Local Adventure: 1,000 Steps

Last Monday, Scott and I took the motorcycle for a little ride, and we decided to stop and climb the Thousand Steps.

All photos were taken by me (or Scott) with an iPhone 4s.

First of all, if you didn't know this was there, you wouldn't know it was there!  Seriously, it is located along Route 22 here in Pennsylvania, and it's just a pull-off on the side of the road.  The sign for the trail leading to the steps is barely visible.  What you probably can't see from this picture is the history of the Thousand Steps.  (I made it x-large for you.  So maybe you can...)  Essentially, the steps were carved in 1936 as a way to help workers commute to the Ledge Quarry.  This quarry housed an abundant supply of sandstone that was used to make silica bricks.  These products were useful to the steel, iron, glass, railroad, and other industries.

One would think that doing Insanity would have prepared me for this.  Not so much.  A little over 100 steps in, I was out of breath, sweaty, and tired.  I now fully appreciate my 30 minute commute to work.  I also understand the oasis in the desert thing because we came across a spring somewhere between steps 600 & 700, I think. 

This was seriously the most delicious water I have ever desperately cupped my hands to drink.  In fact, it may have been the best water I have had to drink in any manner.

 

After a lot of a few stops and near death, we got to the 1000th step!

 

 

I'm not sure who noted the count every 100th stair, but either they were wrong somewhere, or they should really call this the 1000+ Steps.  Because as you can see, that was not the last step.  There weren't a ton more, but seriously.

 

However, once we did finally reach the top, we were treated to some beautiful scenery:

 

 

 

At the top, we came to a couple spots that we thought were "the view."  (At the top of the steps, there's a sign that points to the right and says "the view".  A friend of Scott's told us it was about 100 yards from the steps.  He either has no clue what 100 yards is, OR he didn't make it to the actual view.) It was probably another half-mile (of flat, level terrain, thank God) to where you couldn't go any farther.  That's where the last two pictures above are from and where we took these:

 

P.S. If we hadn't been on the motorcycle, I would SO not have been wearing jeans.  Sweaty + Jeans = YUCK

My handsome husband :)

 

Going down the steps was SO much better than going up, although, toward the end, my legs were really shaky.  We did stop and drink from the spring again on the way down.  Then I made Scott stop for ice cream on the way home.  :)

 

Even though the trek up really sucked, I felt awesome about it once we got to the top.  We plan to do it again some time, but I can assure you, there will not be jeans involved next time.  And I'm probably taking a water bottle to bottle up that spring water. 

 

 

Tomorrow is Dinner Time Tuesday, and I'll be sharing a recipe with you!  Be sure to come link up!

 

 

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