56.9 miles cycling, 543′ of climbing (3510 total) – to read from the beginning, click here.
We got up around 7, broke down the tent and gear, moved back to a pavilion, watched the sunrise, made coffee and assembled some breakfast. We headed to McDonald’s for some better WiFi, and for me, some more coffee and an egg & cheese bagel, then headed off to Elmore.
We were on nicely quiet back roads for much of the first half of the ride, through the corn and soybean fields and not much else. Houses are much more numerous in rural Ohio vs. rural Iowa, Indiana, Illinois & Nebraska, so we felt a little better knowing we weren’t miles away from a place to ask for help if needed. Fortunately, we didn’t need any.
We went through Maumee, where my sister Jean and her husband Mark lived when I did my first cross-country in ’05. Had great memories of that stay where I celebrated my 50th with them. Then it was into Perrysburg, where all the quietness ended. We were on US 20 for about 6 miles — the same road I took on my ’05 trip, and it was familiar for its ever narrowing shoulders which I took note of in that trip’s blog. Thankfully, the section we were on only narrowed to 3′ by the time we got to our turn, so it was tolerable even with the Thursday morning truck traffic.
We then turned onto a smaller road which we thought would be better, and it was up until we got to the train crossing. There was a very long train just parked there and a long line of trucks and cars waiting to cross. We made our way past to the crossing and there was a guy by the name of Kenny, watching the train and having a Bud Light while he waited (he wasn’t driving, but was a passenger in his girlfriend’s car, a few vehicles back in the line). It was a hot day in the sun, so we popped a can of beer and poured it over our ice reserve and joined him. The train started moving, but that turned out to be short-lived and it stopped again — couldn’t even see the end of it. We finished sharing the beer and after about a half hour, the train moved again and finally cleared the crossing. On we went to Genoa where we picked up the North Coast Inland Trail which we followed the rest of the way into Elmore.
Elmore proved to be strangely familiar, and I realized we had gone through here at the very start of our trip almost two months ago. We found a bar and had two wind-down PBRs and rode to the library to meet our Warmshowers host Gordon. Gordon led us to his house where he cooked up a fabulous poached salmon. We hit it off with him immediately and had great conversation to go along with our meal. After dinner, we joined him in a walk to “Pastor on the Porch” — a regular Thursday thing in Elmore — where we met pastor Margaret who had just celebrated her 80th birthday. You’d never guessed her age. She told us of trips to Arizona and the Mexican border caring for asylum seekers (and sometimes saving their lives). We also met Rick, and another neighbor, Brad who had just lost 50lbs and was working on his next 50. We exchanged contact info and I talked with him about e-trikes and how he could use them to help in the process. Very nice evening of wine and conversation.
We walked back to Gordon’s and continued our chat. He had crossed the Atlantic on the Queen Mary and I pumped him for info on that since I have dreams of taking our bikes and sailing to Europe vs. flying. He’s a runner too, and he and Dana exchanged experiences along with tales of his daily runs on the QM. We soon settled in for a nice, long, sleep. Tomorrow, we head to Vermilion OH and our next hosts. Dana wants to ride back through PA, but I’m dreading the hill climbing — and even though I’m in much better shape than when we started, the prospect of those large, arduous climbs isn’t sitting well with my tired and achy knees. Current plans are to get to Cleveland this weekend, then hop a train for Altoona.
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