Julie and the kids are in Omaha for an extended visit, which leaves me to wreak my own havoc, rather than relying on the kids to do it. So yesterday I took a trip up to West Friendship, MD to go to the Baltimore Radio Amateur Television Society (BRATS) hamfest, which was entirely disappointing. "Lame hamfest" may seem redundant to you, but that's what it was. But since I was already northwest of home, I continued to a stretch of abandoned highway in Breezewood, Pennsylvania that I'd heard makes a good bike ride.

The Pennsylvania "Turnbike" used to be a stretch of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Its two lanes in each direction narrowed down to one in each of its two tunnels through the Alleghenies, causing such traffic headaches that the state got fed up and routed around it in 1968. It has sat abandoned ever since. Riding its nine-mile span is like being a minor character in The Stand.

Overgrown with weeds and unmaintained for 40 years, it's a lot like many roads in DC.

One of the two tunnels. This one is over a mile long, unlit and a little unnerving. Note that there is some kind of administrative structure at the top; the local teenagers certainly have.

The guard "rails" have kind of a nice Art Deco thing going on.

In the few places where the overgrown vegetation doesn't block the view, there's some quite pretty farmland to look at.