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Cycletrippin Day 5 Summary – from Scranton to Delaware Water Gap

by bernt & torsten

Did not sleep that well, worried to not wake up in time as my host said I had to leave before 7:00 – I was compensated by a nice breakfast that my host Marlene had put together in the morning. I had cold oatmeal with cashew nut milk and chia seeds that sat in the fridge overnight and a wrap with scrambled egg and boiled sweet potatoes – yummy.

Last night I decided to not go the whole distance to Short Hill New Jersey as I started to feel fatigued, as well as the weather, was still hot, and the route would be hard with many rolling hills and long climbs.  I had arranged to stay in a Motel Overnight in the Delaware Water Gap village called Pocono Inn at Water Gap. This is the route I took.

The day started off with a 10.9 km Category 3 climb if that is not hard start maybe biking up the Col du Tourmalet would be a harder choice first thing in the morning. I climbed the hill up to Lake Scranton, where I turned on to Pennsylvania Route 307 (Scranton-Pocono Hwy). This highway has broad shoulders a have long rolling hills, with a few climbs in-between. I rode the 307 all the way to the were the road forks into Pennsylvania Route 435 which I continued on tills I turn left on a local road to ride into Gouldsboro. This last stretch was very narrow, no shoulders luckily it was very little traffic today.

From Gouldsboro I took the Tobyhanna Rd down to Tobyhanna, part of the ride to Tobyhanna the road followed the fence of the Tobyhanna Army Depot a massive army base. After passing through Tobyhanna I start hitting some serious downhills, if I had let it go I would have gone as fast as the speed limit, I took it easy – you don’t want to get a puncture in high speed.

When I got to the Outlets Mall in Tannersville that was what happen, I was on the flat after a downhill run when I caught a bad pebble with my back tire, so my first puncture on this trip. I got that fixed up and got on my way and reached Stroudsburg at noon. I was pretty tired by now, the weather was just super hot and had worn me out, I did not have that long to go to the motel I was staying at in Delaware Water Gap. Just an easy ride – I thought, turned out there was a 2.2 km Category 5 climb hidden to get to the Pocono Inn at Water Gap in Delaware Water gap.

I did it and I got to my motel, my first impression of the motel, do people actually stay here, the whole ground floor was bordered up, the parking lot looked like nature slowly taken over, the lawns around the facility was not maintained. I checked in, got a room on the 2nd floor, as the ground floor rooms were not in use at all. Got to my room, not bad just like any motel rooms I have stayed in the past. Got a fridge, free wifi (slow) ok bathroom, toilet did not flush well.

After a rest I walked into the village, I walked around and viewed the village – from September 11 to 13th the annual COTA art festival offer up jazz musicians from all over the world. I miss this one, I went to the bakery to get some drinks and also got a rhubarb pie for tomorrows breakfast and I also stopped in at the local diner to have some food.

After that I got to my motel and just chilled for the rest of the day, preparing for my last day biking.

Here are some pictures that I took during the day