First – The biking story:

It was a beautiful day today, and I got a chance to get home early.  Wife was in a good mood and she’s gotten the chance to get out and about quite a bit recently, so she told me to go biking before dinner, so I headed down to Goddard State Park, which is one of my least favorite rides, but some of my favorite scenery.  Moreover, it’s a short, twelve mile loop, so it’s one I could get in before dinner.

Yes, Traillink says it’s 23 miles, but that counts the side paths and whatnot.  It’s twelve miles of very well-maintained state park trail, asphalt the whole way.  The reason I don’t like it so much is that it’s a LOT of short up and down hills.  Your wrist will get tired changing gear, because it’s almost constant.  There’s only one hill that I can’t make it up without getting off the bike, but a few that really push me too.

The scenery is beautiful though.  The trail circles Lake Wilhelm, a man-made lake with lots of picnic, fishing and boating opportunities.  And, it’s a loop, which is refreshing.  Most of the trails I take, I have to double back and repeat the scenery all over again.

So, now the “threat” part:

We recently went to the midwest and tried to enter an Indiana state park, just to have a picnic lunch, and they wanted seven bucks!  We couldn’t believe it.  Pennsylvania has such fine state parks and they’re mostly, if not all, free.  However, the Erie Times-News reported today that the state of Pennsylvania was considering closing half its state parks, including Goddard and even more alarmingly, Oil Creek State Park, including the famous Drake Well.

After reading a lot of the politicking behind the scenes, this looks like a war between DCNR/DEP and Senator Mary Jo White from Oil City, PA over funding issues….  There are a bunch of very nervous sounding press releases on her website, as it looks like she’s trying to weasel and worm her way out of looking like the bad guy on cutting DCNR/DEP funding.  I wouldn’t be surprised if DCNR specifically singled out Oil Creek since it’s in her district.  Hopefully the politicians will get down to business and make the decisions that make the most sense for Pennsylvania.