August 10, 2021
Day 71: Holiday City to Perrysburg
Into the land of massive lawns and ponds
“We’d stopped at a trailhead and the water smelled like sulphur, Patrick says. “Why do all the houses have ponds?” Rachel asks our warmshowers host. “Because it’s their drinking water source that doesn’t have the taste of sulphur,” Bob says having grown up here.
We start out at 6:30 still in the dark on a busy road for only a short distance before turning off onto a country road. There are occasional large streaks of lightening to the south. Most of the storm moved over our area during the night. As it gets lighter, we reach the trailhead to the Wabash Cannonball Trail, this requires pushing out bikes up to the bridge over the road.
The trail is rough, we each take turns leading and breaking the cobwebs, the trail is also overgrown in places. At West Unity we go off the trail for second breakfast. There’s a friendly crowd in the café. They say “interesting day for a bike ride”. After breakfast we decide to stay on US 20, the road is wide but the shoulder line is drawn almost to the edge, where there is a lip on the edge, and a big ditch. There are lots of trucks. When the road crosses trail, Rachel takes it but the condition is even more dire than before and we go off again to Country road F. “Why do people in the Midwest want these massive lawns?” Patrick muses. We meet a local cyclist who says even more of the trail is paved now. At Fulton-Lucas Road south of Delta, we find that now for 16 miles we will have a nice paved trail to Maumee.
Patrick navigates us to our Warmshowers hosts Bob and Colleen in Perrysburg. Bob had texted us that we will be in an apartment in the back, that there is ice cream and cold drinks in the fridge and there is a swimming pool. “You got here earlier than most, I like to have baked cookies ready,” says Bob when he gets home from work around 2:30pm. We had already enjoyed seltzer water and ice cream, and there was plenty of beer also in the fridge. Later Bob brings us a plate of chocolate chip cookies. The apartment is an airconditioned oasis for cyclists. Bob offers us that we can spent as much time as we want, but with the hot humid conditions we think we better keep moving at a slower pace. Ride in the morning and hole up in the afternoons. We decide that to get to Olmstead Falls by Friday, we could either do two 50+ mile days and take a rest day here. Instead we decide to do 3 riding days.
Patrick and Bob realize they were in the army in Germany at the same time and participated in the same “Reforger” exercises. Later, we have a nice dinner and visit with them.
Today's ride: 54 miles (87 km)
Total: 2,926 miles (4,709 km)
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