July 5, 2015
37 – ON YOUR LEFT
We know that Sunday is a day for time with the family, so we start to tear down the tent around 6:30 to make sure we don't intrude. Then we give Lonnie and Neva our sincere thanks for the wonderful evening and head back to the rolling hills of Ohio. A few cars pass us on the two miles it takes to reach Sugarcreek, but we wave to at least half a dozen Amish families in buggies on their way to church.
| Heart | 0 | Comment | 0 | Link |
The farther we go, the more Amish people we pass on buggies, on bicycles, and on foot. We smile and wave at all of them, and almost everyone smiles and waves back. The fact that we're traveling through here on a Sunday morning gives us a sense of how big the community is in this part of Ohio in a way nothing else could.
My favorite parts of the morning are the reactions we get from the families rolling past us. I imagine the Amish must grow at least a little tired of being pointed at or stared at or maybe laughed at because their lifestyle and clothing and vehicles are so different than most other people. So there's something charming about the fact that when we crank by them loaded down with all of our gear and towing a dog in small trailer we watch heads turn, see little smiles form, and hear quiet laughter and conversation about those two crazy guys on bikes. We stand out to the ones who stand out.
We go left and right, left and right, down one quiet rural back road after the next. We sweat hard pulling ourselves up and over the steep hills but then feel chilled moments later when we speed down through shaded hollows on the other side. I notice farms and schools and roads with the same names that we see on the mailboxes of the homes we pass. And because we're in the heart of an Amish community we see a harness shop, a buggy shop, and even a bicycle shop alongside roads far from the highway. In any direction we turn it's white houses, white barns, and white fences.
A rail trail that we share with bike riders and joggers and horse-drawn Amish buggies takes us south toward Killbuck. We've been on some amazing trails so far on this trip, but this one runs paved on a berm above swamps and low-lying fields, and through shade cast by the thick branches of the canopy of trees above. Kristen describes the smell as Portland smoothie bar. Still more kind-hearted Ohioans stop us along the way to ask all about our trip, wish us well, and let us know they're going to say a prayer for us.
Killbuck is a tired-looking town that calls itself the Mosquito Capital of Ohio. It's a place where Cleveland Indians play-by-play spills out of muffled old speakers in the IGA grocery store at the town's main crossroads, where the cans in the soda machine cost only thirty-five cents, and where the young people working the store's checkout counter and the deli counter in the back have the same blank look on their faces that I get when I'm trying to hold back a fart.
The huge climb that follows makes us sweat almost as much as we did pushing up and over the Great Escarpment in Australia back in the winter. The whole mosquito capital thing turns out to be the absolute truth. And a long series of short but steep rollers follow the top of the big climb up from Killbuck. But reaching the end of the rollers is a big deal. It means that the hills that have followed us most every day since the moment we rolled out of the campground in Bar Harbor have ended for the next few weeks. The rail trail that waits for us on the other side will carry us into Central Ohio and so much flat farmland for hundreds of miles beyond. The iced tea we chug tastes like victory.
But soon we realize that we aren't done with the rollers. We have at least ten more to go. When we reach the trail we find it unrideable and have to backtrack up a country road so steep we have to get off the bikes and push, and even then we almost can't make it. It takes a few miles of cranking on a U.S. highway to reach the next trail. And that one turns out to be this bizarre mix of trashy people drinking tallboys, Amish buggies, giant mosquitoes, patches of mud, and huge piles of horse poop. There's one amazing covered bridge and the rest is like riding on a rough dirt path meant for hillbillies on ATVs looking for a place to demolish of thirty-pack of Keystone Light. Within a few miles we decide to head back to the side roads and highway and hills. My mind and spirit are fried and our sense of victory is gone by the time we reach Danville.
We try to build ourselves back up with cheddar-bacon-flavored potato chips and the kind of Pepsi made with real sugar that comes in an old-school glass bottle. This works better than just about any other method we've tried. And when we leave town on the Kokosing Gap Trail we find it paved and smooth and free of day-drinkers. It's Sunday evening, so we see maybe six bicycle riders the whole time. But one of them is a roadie who reminds us why we'll never get tired of making fun of roadies.
He first passes us going the opposite way. I wave and say hello, but he says nothing. His hands don't move. His eyes stay fixed on the pavement two feet beyond his front wheel. I do the same when he comes back the other way, to the same response. Kristen's farther up the trail, waiting for me the catch up. As she waits, she stands over her bike, with both the wheels of the bike and the wheels of the trailer in the grass beside the pavement. It turns out this isn't good enough for the roadie. As he draws closer he bellows out almost at a yell, "ON YOUR LEFT!" before zipping by at a speed that by all accounts should be higher, but is limited by the fact that he's a good thirty pounds overweight and old enough to wear a bushy mustache without anyone finding it weird. As if Kristen could have missed his fluorescent yellow jersey and socks anyway. We make up offensive scenarios involving the roadie for hours as we ride over creeks and streams in a tunnel of trees, try to figure out who sang the eighties pop song "Heaven is a Place on Earth" (Belinda Carlisle, it turns out), and charge toward the setting sun at twelve glorious miles per hour.
Mt. Vernon is the one of the biggest cities we've passed through on this trip. It takes us almost three miles of riding to work our way across it and continue on to the west. By the time we do it's dark enough that we've had our headlights and tail lights blazing for twenty minutes. We have no idea where we're going to sleep, and we have no idea what lies ahead, so we pedal hard out into table-flat farm country and try not to end up thrown over the handlebars by dipping the front tire into a gaping pothole by mistake.
Lightning bugs fill the air above the corn and soybean fields and we watch as birds swoop down a few dozen feet in front of us and pick them off. We pass old brick farmhouses with a lit candle in every window, and dozens of smaller wooden homes, but the miles turn darker and darker and still nothing appears. It's not until almost ten that we happen upon a Methodist church and throw up the tent on a small patch of grass near its back door. It isn't where we'd prefer to be, but we want even less to stay out on the dark country roads of Ohio on night where the overcast hides away the near-full moon.
Today's ride: 65 miles (105 km)
Total: 1,366 miles (2,198 km)
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 1 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 0 |