Michigan 26 Day 16 - Port Allegheny to Ansonia

It's very hilly here now. We had to go up one of them.

I believe this is the Eastern Continental Divide. We followed the Allegheny River to its headwaters, then had a 540 foot climb up to the summit. Then there was sweet glorious payback. It was all downhill for the last 25 miles, following Pine Creek, which flows into the Susquehanna.

Here's hill-hating Jim finally reaching the top of the hill. 

There's not much you can do about this, though. We have to cross the Eastern Continental Divide at some point. 

Today's challenge is there is not much out here. Our motel isn't actually in a town, and it's not near any restaurants. Our strategy was to eat at the last restaurant before the motel, and dawdle around all day so we would get to the restaurant at dinner time. This worked. Normally, we choose a motel that is walking distance from dinner, and we check in to the motel and get cleaned up before going out to eat.

The first step to dawdling around is to eat breakfast before we leave. This mighty fine diner was across the street from our motel in Port Allegheny.

Lunch was 20 uphill miles later at Fezz's Community Diner in Sweden Valley, just beyond Coudersport.

Check out this classic jukebox! Unfortunately, it's not working.

Fezz's is leaning hard into the 1950's diner thing.

Leaning very hard. Ouch my eyes.

Right after lunch, the big climb started. It was low ring all the way for me. The grade was 7 or 8 percent.

After 15 miles of screaming descent, the dawdling-til-dinner strategy continued at this laundromat in Galeton, which was behind a Kwik-Fill convenience store.

We refilled our snack bags at the Kwik-Fill, since there is nowhere for breakfast tomorrow, and a long ways to lunch at our remote hotel. We are definitely in Pennsyltucky out here.

We got to our restaurant for dinner around 5:30. Dawdling worked, and this restaurant was a win. It's the Old Antlers Inn.

With a name like that, you can be sure it's a taxidermy fest.

They have an inspired entree of Cheesesteak Pierogies. The bartender says the owner invented this himself.

Yesterday, when I was complaining on Facebook about the debasement of Rolling Rock, a friend of mine said he thought Straub Beer was still independent and brewed locally. Indeed it is. I'd never heard of Straub. It's quite good! Classic grandpa beer.

Here I am at our motel, the Colton Point Inn.

This would be the only lodging option, which means you have to accept that there is no place to eat nearby, no coffee in the morning, barely working Wifi (essentially useless) and therefore no streaming TV, despite the claim that there is free YouTube TV for guests. I'm writing this using the phone to connect to the Internet with LTE.

Jim was curious about what I was going to do since there was no coffee. I explained that I always have multiple layers of redundancy for critical systems, and showed him the giant Frappuchino I bought at the Kwik-Fill. There are also a stockpile of caffeinated gel packs in the snack bag.

There is not even any staff on site. Your room key is in a lock box on the door, and they text you the lock box code like an AirBnB.

The room is nice though, and the beds are very comfortable.

It was a great ride yesterday. We conquered the summit, and the weather was perfect. 50 miles and 1900 feet of climb. The last 25 miles were downhill with a tailwind.

Here's the Strava track: https://www.strava.com/activities/19717342940