Nice PostAutumnal Ride

I'm envious, Gordon.  The road around here never seem to be empty anymore.

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Thanks for these Canterbury tales, Gordon.

It certainly makes for better Speedster driving if the roads in an area were originally laid out for horse traffic and not for cars. Rural Pennsylvania and northwestern New Jersey are much as you describe. The old roads meander from one village to the next. That would all change when those hooligans in their Model A Fords would eventually come along and need to get everywhere in such a rush.

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We have similar roads near us in the Hudson Valley NY area. I go out during the week, too many weekenders otherwise.

Enjoy it, Gordon.

@Sacto Mitch posted:

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It certainly makes for better Speedster driving if the roads in an area were originally laid out for horse traffic and not for cars.

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I've recently discovered, via a member of the Connecticut VW club, that there is a "Trail" that starts in Hartford, CT and goes to both Albany, NY and Boston, MA.  It's called the "Tavern Trail" and, believe it or not, a lot of those old Colonial taverns along what's now called "The Post Road" or something-or-other "Turnpike" still exist, although none that I know of are still working Inns except for Longfellow's Wayside Inn in Sudbury, MA along a northern part of the route.  Two old tavern buildings are near me, both now residences, and one of those is at an old Granite slab on the side of the road in Sutton on the Post Road, which is carved and says, "41 Miles to Boston".

I don't know how far apart the taverns are, usually 20 - 25 miles or less, or the distance one could make in a day in a coach.  The Interstate Highway System totally avoided those old post roads but the roads are still there and are a lot of fun to drive.

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Gordon, as a biker you probably know about the East Coast Bike Trail (could be another name now). I think it has now morphed into a route along as many off-road bike paths as possible, but when I first learned of it (in the late '70s) it was entirely on public roads. It ran from New England down to Georgia (Florida?) and used roads like the ones we've been talking about here.

California has some outstanding secondary roads off the beaten path, but not nearly as many as the more densely populated East coast. Folks there have been farming and having to haul stuff around by wagon (and building roads to do that) for 200 years longer than we have.

If you want to be a little creative, I think it's still possible to ride a bike up and down the whole East Coast without ever seeing heavy traffic, something it can be almost impossible to do here. There are even a few places here where you're permitted to ride a bike on the shoulder of the freeway because there is literally no other way to transit the area.

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Here you go, Mitch:

https://greenway.org

I've ridden chunks of it, some in New England/NY and some in Pennsylvania/Virginia/Maryland on bike trips.  Some parts are excellent and well marked, other parts are still slowly coming up to speed.  We met a guy with an electric-assist recumbant bike on the Rhode Island Bike Path this past summer, who had started in Maine and was riding the length to Florida, so people are still actively riding it.

There is an excellent part here in New England, shared with the "Airline State Park" in Connecticut.  That trail started as an old railbed for the NYC to Boston express train of the 1800's, called the "Ghost Train" because it was a private express that ran at night, only stopped in Boston and NYC and it was painted white with gold trim so it looked like a Ghost as it rumbled through towns and villages along the way.  It went out of favor when airplanes came along, and those followed the same route, marked nearby with large stone mounds seen from the air to navigate between the cities.  It's now become a great bike path with some major parts being restored, especially between the Mass. state line and New Haven, CT.  

There were competing English and Italian stone masons working on the rail line when originally built and their work begs to be admired as you ride or walk along - Better than many buildings in New England, they built bridge bases, shored up cuts through hills and made bases for small buildings along the way as well as a few depot buildings.  If our part is anything like the rest of the East Coast Greenway, it must be a spectacular ride, for sure.

And it must be serendipity, but this popped up on my news feed just today about Longfellow's Wayside Inn, on the Tavern Trail in Massachusetts:

https://www.patriotledger.com/...husetts/76287871007/

They've been serving travelers in Sudbury since 1716, 110 years longer than  the Union Oyster House in Boston on the "Freedom Trail" and 90 years longer than Paul Revere's old haunt in Charlestown, the Warren Tavern.  Lots-a history around heah......