HavengaBikeRide

   Another beautiful day. We rode another section of remaining towpath for about 8 miles along the Maumee River which had a nice hard-packed surface. We were often in the woods but also had many views of the river.      In Defiance, we turned southwest following the Auglaize River, a branch of the Maumee. Then after we turned westward roughly following Flat Rock Creek, we passed a farm with a sign “cheese for sale.” Thankfully a woman was getting their mail so we asked about the cheese. Even though their farm store wasn’t officially open, she was more than happy let us into it and sell us some cheese. We found out that some children’s furniture in the store for customer’s children to play with had been made by her uncle 47 years ago. Also they made their cheese from grass-fed Normandy dairy cows, although they have started adding some Jersey’s. Our route roughly followed Flat Rock Creek to Paulding, county seat of the county with the same nam...

  .    We slept well in spite of the extremely soft mattress, but around 5:30 just after Jim got up to use the restroom, he heard a rustling sound that seemed to be in our room.  He immediately was worried about a mouse getting into our food, but never did figure it out.      We got a very reasonable start and had a mild tailwind as we headed south towards Toledo.  We had pleasant riding on low-traffic back roads for the most part before the Ohio border, but never very far from I-75 so often could see it and more often hear it.  We also crossed a set of 3 railroad tracks numerous times as we wended our way south, but didn’t see a train.  We passed a local bicyclist, who mentioned that it was a good area for seeing egrets and sure enough, there were 2 great white egrets in the marshes right there!  We saw several others along with some great blue herons during the day.     In Toledo, we joined US Bicycle Hwys 25 and 30. ...

     We were getting ready to leave and Jim was trying to put the panniers on the front of his bike. Even though he had made the slots on the replacement rack the same as he had made on the original one, the bolts that attached it to the frame were slightly different. So he had to work for about 20-30 minutes to make those slots a little bit longer for the panniers to fit on the rack. So it was close to 10:00 by the time he got done and we were on our way.    .      When we planned the routes, the app had taken us into the neighborhood almost immediately after exiting a bikeway. This was a way we had never used by car. Today, the app took us out of the neighborhood a familiar way but we would be on a busy road longer. So Kay suggested we take the same way as we had come into the neighborhood when we arrived. As we wound around on the streets, we came to a corner where we were unsure which way to go. Kay said she was stopping but Jim ...

    We awoke to drizzle but the rain had pretty much stopped when we left at 7:00 a.m. Although our destination was southwest of us, our biking app and advice from locals had recommended that we travel north to pick up a series of rail trails and other paths to take us through the southeastern Michigan metro area. This we decided to do even though it added about 14 miles to a day which was already on the long side. Some of the approximately 15 plus miles we took to get to the rail trail were less than ideal, even on a Saturday morning. However once on the paved Macomb Orchard Trail, it was very nice riding and we had a fun time spinning along. The beginning of the trail and the trail shelters had a barn theme and there was even a barn “covered bridge” to go through as we crossed over a highway! .        Shelter along the Macomb Orchard Trail.     Near Rochester, the rail trail changed names to the Clinton River Trail. Thanks to the...

    Yesterday when we checked the weather it was supposed to be a dry night but it it did sprinkle just a little bit. We were thankful that it wasn't raining as we ate breakfast and packed up.   From this area along Lake Erie there were a number of diagonal roads running SE to NW, which was the way we wanted to go to head toward the ferry to Michigan. Even though we were gaining elevation as we headed away from the lakeshore, the miles flew by, helped by a tailwind. We averaged 12.0 miles an hour moving time for the first 30 miles which is fast for us, before we turned off a busier road onto a quiet gravel road along the Sydenham River, which we followed to Wallaceburg.   Earlier, we stopped at a restaurant/small country market that may have been run by Mennonites, and had some marvelous ice cream and bought some raspberry streusel muffins and a package of locally-made stroopwafels for later.     We rode through productive farmland. Corn and soybeans...

Last night we stayed up late trying to figure out plans for the next few days and things weren't falling into place well. We were looking at trying to go from St Thomas directly towards the ferry to Algonac, Michigan but all the bike routing programs directed us back down to the lakeshore first. Also there didn’t seem to be many places to stay going directly. So we decided to go to Rondeau Provincial Park. The biking app route was about 60 miles. But we cut it down to about 55 miles by taking a little bit busier roads which actually weren't that busy. It was amazing in that it seemed like the whole day was a little bit downhill, as we really moved along for us and we got to the park a little bit after four which is almost a record for us in getting to our destination. About a third of the way in our journey today we hadn’t seen a good place to stop for a break until we got to a little restaurant/convenience store/gas station. Often in such places you have to be a customer...

   We find part of the fun of camping is meeting people you didn't know before. Last night we met Wrigley the dog and her family. This morning we went over to her at the back of our campsite; she was still very timid but let us pet her. A little bit after this, Julia, the owner, gave us some zucchini bread which tasted very good. Last night we also met someone who had done a little bit of bicycle touring and invited us to stop by his campsite. Unfortunately he wasn’t there when we stopped by, but as we left this morning we stopped by again and were able to talk for a few minutes. We also came along the front of Wrigley’s campsite specifically so that we could say hi to her and pet her with our bicycles along, so that she wouldn’t think of them as scary.     Another beautiful day of bicycling, not windy, and many fun farms to see, with a variety of crops. We saw a large field of cucumbers being harvested. A machine moved VERY slowly through the field while...

     We were tired from the day before so slept in and didn’t get up until a little bit after seven. We had a great breakfast with our friends and talked about photos and camping and faith. Then we got all ready to leave and as Kay started to wheel her bike out, discovered that the front tire was flat. It was leaking from an old patch so decided to use the new innertube we had along instead of trying to patch over the patch. As we left town we stopped at a local bike shop then Canadian Tire; they both had the right size innertube but without the right valve stem. So we are hoping for no more flats or for flats that we can least fix with patches without needing a new tube.    As we left town, we even got to ride along the Grand River! (Jim grew up near the Grand River in Michigan.)    Today was a wonderful day to ride. The temperature was nice. The wind was in our face, but was pretty quiet so we hardly noticed it. The roads were low traffic and it ...