Bike For the Rest Day

Ah, well, where shall I begin? It's been a while and so many things have happened since Washington, PA. Maya and I had taken a half day, but as soon as we left the Washington Public Library we zipped right over the rest of the Pennsylvannia hills over into West Virginia. Seeing as it was already 6 'o clock at the 30 mile marker, we went up someone's long gravel driveway and got permission from a man (Jim?) to stay on the lawn near the road.

Soon there after, Kathy, Jim's wife, came blazing down the gravel path on an ATV to meet us, their golden retriever bounding alongside. Kathy unlocked the little house that stood on the edge of their property and brought us some towels so that we could shower and use the bathroom. This enabled us to go to bed clean and make tea in the morning! Thanks Kathy and Jim! Hope you got our note and our blog site. We really appreciate you letting us stay at your place.
This is us crossing the PA/W.VA Border. Very exciting moment because it felt like we have been in PA forever. And lucky for us, the part of West Virginia we were going through was really skinny, so we got to cross another state line the very next day! Through Wheeling, we peddled on to Ohio, our 5th state. Though Eastern Ohio still has plenty of hills, the landscape was definitely starting to change (we prayed for flatland). After a long hot day of rolling hills with little shade (Ohio is not as shady as PA), we came across a Rail-to-Trail: The Conotton Trail off of 151 West. It took us all the way to Bowerston. As soon as we got off the trail we began to survey people's yards, which one might be a good place to pitch our tent.

Just then, a man and his wife pulled up to the stop sign and asked us if we might need any help. After explaining our situation, Larry and Bev, invited us over and gave us directions to their house. They were extremely friendly and made it clear that we were to make ourselves welcome. Showers, Soda's, a hot meal, and some T.V. later, Maya and I were fully relaxed. It was hard to get up off the rug in their living room, but we had practically consumed two dinners in one sitting and needed to get to sleep.

Larry, Bev, and Family: You guys are great! I love the bike collection and I am grateful to have met you that day on the road!

More biking! We went to Dover, Ohio to have snacks and tea. Maya took a real spill on her bike. Pulling up onto the curve to get some directions, in slow motion Maya toppled over and scratched up her knee. It's OK - we got out the neosporin and patched her up real fast. Another biker coming our way stopped to chat. Dave is 71 years old and had brain surgery last month. You would have never of guessed either one of those things because he's one of the sharper tools in the shed and is a great cyclist.

Dave took us over the a nice big park and told us about his life. He also gave us a few tips: the next place he took us was the Warther Museum: http://www.warthers.com/

WOW! Ernest Warther = Genius. Seriously, check out this site and see what this man has done. Also, if you are ever in Dover, Ohio, please please please go to this place. Inspirational. Plus, his wife collected buttons and made super awesome patterns with them, which are also great to look at. It'll blow you away.

After leaving the museum, we passed Breitenbach. A lot of the names out here are German, by the way. http://www.breitenbachwine.com/ I made Maya stop at this great big shingle-roofed, purple building to do some wine tasting. Ice Wine. Deeelicious! They had a meat and cheese counter as well where we sampled practically everything they had. We chose to take a pound of the beef sticks, they taste just like LandJaeger (german version, basically the same thing) that we had when we were kids.



We went all kinds of out of the way to avoid the highway and ended up on some steep gravely roads. Don't ask me how it happened, but there was no GPS or Map that was going to stop us from finding, or loosing our path. It was a bit terrifying, zooming down the hill, rocks flying in all directions, trying to hold on for my life, but realizing that I should really just let go of the handle bars to avoid all the fish-tailing. Getting back onto asphalt and coming back onto a main road, Maya and I pulled over on a lawn for a rejuvenating snack and a nap (calm the nerves).


Oh, almost forgot: Early in the day at a [red] traffic light, a curious driver started asking Maya questions about what we were doing. As the light turned green, he hastily asked if he could give us $20. He pressed the bill into her hand and sped off. Thank you random man for the donation, it is greatly appreciated and we are happy that you can contribute to our journey.

As it got later in the day we were going by an Amish shop that boasted freshly baked bread. Bread has often been the topic of conversation (have I mentioned this already?) I am sorry, USA, but you just don't do bread like Germany or the NYC Farmer's Market (MM, Kalamata Olive!!!), and it just isn't as good. So, intrigued, we went to pick up a few things at the store and try the bread. Though the bread we bought still lacked anything resembling a real crust, it turned out to be yeasty, squishy, and very tastey. Especially when combined with Beef sticks or walnut chocolate icing.

The Amish man, Valentine, who owned the store ended up inviting us to stay in his yard. YAY! Him and his family were awesome. We got to shower, AGAIN (woo, showering streak! so fresh and soooo clean), and we were also given home made Cinnamonbuns!! After dinner in the yard, the wind picked up real fast. Valentine said that if the weather got really bad we could take our things into the office room separate from the house because there was space in there to sleep on the floor. Well, the weather wasn't just bad, it was horrible. And scary. Maya and I grabbed the tent (already set up with stuff in it) and pulled it through the door into the office. Wind, lightening, thunder, loud, purple, gray, leaves, branches, horses getting spooked- that kind of storm. Pretty intense...happy not to be In Tents (margie, you get it). To make the evening even crazier, we were awoken in the middle of the night. Valentine told us that his daughter had had a miscarriage and that the ambulance was there. We're sending our best wishes and good energy their way, they were a great family to have met and we hope they are doing well.
This is a photo of the office we stayed in.


June 14th: We left Baltic, OH (Amish Fam we stayed with) and headed towards Mt. Hope. It felt like a slow morning, mainly due to the downpore of rain. However, once in Mt. Hope, the pace picked up- Amish people everywhere, but also just regular people, too. A horse auction was happening so the town was bustling. A tip we received from Valentine's wife, Sara: We went to the Mt. Hope furniture store and got FREE strawberry pie with whipped cream AND ice cream! Amazing. Oh AND coffee! We planned to get to Wooster and take a rest day, so with some serious motivation we got back on the bikes and kept going instead of sticking around for more pie.
Maya and I did enjoy more icecream outside of Wooster. Great pit stop when the sun finally came out. Met some other cyclists involved with GOBA: Great Ohio Bike Adventure.

Wooster was wonderful. The Library is new and modern and beautiful. We also happened to arrive on the day of Javapalooza. Local Independent bands were playing later in the evening which was the perfect excuse to sit around, drink beer, and people watch. We did finally get around to dancing.