My friends had woken up by the time I finished yesterday’s blog at the cafe where I had found the Internet connection. I went back to the motel room to get ready for the day while they were having their own breakfasts. I then joined them as the day’s activities began.
This is the little place where I had written the previous blog.
I walked around town by myself for a little bit before going back to the motel room. The others had gone back to the motel to get ready to check out.
The towns that we are riding past are next to the primary CSX freight line that runs between this part of the east coast and the rest of the country. There is always a steady train traffic nearby.
This is a picture of the Low bridge over the Yough in the morning light.
We set out on a hike to Cucumber Falls after I returned to the motel.
The activities on the river had already started.
We stepped off the path to go down to a stream to see the natural water slides.
We could not figure out how anybody could actually slide down this stream and stay alive!
We were trying to follow the Meadow Run Trail to get to the falls. We got lost after this stop by the Yough river.
We had to work our way back to the main road to get to Cucumber Falls. It was a good climb up a hill.
The falls were spectacular!
Here is Koushik exploring the falls.
Ram was next.
Shankar also walked behind the falls.
We then hiked the Great Gorge trail to get back to town.
Here we are at the place where we had stopped for lunch during our ride of the GAP in 2016. We were nicknamed “The Blues Brothers” for the day.
This picture is from the High bridge over the Yough. It was taken from the GAP trail at the tail end of the hike.
I thought this was a good day to relax.
We stopped here for lunch.
This picture was taken as we were leaving for Confluence. This is where we had stayed the night.
Here we are back on the trail again. It is good to stretch before doing any exercise!
Since we were only riding a short distance, we took some extended stops along the way. 
We had to climb down to get from the trail to the river.
Even though it had felt quite hot when we had been walking in the sun earlier in the day, it was very comfortable riding under the trees.
These pictures are from a second stop by the river.
And then it was back on the trail.
This is a picture of the confluence of the Youghiogheny and Casselman rivers. It was taken from the trail.
We went for a walk after arriving in Confluence, putting our bikes away, and cleaning up. We were staying at the at The Confluence House Bread & Breakfast.
It turns out that Confluence is not just the confluence of the Youghiogheny and Casselman rivers. There is also the Laurel Hill creek that joins up with the two rivers.
We tried to walk to the area of the confluence of the rivers but it was all on private property.
We then proceeded to the Lucky Dog Cafe for dinner. It was the same place we had eaten at in 2016.
We walked a little more after dinner.
We crossed over the Yough during this walk
and ended up at the Youghiogheny dam. We did not attempt to walk up to the top of the dam to see the lake behind it since there was a “No Trespassing” sign on the pathway leading up.
That was the last stop before we walked back to our place for the night.
We retired for the night after some drinks, music, and conversation.
We walked about 8 miles during the day, and rode over 11 miles.
Today promises to be a rainy day. We will probably be riding in our rain gear. The ride is also going to get a little more challenging because the trail is going to get steeper.
The river was extremely muddy on the morning of the second day of the ride due to overnight rain. You can see the mud from the abandoned railroad bridge below.
The sediment had cleared up by the time we crossed the 
This is view of the town of Confluence from a bridge over the Casselman.
The skies had cleared by the time we got to 
This is a section near Hancock.
The river itself was quite peaceful for the most part.
The red waterfall shown below is the 
The mist cleared and we were soon riding under clear skies. This is a view of the Casselman river from one of the bridges we crossed.
This is the Pinkerton tunnel, opened only last year.
We stopped in Rockwood, PA for ice cream. The surroundings are beginning to change. We had been riding in the woods beside rivers. From now on it was farm land.
This is a random shot of a touch me not flower.
We met some interesting people. Jim, in his 60s, was into extreme outdoor exercise.
This is what you do to take care of the pain in the butt. We took a few “butt breaks”.
We have left the woods and are the riding past farms and fields at this point.
Crossing the Salisbury viaduct with the Casselman river below us.
Lunch place in Meyersdale, PA.
These two gentlemen are friends from back in the Vietnam war days in the army. They have amazing stories. They do a lot of riding all over the world. Really remarkable ordinary folks!
Crossing another interesting viaduct.
Calf with an interesting face.
More rest stops (butt breaks) before continuing the ride.
The Eastern Continental Divide!
(Click on the picture below to open it.)
View on the other side of the tunnel.
And then we were crossing the Mason Dixon line into Maryland. It was all downhill (in a good way!) from then on.
We went through a few tunnels.
After Frostburg, MD, we continued careening down the hill beside railroad tracks. There is usually a tourist train that runs between Cumberland and Frostburg during the summer, but the line looked like it was in a state of disuse.
And then we were in Cumberland at the start (end?) of the Great Allegheny Passage!
The following picture was contributed by Ramgopal from his camera since I was not carrying mine. We ended to evening with dinner at the Baltimore Street Grill. It was Koushik’s birthday present to Shankar.
Splattered Brains 