I headed down to Somerset on Thursday this year since I had put together a pretty long covered bridge route for Friday. I figured if I was going to spend the day chasing covered bridges, I might as well get an early start on the weekend.
Friday morning started out pretty humid, and I ran into some heavy fog and light rain early in the day. Not exactly the kind of weather you hope for when you've got a long ride planned, but things started to improve as the morning went on. By around midday the clouds had finally broken and the sun came out.
I rode on my own Friday and spent the day working my way around southwestern PA, hitting just about every covered bridge I had put on the route. It made for a pretty long day, but that's what I was looking for. There are a lot of great roads and scenery down that way, and the covered bridges gave me plenty of excuses to keep exploring.
Back at the hotel, Jason had the group dinner organized. As always, there was plenty of good food and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. The forecast for Sunday wasn't looking very good, with a prediction of heavy rain for most of the day. A bunch of people were planning to head home Saturday, so Jason decided to do the group photo Friday night while we still had most of the group together.
Saturday, Marty and I put together a much more laid-back loop. After the miles I had put in on Friday, I wasn't really looking to set any distance records. We still managed to work a few more covered bridges into the ride, though. At this point I'm pretty sure I had seen enough covered bridges to last me for a while.
Saturday evening everyone gathered in the hotel parking lot again and Jason drew the door prize winners. After that, we walked down to the Pine Grill for dinner. Once we finished eating, we headed back to the hotel and spent some time hanging out in the parking lot and talking with everyone.
Sunday morning the weather arrived right on schedule. Around 5:00 a.m. the rain really started coming down and it looked like the ride home was going to be a wet one. We kept an eye on things and around 7:30 we saw what looked like a window to make a break for home.
We took the most direct route back this time and, fortunately, managed to miss most of the really heavy rain. The ride home ended up being mostly fog, light drizzle and plenty of road spray. Not exactly a beautiful ride, but a whole lot better than riding through the monsoon that was sitting behind us.
As always, the Laurel Highlands Rally was a well-organized event and a great weekend. It's always good to see the regulars and spend some time riding and hanging out with everyone. If you've never made it to this one, it's definitely worth putting on your radar for next year.
I only have photos from Friday's Coddiwomple ride, so most of the pictures below are going to be covered bridges from southwestern PA. I did throw in a few photos from the Laurel Highlands BMW group of the rally site and some of the people from the weekend as well.
