Foolish Mansion

• Back on the road. Not the nicest part of town. #
• Doughnuts and strawberries for breakfast. Leaving Ashtabula Ohio. #
• 200 feet from the coast and i cant even see it. #
• Bridge out. Detour to county highway. county maps are worth their weight in gold. #
• Rolling down hills with 50 degree slopes wouldn’t be surprised to find an extra bruise or two tomorrow. #
• Goodbye ohio. Hello Pennsylvania #
• The clouds on the horizon look like cotton candy #
• Stopping for a break after a long climb #
• Just went on a 10 mile scenic bike ride without our gear. Then we went body surfing in the huge waves. #
• Got to the camp grounds. Just trying to find the office. There is an amusement park across the street. #
• Rode 50 miles today. We are in Erie Pennsylvania now. Our camp site is on the beach facing the sunset. #

 

Erie, PA – No, it’s not raining, unless perspiration counts. I can’t seem to drink water fast enough on some riding days. Today was one of those days. This is why it is a “slogging” day.

 

This morning we broke camp at 8 am, after having cups of hot cider. Then we rode into town (Ashtabula, OH) where we bought milk, strawberries and doughnuts to eat in the park. After breakfast we took a wrong turn in Conneaut, OH. We wound up going headlong down a steep brick paved street straight out of my nightmares. It threatened to spill us out onto the highway at the bottom. I rode the whole way down on my brakes while Patrick careened gleefully, bouncing over the bricks and coming to a perfect heart-stopping halt at the bottom.

 

After riding for twenty miles, we stopped for a break at a park along the lake. There was a steep hill and the kids lay down and rolled down it just like the used to do when they were young. This hill, however, was much taller and steeper. Later, we stopped again for lunch and some internet time. I am trying to finish two distance learning classes, which just goes to show how truly crazy I am.

 

The break was good for my knee. My knee does not like hills or hard rides.

 

John called, just after we crossed over into PA. He asked, “What does Pennsylvania look like?

 

I answered, “Pretty much like Ohio looked about two miles back.”

 

We did see some differences after a few miles. There were miles of vineyards along the side of the road, and more hills began to make an unwelcome appearance. It got hotter as the day wore on. We stopped for a break and to refill our camel backs. Then it was back to heat and hills.

 

When we finally arrived in Sarah’s campground in Erie, PA, I walked over to check out our campsite. It was right on the shore. The waves were rolling in, and the sun was beginning to lower in the sky. It made an orange path across the water.

 

The kids were waiting for me to find the campsite. When I showed it to them they kicked off their shoes and began running around in the water and sand.

 

After setting up camp, the kids headed off to Presque Isle State Park (map) to see the lighthouses. I stayed behind to study. They were bored on the island, so for fun, they took a ten mile bike ride. This was at the end of a 50 mile day. With their gear all back at camp with me, they were free of the weight they had all been carrying. Joseph said they just flew along.

 

After they got back to camp, they played in the sand and water. I sat in the tent studying on the computer while looking out at the beach and the kids framed in the tent door. They laughed and screamed and made me sure that this trip was a good idea…even on a slogging day.

 

• Waking up at 830 feels amazing #
• Packing up camp. We are going to the beach today to rest! #
• This place is so much more beautiful during the day than at night #
• Swimming at the beach on our last day in Ohio! #
• Met yet another cyclist headed up to Maine! #
• The sky is decorated with ribbons of pink clouds as the sun begins to set #

 

Geneva-on-the-lake, OH I woke up in the motel covered with all the blankets and with the AC on full blast.  I was only semi awake but awake enough to notice that Patrick was sleeping on his face and on my side of the bed.  I pushed him over a little bit and went back to sleep.  This happened several times in the night and in the morning when everyone was awake I announced, “I will never be married.”

 

“Why?”  Everyone asked.

 

“Guys don’t know how to share a bed.”

 

“Well, look at what happened to the covers,” Mother pointed out and indeed, when I looked I was wrapped up, as warm and as comfy as a caterpillar in all the blankets on the bed, leaving Pat to the Arctic temperatures of the AC.  I shrugged it off and we all went down to have breakfast.  As we passed through the breakfast room I noticed that the sugary cereals a, muffins ad orange juice were disappearing with alarming swiftness.

 

When we left we continued riding our bikes past million dollar houses and gardens with so many geometric shapes it was dizzying.  And getting dizzy was not an option on that street. While the houses and gardens were perfect in their own way, the roads sucked.  Every inch was riddled with pot holes, rifts in the concrete and, sometimes, broken glass.  Based on the condition my bike was in, the color and how alert I had to be riding down the street, I decided to name my bike the Millennium Falcon, after Han Solo’s famous ship in Star Wars

 

The road was so bad my bike started to squeak for a reason still unidentified.  I just kept riding.

 

When we came upon a bike path we were happy.  It would be smooth sailing for a couple more miles. But this was not to be so.  When the path was made they didn’t seem to have road bikes in mind.  It was an off-roading trail, for joggers or hikers.  From three feet wide the path turned into only about 18 inches wide. Tree branches reached out to snag our saddlebags.  Sand and mud began to coat our wheels and clog up the brake pads.  It made no one happy, especially when we hit the beach and soft sand began to fly.  I got off my bike and decided to walk it, I think I heard Joe swearing under his breath at the roads but that might have just been me.

 

We had to stop and clean up the brake pads and take pictures. The park we had just entered was right on Lake Erie.  When we finally hit the city broken beer bottles became a prominent problem.  While everyone else looked at the houses I spent more time trying to keep my bike rideable by avoiding more pot holes. We all seemed to be in a general good mood.  We crossed a large bridge and the old houses became massive sky scrapers. On one building there was a large statue of a woman, sans arms and clothes.  We took a few pictures and laughed and continued.

 

After a few heart stopping minutes of riding through downtown streets with fast moving cars, we went past a massive football stadium.  We didn’t stop to take pictures of the stadium. A block later we passed a statue.  I didn’t know what to think. It was one commemorating fire fighters who had died in action.

 

The statue was of a wall of flame, painted to look like glass with three tongues of flame bending over two firefighters, in full gear.  The firefighters were crouched under the flames, holding a hose that was throwing water at the curtain of fire.  Around the base of the statue were the names of Cleveland firefighters who had died in the line of duty.

 

“Robert would have a cow,” said Mother.  We all nodded in consent and took pictures. Hopefully Papa will have them up and you can see them.

 

A few seconds later we saw yet another landmark of Cleveland, the U.S.S. Cod, (named after the fish.)  Mary, who was in front, peeled to the left towards the submarine, Pat followed and so did the rest of us.

 

“Wow.”

 

“Can we go see it?”

 

“Awesome!”

 

We moved to the left side of the road and began to take pictures from behind the chain link fence.

 

A man, from the original crew of the U.S.S. Cod, came up to the fence and said, “If you want to come inside the fence I’ll let you take pictures.”  We moved our bike to the outside of the fence until he motioned for us to move them to the fence.

 

He asked about the bikes so Mother told him.  The man was stunned, and began asking questions  while I stood staring at a piece of history.

 

(If you know me at all you know I like three things, Music, Writing and History.  Seeing this submarine sent my mental librarian scuttling to the back room marked WW2 and pulling open the hundreds of filing cabinets full of information and sent it up the tip of my tongue.  I still need to up-grade to computers.)

 

I was full to bursting with tons of facts when the man said, “What you are doing is fantastic. , in fact, you guys can have a free tour.”  I bounded to the periscope which had been set up outside in the grass with metal bars holding it up. I nearly knocked Joe down in my eagerness to look through it.  I went to read the plaque in front of a massive propeller set up on the grasss(it was not the one belonging to the Cod). Then up the gang way I went with Joe close behind

 

A few boys were playing on the Flack Cannon also known as an Anti-aircraft gun.   I stared straight down the barrel hardly noticing when mother came up beside me. Needing someone to ‘lecture’, I began to explain how it worked and how it was used.

 

Joe and I bounded down the forward hatch with lots of pictures.  I was close to squealing with delight when I saw the torpedo room.  We moved quickly through the ship, snapping pictures of everything. When we exited the ship the men from the crew wanted our pictures for their website and we wanted pictures of them for Foolish Mansion.  We were about to leave when our host came out of the small building with a magnet that he handed to me, saying, “Here, for the history buff.”

 

I smiled hugely and then he gave Patrick a brochure for the ship.

 

“Hey, the curator’s gone, let’s put a bike on the sub, one with the least amount of luggage,” he said. (Not a direct quote but close enough)  We argued over who would get to go.

 

Patrick really wanted to go on the submarine.  “Well I know a lot about WWII too,” he said.

 

Since my bike had the least amount of luggage I got to wheel my bike onto the deck. They told me to stop under the scoreboard, where the number of the boat and the kill list were painted.  The men and Mary took pictures and I went to the front and turned around to get to the gangplank.  One of the guys helped me get my bike down and said, “The curator is going to have a cow.”

 

I shrugged and we left, with lots of good byes, waves and pictures.

 

This was just the beginning of the day, even if it was the best part. We met lots of people on the way and rode 62 miles to camp. It had been a great day.