August 30
Lame sack breakfast at the hotel. A few navigation mishaps, but still made the 25 miles to Niagara Falls in good time. We were awestruck by the falls and spent a long time walking around the park and taking pictures. The mist felt great! Definitely wished we had stayed nearby so we could have done some of the up close tours, but we still enjoyed ourselves immensely.
Tried our first (and last) Tim Horton chain restaurant after a construction detour of about 5 miles. Yuck (other than the donut holes). The remainder of the 51 miles were roads with good shoulders and then our first few miles on the Eerie Canal Trail. Up a hill to our hotel, then meh dinner at another Mexican restaurant before crashing.
August 29
Breakfast at the Main Diner in Westfield before heading back to Highway 5 and our East/NorthEast journey along Lake Eerie. We stopped for snacks (peanut butter crackers and Body Armor Lyte) a few times but otherwise powered on so as not to waste our tailwind friend which got stronger as we got closer to Buffalo. We were on a good urban trail that was closed in a few places, but the forced detours led us to a farmer’s market and art along the waterfront. Since we arrived around 1, we stopped for a beer and nachos before finding our roost in the middle of the city. Not sure if we (okay I) will be able to stay up late enough to watch the Sounders, but tomorrow is a short, easy day by design. We will get to the start of the Eerie Canal Trail, but not before stopping at Niagara Falls! We also will want to time our start dependent on weather…
August 28
WiFi sucks here so will fix photos tomorrow night in Buffalo…
Today we had a great breakfast at the B&B with Rolly before getting on the road around 8:45. It was already hot, although thankfully cloudy. After a short jaunt on 20, we spent the rest of the day on Highway 5, close to the Eerie “coast” but not close enough you could see it all the time. Thankfully the highway is pretty bike friendly here – decent to great shoulders and not many big trucks. We were actually paralleling I-90 most of the way.
Best roadside attractions today were several groups of Amish in-line skaters heading west and many vegetable/fruit stands. We stopped and bought a delicious peach at one of them! Only real downside was continued heat and humidity. We talked to one bicyclist on the Eerie, PA waterfront (they must have a frog mascot) and then made it to Westfield by 2 PM, our usual finishing time.
Dinner at the Bark Grill was excellent (eggplant parmesan and shrimp diablo linguini) and then we stopped for a beer at Grace and Abe where we caught some more live, local music. A sculpture of Grace and Abe (Lincoln) outside explained how a young Grace Beddell wrote to President Abe encouraging him to grow distinguished whiskers…
August 27
Longer day today (71 miles), almost all on roads sadly. Late start because the hotel’s cook was a half hour late. Hot and humid but no predicted rain. Stopped in Geneva on the Lake (super cute town) for grilled cheese and lemonade and still made it to Conneaut (Con-ee-ott) by 2:30. Beautiful B&B (200 year old house). Then walked 2 miles (yes, 4 miles round-trip only because no Uber available 😉 to dinner at Sparky’s. Great burgers (spicy black bean for me) and beer with live music on the patio. Stopped at Heavenly Creamery on the way back (because who wouldn’t?!) and shared a brownie brownie milkshake with whipped cream and caramel sauce). Very fixated on good food today… Last night in Ohio!
August 26
Ohio has lovely trails! We worked our way back over to the Ohio to Eerie trail and followed that for all but the first 10 and the last 12 of 63 miles to Beachwood, outside Cleveland. The trail was mostly paved, sometimes crushed limestone, and generally flat and shaded. We saw a lot more people on this trail as it had quite a few trailheads including one that sold fantastic ice cream (caramel fudge brownie vanilla bean). We also saw heron, lots of ducks and geese, and one snapping turtle! Once we left the trail, we encountered a few hills in the humid head (93 degrees max) before arriving at our hotel just before an afternoon rain. More rain predicted for tomorrow but they seem to be short storms at least, so hopefully we’ll be fine!
Great Mexican dinner tonight and a beer at the Winking Lizard Tavern. Ready to call it a night!
August 25
Excellent start to our day with omelets, bagels, and odd-shaped grapes, then six miles to Kenyon College where we had a short visit with Olive who starts her freshman year tomorrow! What an honor. She seems right at home there already and eager to get started.
We continued on the Kokosing Gap Trail which led to the Holmes County Trail for most of the day. Last 15 miles were on roads, spent trying to stay ahead of the pending storms they predicted at 2 PM. But they came early… Completely drenched, riding through rivers on roads, with winds that picked up and had me looking over our shoulders for funnel clouds! Made it to our destination, although we had to order delivery pizza for dinner since the nearest restaurants were a mile away. Hoping for better weather tomorrow as we make our way north to Lake Erie.
August 24
Today was a little tougher. Hotel breakfast and not on the road until 8:20 when it was already starting to heat up. We thought we would be on trail today, but it was sadly not to be. We did reroute past some busy highway to some much nicer country roads, but added a little mileage that way. We didn’t hit any real length of trail until the last 15 miles, although it was wonderful when we did – nice and shady and mostly downhill – just what we needed as we drained our last water bottles and the heat was kicking in (max 95 degrees).
We found a sculpture park (Ariel-Foundation Park) in Mount Vernon just as we arrived, so we had to tour that naturally. Then we found a bar with outside seating and had a cold water and a beer before rolling into our homestead for the night. Looking forward to a nicer dinner tonight in town and a better breakfast in the morning!
Breit Bikes 