Monday, July 3. East Lake, OH to West Lake, OH--via Cleveland.
It didn't take long to get into Cleveland's suburbs this morning, and we soon found ourselves in the suburban, residential city of Euclid. We're still pretty close to Lake Erie--I can smell the water. At a service statin in Euclid, wee met Laura. Her car was in for service, and she just had to find out what our story was. An interesting and gregarious person, Laura became fascinated with the "where George" program. This website tracks US and Canadian currency, and allows you to find out where a particular bill has traveled. She gave us each a $1 bill, and asked us to register it on www.wheresgeorge.com so she could follow it when we spent it. She's had bills go to 40 different states, including Alaska and Hawaii. We'll try to spend ours in Colorado, since she thought that was one state she hadn't hit.
Back on the Coastal Trail, we could see the shoreline as we rode into Cleveland. As might be expected, the houses along the waterfront have been well-kept, nicely maintained domiciles. But Cleveland's lakeshore residences are huge, gated estates, and glimpses of the lake are few and far between. Oddly, the roads were in pretty rough shape, but since there was minimal traffic and two lanes, we were able to take the outsiide lane and thread our way around the potholes and poor patches. A church's marquee asked the question "Are you on the road to heaven or hell?". I figured that we must be on the road to hell, since it seemed to be paved with good intentions instead of asphalt. . .
Our route took us onto a bike path, through a city park and along the CLeveland waterfront and marina. The path ended at the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame, and as we locked up our bikes, noticed that the Cleveland Science Center was right next door. They have an IMAX theater, and we showing "Wired to Win"--a film about how our brains help us to learn physical tasks such as riding a bike, and also how the brain enables athletes to endure the physical and mental stresses of the world's most demanding sports event--the Tour de France. The film had some great footage of the 2004 race, and because it was IMAX, I felt like I was right there with 'em. Since we haven't been able to watch any of the tour yet, it was nice to get a small "fix".
While we were inside the Rock-n-Roll HoF, we met Courtney and Brandon, who were also doing a long-distance bicycle tour. They're with a group of about 30 riders on a 10-week trip from NH to Vancouver, BC. They're riding to raise funds for Habitat for Humanity in NH, but they'd stopped to see the HoF. Some things you just can't ride past.
By the time we got back on the road again, it was nearly 4pm and we still had about 20 miles to ride. We had originally planned to ride through the warehouse district, which is now a revitalized shopping area (much like the Pearl in Portland), but given the hour and the rain drops we were feeling, we decided to skip it. We climbed the Detroit-Superior Bridge across the Cuyahoga River, and again followed the lakeshore out of town. At the suburb of West Lake, we stopped for the night.
We could see from the map that Cedar Point Amusement Park and Resort wasn't far away, and what with their claim to have the world's largest ferris wheel as well as 12 roller coasters, we tried to see about visiting the park and resort. The reservations operator was so insistent that there was no possible way for us to arrive at the resort or enter the park on bicycles, though, that we have abandoned that plan. Although she didn't explicity mention it, apparently there is a moat around the island, infested with fire-breathing dragons who have it in for bicyclists. Perhaps they're just as frustrated as we are at not being able to catch any of the Tour de France coverage.
Anyway, it's Tuesday morning now, and we're waiting for enough of the rain bands to pass through so that we can get on our way. Our plan is to get at least to Huron today, about 40 miles down the road. Once this rain clears up, the forecast for the next 5 days looks pretty good. We have only had really hot weather when we were in the south, and lately the temps have stayed pretty moderate. We've had a lot of cloud coverage along with the rain, so that has also helped keep things relatively cool. I keep waiting for the temps to rise, because it seems really odd that it's July and we're not baking. But I guess the hot temps are waiting for us across the middle section of the country, on into July and August. I can hardly believe it's July--July seemed so far away when we started in April.
Happy Fourth!
1 comment:
No bikes at supposedly the best wooden roller coaster location in the country?? Too bad, I hear it is a good one. You should have gone for it.
So, I had a Matthew moment over the weekend (my first one ever). Remember our hero last week said he found the path to Stone Mountain from Midtown. I have vacation days to burn so I took Friday off so I could ride to Decatur to check out the first half of the ride. While on the concrete "path" (near the railroad track), I swerved to avoid some glass, then hisssss, thump, hissss, thump, damn, I hit some glass, now a flat. I luckily put $20 in my sock, but had no spare, no flat kit, but I had a pump (I have not it tried yet). So I walked a few blocked into town, talked to some nice firemen and they told me there is NO bike shop in downtown Decatur, NONE. What? The nearest shop is 1.5 miles away or, they suggest an ACE HW store, 4 blocks away. They all said, wow, nice bike, but no offer to drive me anywhere (I guess they are on duty). So I trod along to the ACE HW (a good old boys type of store) and I walk in to the store in my bike shorts and bright orange sleeveless shirt (with my bike). So I find a patch kit, and proceed to sit outside the store and repair my bike. I learned that you need to wait at least 5-10 minutes to let the rubber cement dry (because I had to fix it again 20 minutes later on the road back to town). I also learned that there are two parts to unscrew on the bike pump to get it to fit my valves properly. The ACE HW cashier had to dry out my $20 bill since it was soaked with feet sweat, sorry. She held it up against a fan near the cash register. I also learned that I need a small seat bag to store my stuff (since my other bag is on my other bike).
After I fixed my flat the second time, my hands were greasy (rear tire flat). Reminder, bring moist towelettes, yes girls at the Ruby Tuesday, they are really called that. Then I get to the railroad track, train, damn, now it stopped. Some people climbed over, I waited. One nice homeless gentleman tried to sell me bike lights and reflectors out of a large ziplock bag. He looks at my bike and all I can think it that he wants a ride (or my bike). He luckily moves on, the train starts about 10 minutes later, and I re-start my trip. Back home about 3 hours after my initial start. Total mileage was about 15.
Film at "11".
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