Day 63 - Morgantown rest day

Thursday April 25. Biked 16 miles. Total mileage by end of day: 3732.

Rainy with short often very hilly rides to talks and errands around this university town.

My first talk was at Eastwood Elementary School. It is very environmental and has achieved Gold LEED certification.

The school principal DeAnn along with Tracy and Mindy welcomed me to their beautiful school.

Jenn Potts' science class combined with another science class to hear my talk. These 5th graders were fantastic!!! Very polite and many great questions!!

Then I wandered down through West Virginia University and passed by the Life Sciences building.

Visited Wamsley Cycles to pick up a new bike bell. My old one was no longer functioning very well and I needed something more reliable since I've been riding lots and lots of trails.

Morgantown's mini mass transit passed overhead as I biked to lunch.

Terra Cafe in Star City is a wonderful and delicious restaurant with locally and sustainably sourced food.

It also had a lot of sinfully tasty treats.

Heading back to downtown Morgantown I saw these memorials along the Caperton Trail.

A bit of industry along the trail in Morgantown.

Nice trail signage. Morgantown has 3 rail trails in it that go in 3 different directions. All are beautiful.

Rode up this rutted but paved alley to get to Pathfinder, another bike and outdoor store. I needed some new reflectorized ankle bands because one had fallen off somewhere on a trail earlier in West Virginia and the velcro was failing on my other one. 

The road near Pathfinder.

Deckers Creek Trail.

Google maps said there was a trail up from Deckers Creek Trail to the Boys and Girls Club.

But it was super steep and not bikeable.

Especially considering the ledges to get onto very slippery steep wooden bridges that were almost not even walkable.

Pretty flowers along this trail in Whitmore Park though.

After a number of steep ascents on streets after the park, finally arrived at Mountaineer Boys and Girls Club.

Many kids had to leave before my talk was done but they were another great audience!

Heading back down through West Virginia University again, this time I passed by their Chemistry building.

I had a great talk at Gluck Theatre in WVU's Mountainlaire. Here are Brook and Gerardo, my Warmshowers.org hosts for two nights in Morgantown. They are fantastic hosts -- warm, welcoming, well educated, environmental, good cooks, and cyclists!

Logan Thorn heads up the new West Virginia Center on Climate Change. I was the speaker for their first organized event at WVU's Earth Day celebration. We had a great audience and lots of great questions. Talked a lot about the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act. There was also another Citizens Climate Lobby member in the audience.