Chapter 1: Cold Trip to Cleveland

May 11, 2021 to May 14, 2021

Another Season!

First break of many. Breaks are my favorite part of touring

Every time I set out on a voyage, I think how it all began. For me, it started on the ground in the back of a restaurant. I was going to college and working full time. My body had enough. I'd just recovered from shingles when all of a sudden I collapsed with vertigo. I couldn't get up, so I crawled into the storeroom and laid there. No matter how I tried, I'd plop back down. I'm ruined, was my first thought. I knew about vertigo and how people go their whole lives once it inflicts them. That was me, beaten just when there finally was a light. Just when I thought I had a path through higher education. I'd been accepted to the University of Michigan and for once I had hope. I was one of those people who took up Obama's challenge to go to college as a middle aged adult. I thought just maybe I'd pull myself out of the gutters after all. Before I was even carried out if work, I thought about all places I never went. I was supposed to ride across the country; hike the Appalachian Trail. Something. There I was, broken and in ignominy. When I got home, I cried half the night about my wasted life.

For three days, it felt like I just did a nitrous balloon. My brain moved separate from my skull. There was a lag, but little by little, I regained my balance. As soon as I did, four days later, I bought a Surly Long Haul Trucker, some Carradice Super C Panniers, and spent the next few weeks catching up at school. I had hope again. I was going to tour that summer, to adventure on my terms, the way I always dreamed.

In the nine years that's gone by, I spent more than a year of it on the road, just me and my bike. Sometimes my brother, Dan comes. This time, however, it was just me. Dan did give me a fond send-off and a ride south, towards Toledo, to Temperance, Michigan. I'd biked that way numerous times and was very happy not to again. The roads are terrible, the scenery is corn, and the amenities are sparse. Temperance is an exception, though one wouldn't expect so based on its name and location, because instead of Trump and Don't Tread on Me flags, people had BLM signs. I said goodbye to Dan, gave him a huge hug, and sat in the familiar pavilion, infused with a mix of excitement and anxiety.

It was cold for that time of year, but the sky was a blue as it gets. It was windy already when I started, but it was from the northwest; I was going southeast. Every way I turned the wind was at my back. Anywhere near Lake Erie is windy. The shape of the lake is parallel with the wind belt. Since it's mostly farms and the roads are straight, there's no brief respite if it's against you. Anywhere.

I've come here so many times over the years. It's a boat launch into Lake Erie, nothing special, but it's as far away you can get from Toledo without a light. I've ridden here in the middle of the night from the train station to wait for the sunrise several times.

Toledo's been an important place for me over the years, because that's where the Amtrak station is, and thus it's both a launch point and a terminus for touring. It's an amazing city in its own right. Though it's decrepit, depressed, and smells like an oil spill over huge a huge portion, it has incredible architecture. Tons of art deco and streamline moderne, including the train station. At one time it must have been a glory. A sprawled out beauty with maybe 18 terminals, fanned out in a staggered semi circle of cool brick tile and sleek metal. A neighborhood not far away boasts the densest concentration of victorian era houses in the US; Toledo also has one of the largest art museums in the country with an unparalleled glass collection. After all, Toledo's known as the "Glass City" because it was and still is one on the main industries. Owens Corning is still based there

There's no doubt it's still a city of heavy industry, owing to it's location on both a major port and a busy rail corridor. Huge mounds of sulfur are piled up next to the river. Giant smokestacks still smoke aplenty. Some have a fire plume, especially those at the BP refinery. The place where the Enbridge Line 5 Pipeline dumps it's filthy ooze after it's journey from Canada and under the Straits of Mackinac (where Lakes Michigan and Huron connect). There's been a ton of controversy over this pipeline, and after years of dogged activsim, the Governor of Michigan ordered Enbridge to cease. Fuck Enbridge.

As I rode through Toledo, I couldn't help but think of my grandma. She died that previous winter. I found out while I was at the train station. I'd just returned from a four-month tour out west and found out while I waited for the bus. She was 92 and lived a good life and died at home. A tough, spunky lady from the "Irish Riviera", or the shore south of Boston. She was proud of how is traveled so much of the country by bike. If only mom could have lived longer, I bet she would have toured too.

I didn't waste any time in the city. Not with a tailwind. The only place I spent real time was by a giant swimming pool complex, long closed and left to nature ever since thieves made off with the pumps and much of the plumbing more than a decade ago. They couldn't afford to replace it, so that was it. What was once a mecca for the kids lies in ruin, like everything else besides the little left for the privileged. The kids in North Toledo today don't have much. Just crumbs, remnants of what was.

Due to the incredible boost I got from the wind, before long I cleared Toledo and made for the rail trail. Dan and I rode it before, six years ago when we rode to Cape Cod, where we grew up. It started in Elmore, Ohio, and ended near Cleveland. Last time, the mayor of Elmore came up to us and was overjoyed at just how many people came to his town on account of it. They'd just expanded the trail through there, and said it was the best decision he ever made. Small towns like his aren't used to tourists. The restaurants and stores usually sell to the same few people. Anyway, I hoped the mayor of the town before Elmore took notice, so I aimed for where I guessed the trail might be if it were expanded. And there it was, it made me feel like an accomplished navigator for a second, until I remembered all the follies and mishaps over the years.

A nice meadow to camp in for my first night, right next to the trail

My first night was peaceful but well below freezing. While I had a ridiculous amount of warm clothes--a sleeping bag liner, a survival bivy that goes over my sleeping bag, a blanket, sweatpants, and several long sleeve shirts--I was cold. Very cold. It was a long night because I kept waking up, freezing. Just inhaling cold air is enough--despite however good your gear may be--to keep you from ever being warm once it's in the twenties. During the night, I heard the yelping from some coyote pups. Their den must have been right behind me. It seems like I'm constantly camping near one. It's always the same too, the pups yelp like mad then it stops abruptly. I never heard it more than once from any litter. My guess is the mother doesn't like them giving away their den's location, so she returns quickly to nurse them or whatever she does to mollify them.

It always feels great to camp near a bike trail. I was freezing and my shoes were wet from walking in the grass, but it didn't matter, I'd be on rail trail all day, save a few road segments. The trail took me through a series of historic towns. The most memorable one was Fremont, the childhood home to Rutherford B. Hayes. The town had one of the most interesting, grandiose, charming, and ornate neighborhoods I ever saw. There was a slew of very prominent churches and historic buildings, and a presidential library. I love to photograph those sorts of things, only my camera wouldn't work. It was busted. I slipped and fell that snowy morning at Max's and banged my camera trying to catch my fall on the stone steps. I was surprised it worked and felt super lucky. Guess I didn't get lucky after all. It was still a good morning though.

Once the trail went from paved to gravel, my speed was cut almost in half, because of how loose it was. My tires were only 32mm, smaller than I like but all I could get. Lucky to have even those. Every mile was a grind. A cold wind swept down from Canada, so I went to put my helmet on for warmth, but it was gone. I left it 12 miles back next to a bench under an old white mulberry tree. Dang. Backtracking is the worst. That 12 mile mishap really was a 24 mile one. So about a third of a day. I'd planned to traverse Cleveland the next day, but there wouldn't have been time. My goal when getting through cities is always the same: camp on the edge, as close as possible before it feels too urban, get up early and try to put it as far behind me as I can by nightfall. LA and Chicago are the only two I struggled with.

Even though going back was a slog and threw off my timing a bit, and I was distressed about my camera, I only let it bother me for a few minutes. One of my touring mantras is, so long as things are going well, I. e. I'm safe and my bike is running well, is to never decry the chain of events, decisions, or circumstances that brought you to that place at that time, for you can never know what the alternative is. You can never be certain if the causal chain you find yourself in is better or worse that the one you would have been in, if such-and-such either happened or didn't. If you made a different choice.

The beauty of riding in the spring is the beauty--especially the wildflowers. I chose right by leaving when I did, even though it was cold, because along the trail was a festival of color. Along the edge of the trail was a blanket of buttercups, geranium, bloodroot, and Virginia bluebells. The forest understory was a sea of trillium and jack-in-the-pulpit. Everything smelled like honeysuckle. I sat by a clear creek and felt like I was where I should be.

It was another night below freezing. I camped in the back of an old graveyard; when I awoke, frost still covered a patch of red clover next to my tent, which was drippy with morning dew. I didn't have far to go that day but still had to start early so nobody would discover me. That's a downside of stealth camping, most times you can't sleep in. Not there especially, not close to a neighborhood. People walk their dogs super early, plus on the other side of the street, a Trump superfan, full regalia and a a 10-foot tall Trump poster. The one where he's supposed to look like Rambo. That's how it is in the country, in general.

After only several hours in the saddle, I arrived at the Metro Park, as close to Cleveland as I dare go, so I camped on a shale gorge high over the Black River. A scarlet oak gave me cover from the inevitable dew.

An amazing series of bridges takes you through the metro park

When you camp on the high ground, you often hear noises from far off, as sounds tend to be deflected upwards, especially at night when the ground cools. Sometimes it's a boon if you hear a distant coyote or owl, but usually it's a loud truck or motorcycle. That night was something different--a deep grinding rumble, not loud, for it was so distant, but it unnerved me to imagine what it might be.

It wasn't long before I realized what that menacing sound was. It was a US Steel plant. A monstrosity, hundreds of yards long, right on the bank of the same river I slept by. The river must have created a sound conduit. At one point, it was the largest company in the world. No doubt one of the most crooked and evil too. They always go hand-in-hand. And even though US Steel--the very embodiment of corporate industrialization-- was just over the river, a blue heron prowled for frogs in the morning sun, unfazed.

You'd never guess I was just next to a monstrosity of a steel plant

I hadn't seen Lake Erie yet, even though I'd straddled her coast for over 125 miles, as the trail stayed well south of the shoreline. The trail dumped me just a few miles from the shore, in Sheffield Lake--about 20 miles west of Cleveland. The sky was blue, I was rested and clean, and the lake was the same color as the sky. No clouds, no wind, so the water was placid. I thought about where I'd be, what I'd be looking at had I not left my helmet behind. It couldn't be better than this, I thought, as I drank a cup of coffee.

The massive pavilion at Manhattan Beach. There's probably more than 80 picnic tables in it. Dan and I spent a rainy morning here some years ago.

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