July 8, 2015
40 – It's Just That Kind of Place
Our plan is flawless. We wake up from a glorious night of sleep to find Ohio cool and overcast. What yesterday was a headwind has switched to a tailwind that blows from the east and will push us on toward Indiana. But our minds are still distracted by the sad state of our little Walter Pie. We think that whatever awful thing he swallowed has almost worked its way through his system, but after not eating or drinking much of anything yesterday he's weak and tired-looking. I know I can't cure him by kissing the top of his head and telling him he's the best dog in the world, but that doesn't stop me from doing it anyway.
We average almost thirteen miles per hour on the twelve-mile run from Bluffton to Columbus Grove. The combination of flat roads and the lightest tailwind is enough to send us right to the edge of ecstasy, because until about twenty-four hours ago our days had passed at an average speed of eight or nine miles per hour. It's like waking up to find that the passage of time has slowed and that each minute now lasts ninety seconds instead of just sixty. I half expect to look back and see a line of flames extending away from my back tire.
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But nothing stays perfect in cycle-touring. Three times in the span of the next mile I ride through a cloud of gnats two-hundred thick that fly into my eyes, stick to my cheeks, and become trapped in the hair on my arms and legs. I let out some kind of horrible, primal yell and then try to wipe them off with furious arm motions and grunting sounds that make anyone who sees me ride past think about trying to find an exorcist. When the side show ends the world around me becomes quiet enough to hear the talons of a pair of vultures crunch and grind and slip as they search for grip along the high point of the rusted roof of an old barn. They watch me pass and survey the fields beyond, waiting for lunch to show up and perhaps wondering if Walter might be it.
I love the quiet, clean, safe small towns of Middle America — towns like Ottoville, where we end up around mid-day. The people are polite and helpful and tend to be curious about what we're doing out here on loaded-down bicycles. The libraries are quaint and charming almost without exception. Men and women we've never met and will never talk to or see again wave to us as they drive past. Middle school-aged kids on bikes spend all day riding around town in aimless loops instead of sitting inside watching video games. No one ever messes with our bikes or our gear and we don't have to worry about anyone harassing Walter.
But the same question hangs over so many of these places: if we come back in fifteen or twenty years, how much of them will be left? Farms everywhere are consolidating, and when farms consolidate, the families that sell their land tend to leave. When enough of those families leave, the markets and restaurants and hardware stores they used to buy from shut down. And when the people who owned or worked at those businesses have no choice but to move somewhere else, the taverns and gas stations and even the libraries begin to fade away, until all that's left are some homes and churches and the memories of what used to be.
On its face Ottoville seems a long way off from all of that. It still has its well-kept park, two gas stations, two highways running through it, and all of those bright and clean American flags hanging from the light and telephone poles along Main Street. But the handful of empty storefronts and the fact that the only grocery store shut down some time last year tell me the change has already started. I can't help but wonder how much more is coming and where that decline will end.
Beyond town our tailwind dies, but the flatness stretches out in front of us toward forever. We pedal side by side on a smooth country road named Road P. The center line has faded, but it hasn't and won't be repaired because there's never enough traffic out here for it to matter. If any doubts about this being part of the Midwest still existed they're now long gone. We cross paths with state highways empty of all cars, even when we look miles into the distance in both directions. Farm cats stalk the fields looking for mice and Walter growls at them as we pedal past. And long lines of wind turbines hum even on what little is left of the afternoon breeze because there's nothing to block its path for a hundred miles in any direction.
We haven't stood in front of the weird little variety store in the tiny town of Scott for more than two minutes before a guy who works at the grain elevator next door stops to talk with us. Once he gets over the amazement of what we're doing he has so many questions, so many kind words, and then offers us each a cold bottle of water. He's the sort of earnest person who says sounds neat without a hint of irony, and we get the sense that he's about to offer us a place to stay for the night until he finds out we already have one lined up at the next town down the way.
We meet three more locals in the eight minutes that follow. They tell us about how it has rained so much here this year that they could only farm three days in June and just one so far. They try to figure out for us what the weather ahead will look like. And then, as if on cue, they wish us well on the rest of our journey.
Our experience in the last small town we'll see in Ohio couldn't have gone any other way. It was a state of great cycling roads and quaint small towns and wonderful weather, but what stood out above everything were all of the kind and generous people that we couldn't help but meet wherever we went. It wasn't just the offers of places to stay, but the curious questions, the concerns for our safety and well-being, the prayers, and the help with directions that we appreciated even though we knew well enough not to follow them. It was so sincere, so genuine, so good for the soul. It's how a happy, healthy society should feel. And of course there was the brief but intense evening we spent with the Amish family near Sugarcreek that stands above everything else. It was one of the most unexpected and rewarding things that has ever happened to me and I imagine that will always be true. That it came about in the first place still amazes me, but if it was going happen anywhere, it was going to happen in rural Ohio. It's just that kind of place.
Light rain guides us out of town. It's the type of rain that never falls very hard, but because we're out in it for an hour our jackets have soaked through by the time we hang a left and cross the unmarked line that marks the border with Indiana.
Soon we reach the small town of Monroeville. We walk into the diner, see that they serve breakfast all day, and make audible noises of happiness. In less than ten minutes we have laid out in front of us massive skillets with pancakes, toast, coffee, and a side of sausage just for Walter. We never expected to roll into Indiana in July feeling cold and wet, but the steaming mass of food and the cream pie that follows takes away any chance for complaint.
Monroeville puts us on the Northern Tier for the first time since upstate New York. People around here get what that means. Our waitress knows straight off that we're cyclists just by seeing our rain jackets. And moments after stepping out of the diner a truck stops in front of us with the passenger-side window rolled down.
"Are you stayin' the night?" the driver asks.
"Yeah, we are," I tell him.
"Okay, I'll head over and open everything up for ya."
He's talking about the community center over at the park, which the town lets traveling cyclists use for free. Because we're on the Northern Tier he assumes that's what we're doing, and he assumes we already know about the park. (We do.) It's a great example of the community that springs up along these routes, and that's the big reason why we chose to come this way.
The helpful guy in the truck is named Rich. He shows us around the community center, where cyclists can sleep inside on the floor and use the bathroom and shower, the washer and dryer, and the full kitchen. Northern Tier maps for Ohio and Indiana and Illinois are posted on the walls next to the June Curry Trail Angel Award given to Monroeville by the Adventure Cycling Association. And none of this is new. We look through a pair of guest books that date back to 1992. They're full not only of the names and destinations of more than a thousand riders, but with so many heartfelt words of gratitude. There are a lot of cycle-tourist names from recent years in the guest books that I recognize from journals I've read: Leo Woodland, Iain Cullen, Joy Santee, Jeff Lee, and Mike Riscica and the rest of Team Northern Tier. I add all three of our names and a modest note of thanks, but it's one of those times where nothing I write seems like it could say enough. To have been welcomed as neighbors by people we'll never know and who expect nothing in return builds in our hearts this good, warm, safe feeling that few other things in life can match.
A couple of minutes before seven a stream of older people pour through the doors. The clank of metal folding chairs soon echoes throughout the meeting hall as they set up for a meeting of a Homeowner's Association from somewhere in the area. For almost an hour they talk at length about critical things like the proper length of brick walls, bids for a curb construction project, and how some neighbor refuses to follow the bylaw that says your grass can't be any longer than six inches but whenever they talk to him about it he just laughs in their faces and walks away. There's a lot of confusion and repeating of stuff because a couple of old-timers decided not to put in their hearing aids today.
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When the clouds run out of rain in the late evening I walk the empty streets of town to the Whippy Dip and then back again to the sound of water drops falling onto the sidewalk from the leaves of the trees above. Not long after I finish my chocolate malt I click off the harsh fluorescent lights of the community building and fall asleep to the hum of a refrigerator with the room glowing a dull red from the pair of Exit signs that hang over the doors on the near wall.
Today's ride: 63 miles (101 km)
Total: 1,544 miles (2,485 km)
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