THE Ohio State - day 1

Our last night in Indiana had temperatures in the 50’s, so good sleeping weather.  Joe started out by 7 am again today and had a good ride.  He said that this ride was the flattest of the entire trip. Thank God, because he had a constant 12 mile an hour east wind.  But the elevation was flat, so that was a big bonus. 

The last town I passed in Indiana was St. Joe, which I thought was very fitting.  It was hard to tell when we crossed the border between states.  There are still cornfields, but not as many as we saw in Iowa.  Joe and I both came through Hicksville, Ohio and that is when we knew we were in another state.  We are really loving the names of the towns.   Joe stopped at Tim Hortons’ in Defiance, OH for a break (2^nd breakfast) and got himself a coffee and a couple donut holes. He even saved one for me!  (It was delicious).  He chatted with 2 couples while he was there, and he spoke with them about his bike and RV journey so far.  They told him that New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine are going to be wonderful places for us to travel.  And we can’t wait!   

I passed Joe about 5 miles from our stop for the evening and waited for him at campground parking lot.  I still love watching Neptune and I know exactly when he spots Joe because his tail starts a slow wag and then really gets going.  We are staying at a campsite at Mary Jane Thurston State Park on the Maumee River.  It is a 105-acre Ohio state park named after Mary Jane Thurston, a schoolteacher from Grand Rapids, OH. According to Google, she donated the initial 14 acres of her land in 1928 to establish a park.  This is one of our favorite sites so far.  We are right along the Maumee River and can see the birds fishing on the river and the butterflies in the wildflowers behind our camper. The park also has many tent sites available for biker, hiker and driver alike.  

We were able to take a nice walk along the river this afternoon and saw the cormorants and sea gulls.  And a person fishing in the middle of the river.  We also saw some turtles sunning themselves and we startled a river snake and watched him slither back into the river. We took a walk into Grand Rapids, OH.  This town is on the Northern Tier Bike Trail, so they are familiar with long distance bikers.  There are a lot of interesting shops and walking areas. They have fun sculptures, gardens, other curious things that we got a kick out of. Neptune was outwitted by a city squirrel who took the power line route, instead of the ground/tree route Neptune is more used to.  This is a town that will be fun to visit again in the future when we have more time.   Many of the businesses were closed on Monday, but we can see that the weekends and other days of the week are probably very busy here.  Besides checking out the town, there are a lot of water activities, including fishing, and they have rental places for kayaks, etc. The state park marina, where I checked in, had a lot of boats docked for the week.  Including the tiki barge, which we loved, of course.

I traveled with our crockpot dinner, and we are enjoyed a quiet afternoon with beautiful scenery and then a good meal before bed. Joe’s tire needed repairing again which is frustrating, but better to fix it here than having a surprise on the road. It’s a bit hazy with some humidity today, but it looks like tomorrow’s ride should be nice temps and an east wind of only 3-8 mph.

We forget where we were yesterday and last week.  We appreciate you reading our blog and letting us document our adventures, successes and mishaps with you.  We love to read your comments and love your continued support of this adventure.  We can’t believe we’ve been doing this almost 2 months now.  Thank you for helping us along!