Day 30. A long, long time ago, people went wild planting oak trees. Those people are gone, but the oak trees remain. Sometimes on a little back road I'll find the road lined by 10 or 20 huge oak trees. This is at the same campground as the Christmas in July stuff.
Today was a hard day. My right knee has been hurting a little since the climb into PA. This is hilly country, it's very hot and humid, and there don't seem to be many towns.
odometer at 1087.6
Day 31. Rained all night, threatening all day. Entered Ohio! At my intended campground for the night, they wanted $17 and were so snotty about it....well, I won't pay that much to pitch a tent if there's anything I can do about it, so, with the wind at my back and all downhill, I literally blew up to Lake Erie. Split a site with Tony, heading home to Oregon from school in Jersey. $5 each, not bad. Pitched in the fading light, shower in the dark, no dinner. Beautiful sunset, though.
odometer at 1157.8
Welcome to Pennsylvania (better late than never.)
Day 32. On and off overcast this morning. Tooled along the lake for a while, I'll not see another Great Lake this trip. How do you take a picture of a Great Lake? Actually, the name is really inadequate. They should call them the Great Big Lakes. Or the Really Huge Lakes. Or the You Won't Believe How... but I digress. Went wading, had lunch, rolled out about 1pm.
I had decided that the Northern Tier went too close to Cleveland, so I was going to leave the route and head further south before cutting west, then picking up the route further on in Ohio. Big mistake. The only roads I have on my AAA map are extremely busy with only moderate shoulders. At one point I turned onto a road not on my map, was nice at first then petered out to gravel and I was lost. Got found, had to backtrack a few miles, won't do that again. Very hot. Took a rest stop at a sheriff's office, camped at Punderson St Pk. Rained most of the night.
odometer at 1204.6
Day 33. Decided to get back on the route, it couldn't possibly be any worse than the roads I had yesterday. This dome is part of the world headquarters of AMS International. I don't kow what AMS makes or does and who cares? It's a cool dome.
Part of the Erie Canal system, from Lake Ontario to the Ohio River. This is the only section still kept mostly flooded.
The route around Cleveland is almost entirely on MetroParks all-purpose trails along parkway roads. Very light traffic, but what's a parkway without hills? Lots of hills.... There's a river gorge due south of Cleveland, which is nice going into, but pretty bad to climb out of. Since it's parkway, there are no stores, so I got no lunch. And only one Dew. I felt pretty pressed for time to get out of the area.
Finally left the parkway and got back on city streets - very busy, no shoulder at all, bad sidewalks. Even though it was very flat, I couldn't make any good time.
Finally, after many miles of suburbia, famished, thirsty, hot, tired... In that place at that time, nothing appealed to me more than a Taco Bell chicken burrito and a Surge. Hit the spot.
Traffic eventually let up, and I began to relax, when looming from the north comes the most awesome storm clouds I've seen in a very long time. Suddenly the race is on again....
...and I didn't make it. About 3 miles from my campground I had to take shelter in a hangar at a little airstrip east of Grafton OH. Had a fine time swapping stories with some gentlemen there, who also provided me with a cold Coke. Sorry, no Dew. The storm hit with a ferocity that was literally breathtaking, like when the lightning hit across the street and nobody could breathe for several seconds. It was raining so hard there was more water than air in the air.
Storm finally passed, leaving a stupendous glow on the remaining clouds. Something Rafael or Michelangelo might have painted (what do I know of what they might have painted? Never mind.) If you did paint a picture that looked like this sky, nobody would think it was at all realistic.
2 miles out from the cg and heading south, there's more thunder and lightning from the north. Wave 2 is coming. It's after sundown; now it's a race against both darkness and the gathering storm.
Barely made it to the cg, barely got the tent up, stuff thrown inside, and the bike covered before it let loose again. Again, no dinner, I'm starving, I hadn't even made it to the bathroom. Then wave 3 hit about 11, I think. About 2, got out, got some water, crawled back into the tent. What a day.
day 33, odometer at 1268.4
Day 34. Beautiful morning, not a cloud in the sky. Tried to roll early but I'm just too weak. Gotta get some food...after checking out the auto show next to the cg. Cool cars! I didn't see any that were restored to original equipment, everything was modified in one way or another. And, funny thing, no T-birds.
More cars.
Now this is what Ohio is supposed to look like. Flat and green. Where there are rivers, there are still gorges, which have to be climbed out of, and some of them are very steep sided.
Visited Oberlin College in Oberlin, had a Dew in Berlin Heights, camped in Avery. A rather hot day, but not too bad.
day 34, odometer at 1310.4
Day 35. Don't know exactly what to make of this. Playing in the asphalt? Runaway steamroller? I dunno. Somebody got a big can of Spot remover?
On to Rollersville. My home for the night.
day 35 odometer at 1363.4
Day 36. An attempt to capture the essence.... Beautiful day, not too hot, tailwinds just right. Blew past Bowling Green to Independence Dam State Park near Defiance OH, built on what had been part of the Ohio canal system.
A back road in Ohio. Way back. Actually, this is what remains of the towpath on the Maumee River Canal. 2.5 miles of a little dirt track. Nice to get off the highway, but the progress is much slower.
A good day today, over 65 miles. I bought and paid for this flat biking, paid for with my own sweat and blood in the White Mountains, the Green Mountains, the Adirondacks, the Alleganies, even the hills of eastern Ohio (where, contrary to most popular opinion, it is decidedly NOT flat.) On every one of those long, slow climbs, or walking the bike up the 15% grades, I kept telling myself I'd make up for it in Ohio. And I am.
day 36 odometer at 1428.7
Day 37. The Maumee River. Provided most of the water for great stretches of the Canal. Most of the Canal is now either destroyed or abandoned and overgrown/filled in. This state park is built on the longest intact part, I think about 12 miles.
It was already so hot yesterday that I just couldn't see cooking. I was going to eat the fruit and cookies I'd bought yesterday for breakfast, but I woke this morning to strong thunder, so I blew apart my camp, packed it up, and hit the road. If it rains, I'd much rather seek shelter and stay dry than try to pack a wet tent, or wait for it to dry.
Welcome to Indiana! Today ranks with one of the harder days, difficult as that might be to believe. Temperature in the low 90's, very humid, strong headwinds. Physically just exhausting. On top of no dinner last night, even though I got a nice breakfast in Defiance. I survived on - you guessed it - Mountain Dew. Nothing better for a hot bikler. Except maybe a swimming pool.
I knew that biklers could "camp in the city park" in Monroeville IN. I was preparing myself for a third night in the heat without a shower (getting a little ripe, to be sure) when Lo and Behold!
Biklers get to stay in the community hall! Shower, air conditioning, a stove and microwave and a refrigerator, even a chilled drinking fountain. Still, a pool would have been a nice touch.
day 37 odometer at 1481.1
Day 38. Terribly hot. Mile after mile of hot, tarry roads, headwinds, rolling hills. Nothing much to take pictures of. All I can see is corn and soybeans. Camped near the Salomonie Reservoir.
Day 39. Had a great conversation this morning with Bruno Costas, one time pro musician, now a retired house builder. Talked about mathematical forms in music. When I get home I'm going to send him some samples of the fractal music I did at Sun.
Heat index today is 110. As if tarry roads weren't bad enough, had to drag the bike over the dirt where they're putting in a new highway.
Barely dragged myself into Denver IN. Had a Dew and sorta collapsed by the bike to take a nap. At which point I was rescued by Sara Stalker who invited me to stay with them because it was just too hot to be out there riding. So instead of steaming in a tent I got to stay...
here. Other than some rather flat bunks in the hostels in Bar Harbor and in New Hampshire, this is the first bed I've been in since I started.
Some of the 100 or so other guests at the Stalker place.
Day 40. In addition to taking in stray bicyclists, Sara Stalker rescues animals. Here it's feeding time for 5 baby squirrels.
Today was a rest day. It's just too hot out for this kind of touring. Tomorrow the weather is supposed to turn cooler.
Day 41. After enduring a rest day in Denver IN - it was terrible, they had over 200 channels on their DSS tv system - back rolling in temperatures in only the low 90's, and reasonable humidity. I'm sure there's a lot to see in Indiana, but not from my position and these roads. Flat as a board and 7' high corn. Occasionally you can see the top of a barn or a silo. It's much like floodwaters....
Rolled up a little NW of Monona.
day 41 odometer at 1621.5
Day 42. Recognize this anyone? jda? Kinda small, first sighting from Sturdy rd....
The Bent of Tau Beta Pi, Indiana Delta, in front of the engineering/math building. If you've examined the route I'm on, you know it doesn't go here. Today I left the route and swung up to Valparaiso IN, home of my alma mater Valparaiso University. My sister and brother in law still live here, so it's an excellent place for a break, too.
The Bent and I.
The tomb of George, faithful campus dog. Many an alum doesn't even know this tomb exists....
As a very few people know, my bicycle has a name, "Piedmont." There's a very short story associated with that, going back some 24 years. Ask me about it sometime.... Wheels, cranks, gears, shifters, brakes and seat have been replaced, but it's still Piedmont. (What's the joke about Grandpa's old axe? But it _is_ the original frame and that's what counts.) I purchase this bike before my 2nd year at Valpo and it's been with me on almost every tour since, over 17000 (yes, 17 thousand) miles.
Piedmont and the Valparaiso University chapel. Do you think I could make a series for a combined Valpo/bicycle touring calendar?
Day 43. Rest day, only the fourth since the trip began 6 weeks ago. The hands of a bicycle tourist. That or really bad but well organized liver spots.
Another view of the Bikler Tan. It's gotten so that shop clerks along well travelled routes get to recognize The Tan. They're much more likely to let us use the employee bathrooms when they see it.
My helmet has vents in it, too, big ones, on the top and sides. You should see the tan on my otherwise defoliated scalp.... I'll leave that to your imagination.
Me and Piedmont, pretty much in cruising configuration.
