

I'm home.

Among other things, this means this blog will go into hibernation. I suspect I am only interested in blogging while on the road.

I drove 1697.9 miles and stayed in 6 places over 12 days, 11 nights. I listened to "Pet Sounds", "Smile", and "Long Knives Drawn" a million times each.

I used couchsurfing to find two of those places. I liked the experience - I met new people that I liked (and hey, it's also a free place to stay).

I am of course already dreaming of other trips this year. This time with the kiddo.
Again I'm dreaming big... originally this January trip was possibly reaching as far as Colorado...
So if we leave right after school ends in June, there should be enough time to make it to Boulder (by way of Madison) and back to NJ in time to see my partner for my birthday, right?
Kiddo will be 5 this summer... I'm thinking 4 to 5 hours is probably a good max time of driving per day to subject her to. Couchsurfing for stops where we don't know people. And since it's summer, maybe we can do some camping too!