Day 39 Sandusky to Burton

Day 39 Sandusky to Burton

Essence - All the People we meet.

Getting up is not nearly as hard as I thought it would considering how late we were up, being out at the amusements park and all.

David Lambert and I are man the Breakfast table, since the rest of our team covered lunch making last night and allowed us to go to Cedar Point. So the we get off to a later start. Stephen asks to ride, which catches me as strangely polite.

We are all so used to riding with each other that we often just assume we are riding with one another. To be asked, and thus show the respect of personal space catches me off-guard but is actually quite appreciated.

Rolling out we also catch up with Bob Dumke and Jodi and cruise along Lake Erie. The ride along the lake is beautiful. It is smooth and flat so it feels good to our legs and only one row of shireside houses separates us from the lake. By and large the houses/ cottages are nice, but aren't magnificent mansions. Just nice weekend getaway type places.

Finally we get a view to take pictures.



Stephen, taking a picture on the bluff.

Continuing on, we have plans to go to the CLevelenad Indians baseball game and our pace is good so we stop for a coffee and a treat. WE happen to stop at Granny Joe's Read the Picture for an explanation.





Granny Joe's "Creamatorium with ice cream good enough to die for", just makes me laugh. I think this is my favorite establishment so far. Itis too early in the day for me to indulge, but I love the puns.

Sitting on the porch of the Creamatorium we meet a wonderful family who ask lots of questions of our adventure. Again, i am glad to have been forced to slow down and take time to visit with some locals. Jsut as we are ready to leave, Jo comes bakc with a report that the mayor and a welcoming group are at the next block to cheer on one of their sons who is also riding across the country but for another organization. He is part of the Pi Kappa Fraternity's Ride for Hope from San Francisco to D.C.

As our two rides converge on the same route here in Harbour, OH the overall support for all the riders of both groups is truly amazing. All the friends and families know what all the riders have gone through regardless of which group and the sharing of water stops and support to form one larger community is so inspiring.



After mingling a few minutes and waiting to cheer on their riders, we are back on our road.

At this huge Easter Basket,



Steve determines he needs to stop fnad take a picture of it for Pollie. As I turn around to stop and take a picture I clip out on the wrong side and wind up falling over on my bike. Fortunately I lnad on the grass and just layout and play it off as if I were just taking a bit of a nap. ... Yeah right. Steve and Bob don't buy it and Steve actually has the picutre of this less that graceful ending. Hey you need to fall over, every now and again just to keep the humility level up.

Finally we get to Cleveland and are stil on time for our ball game. Cleveland is a our first Big City since... since I don't remember. Probably since Billings.

The roads are terrible. Totally potholed and rutted. We have to ride in the center lane of traffic because the curb lane is unridable.




A few pictures from the bridge and we head right for the game, where we meet a great security guard. All the other security folks said there was nowhere to park bikes except some bike racks. Knowing they had a stadium, I knew they had some space somewhere. And then we met Aaron who understood our situation and came up with a solution.



And viola!!! we had secure bike parking at the game. Thanks Aaron.



In the game we have a blast and are a bit of a tourist attraction.




We chat with all the folks around us and cheer for the home team.



Lots of people want to know about our trip and this family even buys some drinks. What awesome people.



I even catch a nap during a few innings, which Steve gets a picture of. All part of the Baseball experience, right?

After the game we head out and the real fun begins. See the next post for the storm story.

A thunderstorm has crept up on us and as we are leaving it starts to sprinkle super sized rain drops.


See the Raindrops? They are the streaks in the picture. Huge, huh?

We take shelter under these Air show planes. As you can see the raindrops are big enough to leaves streaks in the picture. We think it lets up after a few minutes, and so we ride on. We shortly realize how wrong we are. I call uncle and head towards a bathroom shelter that is at a Lake Shore Park. No one else sees it through the rain and thinking that I am crazy they ride on another few hundred yards nad then are eventually stopped themselves.

At this point I am soaked to the bone, shivering and taking refuge in the bathroom. The wind is whipping and I am cold but I am at least not in the rain anymore. Standing there shivering and trying to figure out what to do, I watch the wind blow whirlpools in the deepening puddles outside. While this bathroom is great temporary shelter, it will not do for long term/possible overnight accomodations. Some guy runs in to use the bathroom and we chat for a minute when he is done. He is Bob and he just got out of hte baseball game and was going go fishing with his partner Matt. They are painters and are having a bit of an afternoon off. Now that the weather has changed, their plans are changing. Since they have a van, I bum a lift from them to a Motel 6 or a convenience sotre or anywhere other than this bathroom on the shores of a very mad Lake Erie. I tell them where I am going and Bob actually knows exactly where to go, since he lives across the street. So with my bike in the back and a paint bucket to sit on, and a drop cloth as a towel, Bob and Matt rescue me and around what winds up being a record breaking storm in Cleveland.

The storm winds up dumping 4.75" of rain in 90 minutes centered right where we were riding and as I get a ride around the the flooding we encounter up to 6" of running water on the freeway and in the streets. Between the hazards of high winds, filled or covered up potholes and erractic drivers there was no way we could have ridden through this storm.

As it turned out though, Bob and Matt did know exactly where my next road was and dropped me off at a hotel lobby that was great spot to dryout and reorient myself and come up with a plan of action.

From here the storm had mostly passed and after regrouping and leaving the phone messages with my fellow riders that I was separated but okay, I headed out to tackle the last 20 miles of riding.

I only made it 50 yards when I realized I was still unprepared. At the convenience store, I was shivering so much I couldn't hold the map still long enough to find where I was. So my first purchase was a cup of hot chocolate. From there I warmed up and got out first a state map and narrowed it down to counties and then using a county map I created a new reroute.
With map in plastic bag in hand I was back at it. A major challenge overcome. Riding along, the weather improved and I was makng progress toward camp and my spirits were lifting. Feeling that I surely must be ahead of the other, because of the lift in the van, my thoughts worried about them but I was glad to believe they were all still together and I was the only separated one.

Finally at the tiniest of town halls, in Russell, OH I stopped to take a picture and call the others and leave them a message that I was okay and give a favorable scouting report.

In the parking lot there in Russell, a lady pulled into the parking lot.
Asking if she could confirm my directions, I met Lynee.

Lynee is an amazing woman who holds your gaze when she talks to you and smiles when she speaks. Lynee struck a chord with me. Christian, well spoken, great sense of humor and conversation, selfless, courageous, intelligent, beautiful and a U of A Wildcat. Lynee didn't know the area because she is from Arizona. As it turns out she is from Mesa, but is attending school at the U of Arizona in Tucson, "Go Wildcats" and is out in Ohio selling children's books as a summer intern to pay for college. After joking with Lambert the night before about "who would I meet out here in Ohio", Lynee was a gift from God to show He has it under control.

I thoroughly enjoyed the 40 minutes we stood chatting and could have chatted a greater while still, but that would have been rude. We went our ways and I rode my last 10 miles going over and over the day and all the things that had brought me to that point. It was too perfect. It felt like it had to be a God thing. What kind of God thing, I don't know and I know better than to try to predict. I have been shown though how God has put believers in my life for a purpose.

Considering the weather delay, and the lift from Bob and Matt and then the delay at eh convenience store and now my timing of my cycling to put me at a place, and for Lynee to be between apointments and to put her in the same place for us to meet as Christians during a summer adventure, with Bible verses as motivators and both from Arizona all the way out in Russell, OH. Call me crazy if you like, but I have been shown differently that I don't take this chance encounter lightly. As I say meeting Lynee truly is a gift from God. I don't know the purpose or pretend to guess what that purpose is. But I feel it is part of God's purpose and for that I will be diligent to follow the Lord and let Him reveal the purpose to me, in His time.

These were the thoughts running through my head as I cycled in those last 10 miles and all I wanted to do was ride up to Lambert and tell him, "Guess what God did to me today?" Riding with such excitement I made it to camp relatively quickly and found Lambert and relayed my story. As a believe, he knew my feeling and at least made me not feel crazy even if he thought I was.

I appreciated that and we headed off to dinner and started our day off chuckling about his rain adventures as well as mine.