38 – Population 336 - Travels with Walter

July 6, 2015

38 – Population 336

We're back on the road at first light, which this far west in the Eastern time zone means 5:45. Thin lines of fog hang over the fields and we see only the kitchen light switched on in the farmhouses. Our heads are full of dreams about finding a breakfast spread of bacon, eggs, pancakes, hash browns, and coffee in the next little town down the road.

What we find is Chesterville and just one place that's open. It's the grocery store, coffee stand, mini-mart, and post office all in one. Instead of toast and a waitress named Flo we eat bananas and honey buns and talk almost at a yell so that we can hear each other over the howl of the semi-trucks bound for the nearby interstate. But we're still in Ohio, which means just before we're about to leave a local guy asks about where we're going and then says, "Have a great trip and may God keep ya safe."

We leave town headed due west on the road to Cardington that existed for a century before the interstate showed up. There's no shoulder because there's no need for one. There isn't even a center line. No cars pass us; they're all on the highways that whine and moan in the distance. The surface is pockmarked with patches, each one its own unique shade of black or grey and determined by its age. A vulture watches us from the top of a power pole as we pass.

When we approach a large country home, the brown Lab and Dachshund and old hound dog who live there see us coming and start to give chase. But they're all older and out of shape and the front lawn is sprawling, so the situation is slow to develop. When all the barks and howls and wagging tails reach me, I climb off the bike and kneel down to pet our furry welcoming party. In the way that all Labs do, it seems like meeting me and having me rub his ears and chest has made this the best day of his life. I don't think I'll ever in my life grow tired of riding bicycles through the countryside on roads like these.

A few miles farther on we come up to a house with some kind of small Pit Bull mix lurking in the front yard. When he notices us he charges toward Kristen at full speed, barking with his ears and tail pointed up toward the sky. But he doesn't stop when he hits the edge of the lawn; he just keeps coming. It's the first time that has happened while we've been riding with Walter. We have no idea what's coming next.

As soon as the dog gets ten feet from the bike Walter starts to bark with fury and lunges toward him to the point that the mesh on the side of trailer starts to bend outward. The instant the other dog hears and sees this he stops dead in his tracks, turns around, and shoots back toward the lawn, where he heads to the high point and barks back from a safe distance. We're at the same time shocked and delighted. We tell Walter what a good dog he is, and although there's no way for us to know for sure, we imagine he feels proud of himself for helping out the team by keeping us safe.

I don't know what the accepted dividing line of the Midwest is, but I know that it feels like we've crossed it. It's not just the corn and soybeans that stretch far off into the distance. It's also the old barns and grain silos with sagging roofs and ivy crawling up their sides. It's riding past a packed community pool where the air smells of sunscreen and then a drive-through liquor store. It's the fact that when we get to Green Camp we find a dairy bar. It's that we've reached a point where the accent that followed us through Pennsylvania and into Ohio has all but faded away. And on top of all that it's now hot, humid, and so, so, so flat.

In true Midwest fashion a headwind has kicked up by the time we leave Green Camp in the middle of the afternoon. It drowns out the sound of the tractors rumbling across the fields, but below the cloudless sky I can still make out who built them: red for Case, blue for New Holland, green and yellow for John Deere. We talk to several people while standing in front of a gas station in La Rue, but one guy is so impressed and amazed by what we're doing that when he walks out of the store a few minutes later he hands us a couple of Gatorades so cold that the bottles start to sweat as soon as the hot air hits them. This he follows with a simple but sincere, "God bless you." Ohio continues to show us the best of what it means to travel across America by bicycle.

Well, almost. We've also crossed a dividing line beyond which most people no longer fence or leash their dogs. But Walter's furious barking stops every one of them where they stand, then sends them back in the direction they came. He's more effective than any pepper spray, whistle, or club-like device ever could be. He's also a lot more relaxed riding in the trailer now that the awful roads and shoulders of Pennsylvania and Eastern Ohio have ended.

Instead we ride on one-lane back roads scarred only with grooves created by the wheels of Amish buggies. Out here, away from the highways, we see two horses being readied to pull a twenty-foot-high trailer of stacked hay bales. We're waved to by a young Amish woman in a long blue dress tending to her family's garden. We hear high-pitched calls of "Hi!" from kids floating in above-ground pools. Tar bubbles pop beneath our six tires as we roll to the west. It's a world that brings smiles to our voices, joy to our faces, and makes our heads and hearts feel light. It's the exact kind of day we hoped Ohio would help us find. And then we get back to the important business of coming up with things hillbilly parents might yell at their kids, like, "You fall off that bike one more time I'm gonna put ya back on it and push it off a cliff!"

With a couple of hours of daylight left we roll into the town of Ridgeway, population 336. As a reward for so much strong riding we plan to buy a couple of cold beers for the first time since somewhere in Pennsylvania at the mini-mart. It's a slow night, so the tanned and mustached guy who works behind the counter was standing around and saw us when we rode into town. We spend a few minutes answering all of his questions about our trip.

As we're paying Kristen asks him, "Do you know of anywhere to set up a tent for the night around here?"

"Aw, you can set up right behind here if ya want," he says. "It's no problem."

"That would be great," I tell him. "Are you sure no one will mind?"

"Aw yeah, it's alright. If a woman comes by in the mornin' and says anything, tell her Mack said it was okay."

And so it turns out we're home for the night. As we sit at a bench along the side of the building we watch a long train draw close to the nearby crossing and then stop traffic. A few minutes later a red tractor on its way back to the farm approaches the crossing, slows, then stops. We hear the engine shut off, see the door open, and watch the seventy-year-old farmer inside jump out and head into the mini-mart to grab a Mountain Dew. Walter misses all of it because he's flopped over on his side, dead to the world in deep sleep.

An hour later Mack reappears outside.

"Will you eat a Coney dog?" he asks.

"Yes I will," I tell him, even though I don't know what it is. "At this point I'll eat pretty much anything."

I follow him inside and he grabs the foil-wrapped hot dog from back in the kitchen. I'm about to head out the door when he says, "Hey how 'bout some day-old donuts?"

My huge love for rural Ohio grows even bigger.

"Hey thanks for everything," I say to Mack. "We really appreciate it. We'll try to be out of here early so that we don't bother anybody in the morning."

"Ah, don't worry about it. Dave's workin' tomorrow mornin'. He don't give a shit."

With the Dave factor accounted for, our minds relax and the effects of two long riding days after two poor nights of sleep elbow their way in. With tired legs and drooping heads we set up the tent, crawl inside, and all three of us pass out on top of the sleeping bag within minutes. The whine of the air conditioners, the blare of the train horns, and the chirping of the crickets make no difference at all.

Today's ride: 70 miles (113 km)
Total: 1,436 miles (2,311 km)

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