Easton, PA

November appears to be the month of travel for us. After my time exploring Virginia I followed Ann to another conference the following week in Easton. Sharing her room at the Lafayette Inn was pretty high living for me  - pillow top mattress, made to order omelettes for breakfast, and endless desert breads in the parlor for snacks.

While Ann was running a training seminar at Lafayette College next door, my mission was to explore town and down the towpath bike trail to Bethlehem 15 miles away. 

Lafayette is a nationally ranked liberal arts college; its scenic campus high on a hill above Easton. Very compact and pretty. They did a nice job with the new library addition updating a previously vault-like 1960's era library.

Easton (26,000) is the smallest city in the Lehigh Valley metro area (with Allentown and Bethlehem) - the third largest metropolis in Pennsylvania.  Downtown has a central square surrounded by small shops and restaurants, with the surrounding streets crowded with attractive historic town houses and apartments. Very east coast, and well maintained. Away from downtown, Easton's history as part of America's first industrial revolution in iron and coal is more evident. The presence of the Lehigh canal is part of that legacy. 

The canal operated for nearly 100 years ferrying coal and iron from the mountains to the markets in Philadelphia and New York, dropping over 1,000 feet through innumerable locks. Major portions of its towpath on the Delaware and Lehigh rivers have been incorporated into bike paths from Allentown to Easton then down the Delaware 60 miles to Bristol. 

Riding along it a while, the Delaware impressed me with its size (the largest free flowing river east of the Mississippi), but my goal was to find the route along the adjacent Lehigh to Bethlehem where the highly regarded Walking Purchase-Salisbury mountain bike trail is located. So I turned back and started my search. Without much local signage for this segment, it turned out to be harder than I anticipated. After what I thought were a few false starts along the river on local roads, I found the path on the far side of the river. It treated me to numerous historical and industrial ruins, leading ultimately to the incredibly well preserved original wire rope (ca. 1857, the oldest in existence still in place) remnants of a suspension bridge shifting the towpath across the river, leaving me stranded. So I had to ride all the way back to Easton, cross again on the highway, and look harder on the other side.

Ultimatey, patience paid off and I found the path after a 3 mile road ride along the river. The path is partly paved and partly packed stone dust, and suffers a little from erosion in places, but was generally in great shape. Not a scenic wonder, but the river was pretty, the weather warm and sunny, and the occasional ruin diverting. Others have found different ways to enjoy the river, witnessed by these rungs up a tree leaning far out over the bank.

As I neared Bethlehem, the previously wooded opposite bank suddenly erupted in massive industrialization as far as the eye could see. These 4 towering blast furnaces are only a small part of the Bethelehem Steel complex that stretches for miles. This facility finally closed in 1995 after nearly 150 years of production. Up-close they are almost beautiful - rusting, muscular, sculptural reminders of the glory and costs of our industrial heritage. And believe it or not, they're building a 300 room hotel next to a casino as a brownfield redevelopment smack-dab in the middle of the complex - I kid you not, I saw the tour buses.

I didn't get a chance to visit Bethlehem proper (71,000) on the canal side, as I was headed across to the mill side to find the Salisbury trails near Lehigh University. Again, I was unable to find good directions to the trails by bike, and spent some time riding through town and down by the rail tracks trying to find an entrance. In the end, I had a 15 mile ride home and it was getting late, so I decided to head home and come back directly the next day after some more research. 52 miles that day was enough without another couple hours of hilly single track.

So I cruised back to Easton in time to join Ann and a colleague for dinner at Sette Luna. We had a great time with John, and the food was very good Italian Bistro fare. We ended up having several very good, but no great, meals while we were in Easton, and there were plenty of interesting establishments still to try. Well worth a visit if you are in the region.