With no breakfast we hit the trail at 5:30 this morning. We had a long day ahead of us, so an early
start was necessary. What we failed to
factor in was the impact of last night’s severe thunderstorm. We had 20 miles of downed branches and trees.
We cleared paths, cycled around the debris, or lugged our bikes over it. Our
first hour on the trail was in the dark, making navigation a challenge and all
our clean-up stops were met by hungry mosquitoes.
We had one detour that required us to get off the
trail and climb a “mountain” to get around the closed area. We survived the climb and stopped at
Starbucks for some cold water. Burt, the
barista, filled our bottles with ice and cold water. It was wonderful. While Burt was filling our bottles a little
boy, in line with his mother, kept asking questions about Jeff. He wanted to
know what was on his arms (sun sleeves), on his hands (gloves), and on his head
(helmet with sun shade). Mom kept trying to quiet the boy, but Jeff gladly
answered all his questions.
By mid-morning the trail was packed. Many passing cyclists slowed to ask about our
journey. We did have a pleasant surprise
when we cycled into the town of Loveland,
OH. It appears that the town decided to
capitalize on the trail and allow development; restaurants, shops, and picnic
areas line the trail. Just off the trail
we saw lots more interesting businesses.
It was no wonder that the trail and town were full of people.
When we got into Cincinnati’s
metropolitan area we had about 10 miles of urban cycling. While the traffic was ok, the roads were in
poor condition making the day’s end even more challenging. At our hotel Joe
looked at the temperature on his phone and saw that the feels like temperature
was 111 degrees. For dinner we walked to the Taste of Belgium, a Triple D
restaurant. While the food was good we
are not sure it was worth the walk in the heat.
Pictures
Map
Map Total South-Bound Trip
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