Category: default || By jt3y

On a regular basis, people find this little backwater on the Internet via a Google search and email me asking for advice about the Mon-Yough area. Those people are taking their lives into their hands; I wouldn't even take my own advice.

Anyway, sometimes I feel like the Greater McKeesport Convention and Visitors Bureau, a job for which I am not qualified, and I worry that I give out a lot of terrible information.

"You want to stay in a spooky old house overnight? Sure, we've got lots of spooky old houses. Will you be requiring an axe-wielding maniac, or will you be turning on one another in a murder-suicide pact?"

I received an email earlier this week from someone in Washington, D.C., who asked:

I am (last minute) planning on getting up from D.C. to McKeesport on Thursday first thing to ride back to DC. The closest interstate one-way car rental I could get was to Hertz's Pleasant Hills location (47 Clairton Blvd.) I'm thinking of dumping the bikes in McKeesport, dropping the truck off at Clairton Blvd., and then getting a cab back to McKeesport ... to save riding through rush hour traffic from the Hertz location. Total is $100-plus.

Does this sound moderately sensible? Should I be riding the 5 miles from Pleasant Hills to McKeesport?

Thanks so much if you have any info that might help. We are looking forward to breakfast in your home town.

Here's my response. Hopefully, I haven't sent this guy to his doom. I'm posting it here for anyone else using the Youghiogheny River Trail:

There is nothing inherently unsafe about riding from Pleasant Hills to McKeesport on a bike --- however, "Clairton Boulevard" is actually a busy four-lane divided highway. There are also several large shopping malls nearby. And, there are some pretty substantial "hills" (outsiders call them "mountains") to traverse.

So, a bike ride would be a bad idea, and you are probably smart to dump the bikes in the city and then return the truck.

Just make sure you put 'em someplace safe. Check down at the marina office on the riverfront --- I think there's a bike rack nearby.

Also, make sure to call for a cab reservation well in advance --- Pittsburgh cabs are notoriously hard to get, unlike other cities (like DC or Boston) where you can get 'em anywhere. Yellow Cab is your best bet in Pleasant Hills. Checker also serves that area, I think.

As for breakfast, Eat 'n Park on Route 148 downtown would be your most reliable bet (think Friendly's or Perkins). I believe Woody's Little Italy in Versailles, Pa. (just across the Route 48 bridge from the bike trail) also serves breakfast, and it's probably good. There's also a place in Boston, Pa. (adjacent to the bike trail) called Boston Diner --- I haven't been there in some time, but last time I was, they had a good, and cheap, breakfast menu.

I've asked the guy for a trip report when he gets home, so if he writes back, I'll post his comments in the Almanac.

Otherwise, I expect to hear from the executors of his estate any day now.