Ohio to Erie Trail

Well, it’s been a while since I last wrote, and let’s just say, things have been “interesting.”

You might recall that our very large front windscreen was held in place with duct tape. There were gaps more than 10 inches long between the glass and the RV. Driving like that? Terrifying. We arranged for a new windshield to be installed at our campground; great plan, if only the weather had cooperated. It didn’t. But our installer secured covered space at a nearby RV dealership. We met him there. A supposed two-hour job turned into five, but it worked. Mike said the new window was the cleanest he’d ever seen.

Paying, however, was another ordeal. Our credit card required a PIN due to the high amount, but the installer’s phone app couldn’t process PINs. No cheque book with us, of course, so we tried an internet wire transfer. That would have been fine; except he keyed in the wrong account number. It took an extra week to sort out.

Mike and I came here to ride the Ohio to Erie Trail, 326 miles (525 km) long, at least on paper. We’ve ridden over 500 km and only completed about 40% of it. The big issue? No simple transport to get you back to your start, so every ride becomes a round trip. It’s frustrating but you might be surprised to know that things look quite different when you travel the same path in the opposite direction.

The trail passes through four major cities and lots of small towns, but most of it has been largely rural. We are quite enjoying it. It’s 90% separated from traffic and nearly all hard surface, exactly what we want these days. We won’t finish it this year, but we’re enjoying the challenge. Eventually, we’d like to link up with a trail along Lake Erie that leads closer to home and maybe even the one from Buffalo to Albany via Syracuse. Not sure if those are as nice as this one. For now, this gets us moving and outside, so it’s a win.

If you think our RV drama this year was enough, our bikes decided to join the fun. Mike installed tire liners that are designed to protect against punctures and hopefully cut down on our flat-tire count. A week later, 10 miles from the car, Mike got a flat. We were nowhere near a road. So we established a quick  plan: I’d push Mike’s bike (with the flat) to the nearest access point  and wait while Mike rode my bike back for the car. About two miles into his ride, Mike phones to inform me that my bike, which he had been riding, now had a flat as well 😢 . This with the new liners installed. Worse, he couldn’t patch the tires on the trail anymore.

So, I kept walking very slowly towards a restaurant. It was very hot, hard to push a bike with a flat tire and between one and two miles to the restaurant near the path. Mike eventually realized walking eight miles wasn’t an ideal plan for him and called an Uber. At least he was near access to a road. Mike eventually got back to me just as I was finishing a much-deserved glass of wine. I had walked in sweaty and bedraggled and asked if the restaurant had a corner they could put me in for a drink so that I didn’t ruin the look of their restaurant. Mike has since reworked our setup so flat tires can be patched on the spot again. Let’s hope it isn’t needed.

Two days ago, we drove to a parking lot to start our ride. Mike went to take the bikes out of the car and told me that I had to come. He was standing there holding my front wheel in his hands.  The front wheel had completely detached from my bike. When Mike tried to remove my bike from our SUV he just got the tire instead. We made a quick trip to a bike shop for a new nut which was all that was needed.

Our first campground this leg was known for fishing with three small lakes (they were actually ponds), all fish caught were “catch and release”. This doesn’t make much sense to me. Around the water were some very healthy-looking but still ugly vultures. When Mike commented on it, the campground owner told him the vultures eat the fish she stocks. Apparently, the vultures are protected by law.

After a heavy rain, we saw an interesting sight: dozens of vultures standing with wings spread wide to dry. Because of this, Mike looked and found this short video on the internet, it isn’t vultures. In actual fact it is so lovely with various birds with wide spread wings protecting their little ones in the rain, that Mike is sure it was Photo Shopped: Birds Protecting Chicks from Rain – YouTube (1:36)

Cincinnati, the trail’s starting point, was the first big city we rode through. It was a lovely day. The Riverfront Park is excellent, and we rode right through Findlay Market, Ohio’s oldest continuously operated public market.

We’ve seen more big bushy beards on this trip than ever before. I can’t help but think “far right” when I see them, probably unfair, but there it is.

Loveland, or “Valentine City,” was a great stop. The bike trail cuts right through town. It is a perfect spot to rest, eat, or grab a drink mid-ride. Nearby is Loveland Castle (Château Laroche), a very unusual landmark.

It was built mostly by one man, Harry Andrews, over 50 years. A WWI medic and medieval enthusiast, Andrews was mistakenly declared dead in a military hospital and came to as they were about to prepare him for burial. He was still pretty ill. By the time he recovered his fiancée had married someone else. He never married. He was exceptionally smart as well as fluent in seven languages. According to the internet “For over 50 years, Andrews worked tirelessly on the castle. He literally pulled stones from the nearby Little Miami River, and when that supply ran out, he famously molded bricks himself using cement and quart milk cartons. He built it largely by hand, with the help of his Boy Scout troop, the “Knights of the Golden Trail”.” He was interviewed in the movie in his late 80s still hauling and laying bricks, but fewer than he used to. He died at 92.

At our next campground, in addition to cycling, we visited a few towns. As many of you know, Mike and I are both pilots and used to own a couple of different airplanes. We couldn’t resist the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force near Dayton. It was phenomenal. Anyone with an interest in flight really should try and visit if they get the chance.  Mike and I only had a couple of hours and barely scratched the surface. Entry is free, and if we’d had more time, we would’ve returned.

Celebrating its 102nd year, the museum is the oldest and largest military aviation museum in the world. From early flight to missiles, space, stealth aircraft and presidential aircraft, it’s all here. No gold toilets aboard Roosevelt’s Air Force One, by the way, we looked! Quite a few planes were open for walking through including some large military transport planes in addition to Air Force One. The placards with the history of the planes were quite interesting. The black plane in the photo here is called a Twin Mustang. It was like two planes joined with a central wing. Two cockpits, one for one pilot and the other for the second pilot and the navigator.

Mike went into a simulator to try and land the shuttle which he enjoyed. In fact he did it twice because the first landing was a crash landing.

We visited the small town of Yellow Springs one afternoon. Mike got out of the car and started sneezing violently. This carried on until we were a couple of blocks from the parking lot. The town is proudly “quirky”. It was quite quaint, full of artisans and oddball shops, but charming and fun to wander.

Our next campground came with an extra feature; a massive shooting range. As Canadians, we wondered if flying our flag was a good idea here. When we booked, the woman on the phone offered us a site near their pond (near the lower star in the picture). The online campground map showed it packed tight, not my style. I heard Mike tell her, “My wife is antisocial,” and she gave us a different spot. The new spot for the antisocial person, turned out to be in the middle of a large gravelled field, one mile long, with hookups and no other RVs in sight. If you look at the picture here, we were camped beside the Practice Trap star, almost comically isolated. The empty set of rows that we are in are 1 mile long. Apparently, this area will fill up a little more before we leave due to some sort of a shooting competition. The main campground is busy, but where we are in the middle of the gravel field, it’s a ghost town.

From our front window, we can see the 52-house trap line (see the 52 small squares on either side of “Practice Trap”). Mike wandered down and grabbed a clay pigeon from one of the many launching bunkers to show me. It looks like a bright orange ashtray. Beyond the launchers, what looks like wildflowers is really a field of broken orange clay fragments and little plastic plugs that hold the pellets inside a shotgun shell.

We have extended our stay for a couple of days so maybe we will get to see some of the competition.

On a final note: the RV we ordered in January, the one Tiffin built just for us, has officially been cancelled. Thank-you tariffs. Just a couple of weeks ago, we got word that “our” motorhome had rolled off the line, and was all set up for us, with our furniture and décor choices. Tiffin pretty much builds to order, so it’s a real loss. Now we either start over with something already imported to Canada, or we keep what we have. We’ll see.