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Monday, July 31, 2000
Today we left Katie and John’s house for the rest of our cross-country adventure. We rode our bicycle from Tipp City, OH to Wilmington, OH, a distance of 77 miles. When we started the ride, the sky looked like it was going to rain at any time. It wasn’t until 2:00 PM that the sky began to clear up and the sun began to shine. I would have been much happier to have only gone 50 miles but the problem of going from motel to motel meant that we had to travel 77 miles. In the first hour we only got lost twice. Only once did it add extra miles to our day. In the first 30 miles we got lost a total of 4 times including the two in the first hour. We keep missing turns.
At Yellow Springs, OH we found the Little Miami Scenic Trail, a paved bicycle trail that runs north and south. We stayed on this bicycle trail until we reached Ohio highway 350, a distance of about 30 miles. It was very pleasant riding this bicycle trail. It is built on an abandoned railroad right-of-way so it was almost totally flat. While we were on the bicycle trail we were riding against a 10 mph head wind and still going 16 miles per hour. The bicycle trail ran along the Little Miami River for much of its length.
At Yellow Springs and Xenia, OH they have restored the railroad depots. However, at Xenia it appears that the railroad tracks must have gone right down the center of the main street. The bike path disappears at both ends of Main Street and you end up riding on the sidewalk on either side of the street. If you ride on the east side of the street and are not careful, when you get to the south end of the town you can very easily lose the bicycle path. You guessed right! We lost the bicycle path. We only missed it for about 50 yards when we stopped at a handy bicycle shop and they told us where it was. We got back on the bicycle path and rode to the Xenia depot. At the depot there were two different bicycle paths and you guessed right again, we started on the wrong one. We caught ourselves before we had gone 50 yards and got back onto the right bicycle trail. I am the navigator but after today I think that Mary Kay should replace me. South of Xenia, we saw a covered bridge from the bike path. Another problem today, was that highway 350 had to climb to the top of the Little Miami River Valley and the road was so steep and we were so tired that we had to walk the bicycle up a climb of over 300 feet.
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