Day 66: Ripley, NY to Hamburg, NY 63 miles

We had a nice ride this morning. The area had lots of vineyards and green grass and trees. It actually looks alot like Oregon.

We are now about 10 miles from Buffalo, NY. We decided to try to avoid riding in that city so we will leave early tomorrow (Sunday) and make a straight shot up to our new route 5 to cross NY. The Adventure Cycling route goes through Buffalo to Niagra Falls. We saw Niagra Falls with our sons in 2001 on our USA RV trip so we know the chaos there and chose not to repeat on bikes.

The town we ended at was having a big downtown festival. That affected us by closed streets and crowds to walk our bikes through. Also the bike shop was closed and we wanted to get a spare tire. We did not think of it at the last shop.

We are due for a rest day but will wait for "the right spot".  Our destination tomorrow is Lockport, NY.

Day 65: Ashtabula, Ohio to Ripley, New York. 65 miles.

Today was one of our most difficult. We had a headwind all day.  We peddled almost 8 hrs!  The weather was cool (low 60s) which was good but also misty and some rain.

We rode through a small section of Pennsylvania so this was a 3 state day.  There were quite a few vineyards and wineries.

We rode/walked our bikes through downtown Erie, PA. They were having a bike event and lots of signs said "welcome bikers".  I felt very special until I realized it was a motorcycle event. They expected 100,000 bikers. Biking through town seemed like it took forever.

We finally reached our destination and it is very close to the lake.  A couple about our age toasted us with local wine. They also took the picture of us in front of the lake.

We will now head toward Buffalo where we will take Route 5 across the state.  We feel like we are getting close!

For those who wanted food reports we had grilled fish at the only bar/cafe here. It was good.  Other food for today was a breakfast sandwich at McD (only place open when we left), bagel and peanut butter snack; 2 second breakfast of oatmeal (Sharon) & eggs, hashbrowns, toast (Ron); shared Hoagie sandwich and baclava from a bakery on route.  I think we got our calories replaced.

Day 64: Euclid to Ashtabula, Ohio. 59 miles.

We left before the continental breakfast because the hotel was a "weak link".  The route was not easy for navigating, we had to make frequent short stops to see what turns were ahead.  The roads continued to be poor quality with lots of patches and cobblestone effect.  (The result was a ruined back tire for Sharon.)

Surprise! The drought is over. It rained on us for the last 10 miles.  It poured harder than the usual Oregon rain. We stopped under a tree and used one of our sleeping pads over us for protection. When it did not stop we put our rain coats on and continued.  We got directions for a direct route to the bike shop. 3 miles before we got there Sharon discovered her flat tire.  We were by a sheet metal shop. They let us change the tire inside their shop.  When we reached the bike shop we saw the tire had a sizable hole. Ron got his bike shifting problem fixed! The part had arrived via Fedex from Scotts Cycle in Salem.

We had planned to cycle more but since it was still raining we are staying here. Tomorrow we will cycle into Pennsylvania and possibly New York.

We bad breakfast in a tavern ( we had the choice of that or McDonalds).  An elderly man started a conversation. He used to enjoy riding but now has breathing problems. Some advise is avoid breakfast at taverns. . .but it still was better than the alternatives for us.  Lunch was at Wendys while our bikes were fixed. We did not want to go far in the rain. 

Even though we were wet we were still warm with the temp about 75.

Day 63: Huron to Euclid, Ohio. 67 miles.

Today we rode through Cleveland. Our route took us right by the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame.  We were right at 50 miles so we took a stop to visit and pay respect to Elvis, Ricky Nelson, etc. It has a lot of memorabilia and was interesting.

Our route was beside Lake Erie almost all day. The homes on the lake are huge and magnificent.  The weather was 80 before 9 am but it stayed about the same through the day. The humidity makes it very sultry.

We had several people give us special attention today. The first was a 77y/o man who stopped to talk with us. He had been making deliveries, he said and passed us 3 times.  He told us we are making good time.  When we told him where we are going he said he was jealous.   At the hall of fame some people took our picture!  Late in the day we were having an ice cream stop. A man saw my bike jersey and asked if we had ridden from Oregon.  He got out of his car and gave us high fives.  Then the ice cream shop man told us he rode from Astoria to East coast in 2006. He is a double heart valve surgery patient and was Cleveland Clinics first heart patient to ride cross country.

When we decided to look for a hotel it was a challenge. The roads were very patched and we probably rode 8 miles or more.  We will not have to backtrack all of that.

Tomorrow Rons bike should be fixed. The part was resent from Salem to a bike shop on tomorrows route. The town is Ashtabula. We do not know if we will stay there or not.

Thanks to those of you who are following us and praying for our safety.  All is well with us.

Day 62: Bowling Green to Huron, Ohio. 68 miles.

Another hot day so we started early.  We stopped only for fluid and snack breaks.  The route was small county roads with very little traffic and one 9 mile bikes only pathway.  We arrived here shortly after noon.

We walked a few blocks for a view (and pictures) of our first great lake, Lake Erie.  It looks more like an ocean than a lake. It is hot outside now so we retreated to our AC motel room.

Day 61: Paulding, Ohio to Bowling Green, Ohio. 67 miles.

We left at sunrise, 6:30 am.  Like yesterday the route was flat and we had a slight tailwind. We did not have the cool temperatures, however. It was 71 when we left and 95 when we got here about 1:30.

Most of the day we were riding beside the Mawmee river.  We had frozen gatoraid with us and sliced Indiana cantalope.  We stopped for lunch in Grand Rapids, Ohio. There was an ice cream shoppe/cafe. We ordered a light lunch (because we had been snacking) & our usual chocolate milkshake.  As we were waiting for our food a man saw our loaded bikes outside and came in with his two sons to chat. He had traveled cross country on bike when he was 17. He is hoping to tour again some day with his sons. I suggested one of my favorite authors: Joe Kurmanski who rides cross country with his three small sons. (He has written 3 books about bike touring, the first is "Iron Cowboy").  As he left he told us he had already paid for our lunch.  There really is a free lunch!

Day 60: Labash, Indiana to Paulding, Ohio. 95 miles

We were well rested, the weather was cooler, the route was flat and we had a slight tailwind. . .these all helped us to put in our longest day. We intended to stop in Monroeville but we were there by 1 pm and the pavilion where we were going to stay was reserved until 6 pm.  So we went 23 more miles and we have a nice room in an inn with 5 rooms.

We had breakfast at the cafe and were riding by 6:30 am.  The next spot for food was 45 miles, but it was closed because of Sunday. So we pulled out our peanut butter and bagels and had a picnic.  Not too much further we met David and Pata who are cycling from Mass. to Los Angeles.  They asked if there was food available in the town we just came from.  Because they did not have food with them we gave them bagels and peanut butter, cookies and granola bars. Espersens do not travel without food!  We also traded blog addresses.  It is fun to follow those we meet. 

We stopped at a grocery store for some fruit later in the day. The store employees were excited to hear about our trip.  They had been closed last week because they had no electricity (over usage related to the heat caused a lot of outages).  The manager offered to give us more fruit and really wanted to help us. We gave them our blog info and phone, etc. He said he was going to call us and tell us we are not going fast enough!

Our mileage total is over 2900.  We think we have a little more than 1000 miles more to go to Salem, Mass.