Pat and Sari's Honeymoon Bike Ride

Thursday, September 04, 2008
Willard, OH to Medina, OH
49 miles (8612 total miles)

We continued our trek across Ohio, still on US 224 most of the day. The day was hot and humid, not quite as bad as yesterday, without much wind which was good because we had more climbing today - nothing too serious except for one short hill in Lodi that was 8% for a short while. Like I said yesterday, Ohio is getting us warmed up for the real hills. We're down to single-digit (9) riding days left and less than 500 miles (about 420) to go! We left this morning at about 7:30 again and also arrived in Medina about the same time as yesterday (2:45), having gone 49-1/4 miles in a bit under 5 bike hours. US 224 was rough and patchy in spots and nice and smooth in others. We ran into some long stretches of road construction; not much was being done in either case but they had orange cones lined up along the center line which made it harder for people to pass us. We had to pull off a number of times to let trucks go by. The parts that had just been finished were very nice indeed, and the other parts definitely needed redoing, especially the shoulders.

We went through a number of small towns again today. The first one, Greenwich, was particularly nice and quaint. We stopped here for a snack even though it was only about 11 miles out, since we weren't sure we'd find much of a lunch spot later on. We ended up having a huge strawberry shortcake with ice cream (we weren't expecting it to be so big) that was absolutely fabulous. The people at the table next to us thought it looked like a great breakfast! There were many lovely houses along the road; it always seems strange to me that such nice houses would be lining such a busy street as 224, but of course when they were built, the road wouldn't have had so much traffic. We were right about the lunch-time spots - the two that we had identified as likely candidates, based on when we would reach them, didn't have much. We stopped at a little ice cream place in Sullivan, the second one, and had some sandwiches though. We probably should have waited until we got to Lodi, the next town, which was a good deal bigger and had a lot to offer. Medina didn't seem like much when we first got to it, but our bed & breakfast is in a very nice area. Our bed & breakfast itself is terrific - a beautifully restored Victorian that's part of a triplex, two houses with a carriage house between them. The owner uses one house as the B&B, has an art gallery in the other house, and an insurance business in the carriage house.

Besides the towns, we passed through the typical Ohio scenery - old farms and crop fields, grassy/flowered fields, some lakes and wetlands, and of course, the rolling hills. All very idyllic and pleasant to bike through. Tomorrow night we'll be camping - quite a change from tonight's luxury! We don't know how the phone/internet reception is there, and even if we have access, it may be more difficult to work on our page, especially if it's raining as predicted (we're really hoping it'll change its mind!). So there may be some delay in our posting; we'll do what we can and catch up the next night if we need to.

An early morning lake in a park

An interesting house on a hillside (sorry, it was really hazy this morning)

US 224, not at its best

Our welcome to Greenwich

Houses in Greenwich

Buildings in downtown Greenwhich

A few hilly parts ahead

This old mansion...

and its barn and silo are Castle Hill Farm, 1934

Entering the little town of Nova

This lake was a wetland area with ducks on this side of the road...

and a nice clear lake on the other side (may have been Nova Pond Dam)

Another view of the wetlands side

A lovely grassy field

A train goes by behind a farm

A view of the farm with the train behind it

An old cemetery in Sullivan (Pat thinks the people are turning in their graves)

A park and community center in Sullivan

Downtown Sullivan

A war memorial in town with cannons and stone wheels

Road construction ahead

We were glad this guy wasn't trying to pass us!

Another lovely pond in a field

A pretty farm house

A horse paddock

A closed antique store in Homerville

An old barn and silos

One of the smoother stretches of 224

A little creek ran alongside us for a while

Under a railroad bridge

Entering Lodi

Downtown Lodi - an old bank is now a Subway

A nice house in town

Another close-up of a cattail - this one has sprouted a winter coat

Another field

A large produce stand by the road...

and two ladies selling corn and tomatoes from the back of a pickup

The school in little Lafayette is getting auctioned off!

Another wetland area

This driveway was lined with little trucks! (sorry I didn't get a better shot)

This toy truck was perched on their mailbox

Entering Medina

Pat working at our kitchen table

The living room at our B&B

Our bedroom

The Victorian house with the art gallery

Our B&B house

The carriage house between them