August 27, 2003
Not So Happy Trails
Delaware to Zanesville
Yesterday after I checked into the hotel the skies cleared for a while. I was kicking myself for not riding further. As it turned out, I was lucky I stopped when I did. I ate dinner (at a McDonald's around the corner (one of their new salads, surprisingly good) and walked back to the hotel. I could see the storm clouds building once again. Around 8 p.m. all hell broke loose. A violent thunderstorm passed through the area with hail, high winds, and lightning. I could hear what sounded like panels of siding blowing around the courtyard outside my room. The power went out twice. Once the power came back on, I checked the local television channels for Doppler radar. It looked like the storm had come through in three waves. The first was two nights ago, the second was yesterday afternoon, and the third was last night. All things considered I was pretty lucky.
After things died down, I went out to the lobby to talk to the receptionist. She told me that I was lucky I hadn't arrived the day before yesterday. It was the first day of school for Ohio Wesleyan and the every room in the hotel was booked. Today it was virtually empty.
This morning I woke before dawn, did my usual prep, and checked out. The hotel didn't have a complementary breakfast so I headed out to McDonald's. I had a McGrease sandwich, an OJ, and a coffee. I don't think I'd ever eaten breakfast at McDonald's before and now I know why. The sandwich tasted pretty awful. It was, however, a calorie bomb, which is just what the doctor ordered. As bad as the sandwich tasted, I cannot understand why McDonald's can't make a decent cup of coffee. Theirs has no taste and is way too hot.
Over breakfast I decided to change my mapping procedure. The Zefal map case that I have is great at keeping maps dry, but it is a pain to open and close. I decided to put my Ohio highway map inside the case and leave it alone. This way, I have an overview of the day's ride. I used a clothespin to attach a COP map to the outside of the case. With this arrangement I could re-orient the COP map whenever I went off the page in a matter of a few seconds without having to mess with the map case.
I walked across the street from the McDonald's to a drug store to buy postcards. They didn't stock them so I hit the road. I took Curve Road out of Delaware as another storm loomed off to the south and east, which happened to be where I was heading. According to the local weatherman, the storm was moving away from me at 20 mph, but he was wrong. I wasn't riding nearly that fast and I caught the edge of it in no time. It was just a light rain, not all that troublesome. Unfortunately, I had hung some of my hand laundered clothes on the back of my bike to dry. So much for that plan.
Curve Road was a little hilly but otherwise unremarkable. I turned south on Dale Ford Road and entered what appeared to be Stepford. I was now riding through a suburban development. Ranch houses were set back about 75 yards from the road on big lots. At the end of each driveway, facing the road, was an idling minivan, an SUV, a pick up, or a car. For a while I couldn't figure it out, but then I came to realize that school had started. Because of the storm, parents were sitting with their kids at the end of the driveways waiting for the school bus. I wonder how long it takes for the school bus to get to school, since it had to stop about 10 times in that half-mile stretch of road.
Since all the vehicles seemed to be parked at the end of the driveways, Dale Ford Road itself had very little traffic. I turned south on CR 10, a busy two-lane road with no shoulder. Fortunately, I was only going to be on CR 10 for a mile or so. I took my lane and went as fast as I could go, thinking now would not be a good time for a tomato truck to come by. I came to Cheshire Road and took a left heading east.
Almost immediately Cheshire Road became a long bridge over Alum Lake. I had a panoramic views of the lake to the north and of the storm clouds off to the south. Riding through Rome (this one may very well have been built in a day), I saw some storm damage, a split tree here, a piece of siding there, but nothing too serious. When I reached Sunbury, I stopped to get some Gatorade and a box of Fig Newtons at a drug store. I checked for postcards and they also had none. I rolled into town on a street lined with some impressive old buildings. To my left I saw a brick street so I, of course, had to take it. The street itself was in good shape but the houses along it were a bit run down. A couple of blocks after turning, I came upon a white Pontiac minivan with zebra stripes. It looked like dazzle camouflage.
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I took Hartford Road east out of Sunbury. On one of my maps Hartford road dead ends in Croton, on the other it dead ends into Hartford. When I got to Croton/Hartford I took (big surprise here) Croton Road south towards Johnstown. (You figure it out.)
Along Croton Road were huge, modern looking, long, low-rise, one story buildings. At the first one, a tractor trailer was backed to a dock door. The trailer had a picture of sunny side up eggs on the side with the words 'I Like Eggs'. Outside the building was a sign saying 'Layer No. 2'. I surmised that this was an egg hatchery. Thankfully it didn't smell like a typical chicken coop, like the kind you'd see on the Eastern Shore of Maryland or in the Shenandoah Valley.
As I rode along it was becoming clear that the flat plains had given way to rolling hills. It was still pretty easy going but my speed was coming down a bit. In Johnstown I made a pit stop where I bought some Diet Pepsi and Quaker Breakfast Bars, which turned out to be infinitely superior to Clif Bars.
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I picked up the Thomas J. Evans Trail, a rail trail that ran southeast to Newark. As I rode through the unpaved parking lot to the trail head, I almost crashed when I hit a large pothole. Once I got through the minefield, and got on the trail itself, I was impressed with how smooth, flat and shaded the trail was. With all the rain, the shade meant that the trail surface had not yet dried out. It was quite slick. I can't figure out why trails stay slick long after roads do. It is one of the many features of trails that I do not like. Others include the dangerous mix of walkers, runners, bladers, little kids on training wheels, dogs, bikes, etc.
In some sections the trail passed across driveways between houses and the main road. I carefully cruised down the trail passing the occasional pedestrian. A jogger came past and we said hellos. Just beyond her I saw a man at the end of his driveway retrieving his newspaper. He had with him two small, unleashed dogs. As I approached he turned to head back to his house. As he did so his dogs darted out in front of me, I hit the brakes, my front wheel locked, I skidded, and down I went, hard on my left side.
The jogger heard the crash and turned around to see if she could help me. I told her I was alright and she went back to her running. The doofus with the dogs stood over me with a look of surprise on his face. He acted as if he was completely unaware that there was a rail trail in front of his house or that he had caused (or at the very least contributed to) the accident. He offered to let me come up to his house to clean myself up. I declined his offer and somehow managed to control myself enough to get up and ride without unloading my can of Halt in his face. As a result of the crash, I now had road rash on my left elbow, thigh and knee. I also had a sore left upper arm and a deep bruise on my left thigh.
I carefully continued on the trail into Newark. At the end of the trail I saw a drive-in ice cream place where I stopped for comfort food. I had a (Salisbury) steak and gravy sandwich (it hit the spot) and a vanilla ice cream cone dipped in chocolate. Oink.
After lunch I rode through the means streets of Newark. I passed a bar that had been gutted by a recent fire. A small crowd of scruffy people stood outside in apparent mourning.
Newark is a county seat, and its main government building is very impressive. I stopped to take a picture then rode on. After a mile of meandering, I found the Panhandle Trail, another rail trail heading east out of town. Unlike the Evans Trail, the Panhandle Trail was not very scenic. It was bordered on the left hand side by somewhat run down businesses and residences. On the right hand side was a chain link fence and an active rail line. It was straight and flat so I took it despite its lack of aesthetic appeal.
A few miles up the trail I noticed a couple of strange, tilted beige towers to the south. Once I had a clear view I could see that the towers were the handles on a giant wicker basket. The basket was an office building of the Longaberger Basket company. Zippy the Pinhead phone home.
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Continuing along the trail I came to a cross road. The opposite side the trail was blocked by a pick up truck carrying a 3-man work crew from the Licking County Public Works Department. They were driving along the trail clearing storm debris. I asked for directions to the Buckland Gorge Trail which I hoped to take on the way to Zanesville. They told me to stay on the Evans Trail for one mile then turn south on CR 668. They also told me to wait while they cleared a downed tree about 100 yards up the trail. They said it would only take five minutes. From what I could see, it appeared that it would take a whole lot longer than that. They drove up to the tree and hopped out of the truck. Each of them had a chainsaw attached to the end of a sturdy four foot long pole. They cleared the tree and I was on my way in just about five minutes. Nice work gentlemen.
After turning south on CR 668, I passed a left hand turn for Buckland. Not seeing a sign for the Gorge Trail, I went straight. After a mile or so I realized that the trailhead was probably down that Buckland road. Looking up I could see that a storm was in the works, and rather than backtrack and take my chances on another shaded trail, I decided to continue on CR 668 - now called Brownsville Road - to the town of Brownsville. In Brownsville, I'd pick up US 40 east towards Zanesville.
Brownsville Road may not have been shady or slick, but it was hilly. After seeing a sign saying "Flint Ridge 6", I started climbing. As I rode up, the skies darkened and thunder boomed. Near the top of the hill I began making a note of places along the road that would serve as temporary storm shelters. It began to sprinkle and I made note of my location and odometer reading as I passed garages, barns, and school bus shelters. Coming down the southern side of a ridge it started to rain in earnest. Looking ahead into the valley below I could see a small white building about a half mile ahead. I sped down the hill and pulled into the Mt. Carmel Church. I parked my bike under the eaves on the south side of the church. Grabbing my Illuminite vest for warmth, I took shelter under an overhang at the front door of the church.
It quickly became apparent that I had parked the bike on the windward side of the church. I ran out and repositioned it on the leeward side. It was still getting soaked as the rain overwhelmed the gutters above. I grabbed a water bottle and some cookies and prepared to hunker down for a long stay in the doorway.
To my surprise, ten minutes later the storm was over. I took a picture of the church a noted, for some reason, the pastor's name (Carol Rogers Hall). Then I was off again. As it turns out, the previous hill was apparently not Flint Ridge, but I had no trouble finding it. For the next mile or so I spun my pedals up a long climb, passing my first (and, as it would later turn out, only) oil well. I could have stopped to take a picture but I was focused on the work at hand.
Once I reached the top of the ridge, the rest of Brownsville Road was mercifully less challenging. I made it to Brownsville and headed east on US 40, the National Road. US 40 in this section has a bike lane as wide as a regular lane. The bike lane was cluttered with debris and the speed limit was 45-55 mph. Fortunately I was riding parallel to I-70, so the traffic wasn't very heavy.
I noticed today that the siding of barns in central Ohio are almost all red. A few look like they were treated with creosote. In Indiana the barns were nearly all white. Ohio had quite a few metal outbuildings on its farms. I didn't see one of them in Indiana.
Along this stretch of US 40 I saw my first Mail Pouch barn. I rode past Gratiot, then Hopewell where I passed a place that made plaster casts of apes and other animals. Somebody has to do it, I suppose.
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At Zanesville, US 40 meets I-70. At the interchange there was as Super 8 Motel and a McDonald's. Ahead was a sign that said, 'End Bike Lane'. What a gyp! Not wanting to confront US 40 and I-70 traffic in the morning, I continued on into Zanesville, crossing into downtown on a 'Y' bridge. Zanesville is located at the confluence of the Muskeegum and Licking Rivers and the 'Y' bridge spans the confluence itself.
Like Newark, Zanesville is a county seat. I rode past yet another impressive county seat building and took another county seat photo. Riding to my motel just off US 40, I saw two large, architecturally distinctive churches. For a small city, Zanesville has an interesting collection of buildings in its core.
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I arrived at the Travelodge at 4 p.m. It had no laundry facilities (you get what you pay for) so I rinsed out my clothes in the bathroom sink and hung them out to dry. I headed off to a supermarket to find some more medical supplies. I bought bandages. anitbiotic ointment, and Advil (my small initial supply was depleted). I also bought waterproof sunscreen and Chapstick, both SPF 45. The Chapstick was needed because my bottom lip was swollen from exposure to the sun.
Tomorrow the weather should be good. I hope to make it to Saint Clairsville, Ohio and maybe even Wheeling, West Virginia if my knees hold out.
Roadkill: 1 skunk, 1 squirrel
Today's ride: 80 miles (129 km)
Total: 354 miles (570 km)
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