57.8 miles today 3296 miles overall
We had to leisurely start to the day. Last night’s planning session was inconclusive and two possible destinations loomed ahead, both 50 to 60 mi out. We eventually set off after 10:00 a.m. on the ‘mostly flat’, according to Google, but largely downhill route back to the Heart of Ohio Trail.
We headed to the IGA market in Mt Vernon to get our usual breakfast of bagels and cream cheese.
This is both efficient and boring. Making miles as crucial so debating a different breakfast every morning can get in the way. We mix it up by switching between cinnamon raisin bagels with blueberry cream cheese and blueberry bagels with strawberry cream cheese. Today it was the latter. Steve’s hunger was such that he also procured blueberry muffins for immediate consumption; they didn’t seem to do us any harm.
We got back on the road and started looking for the Kokosing Gap Trail. Riders here are spoiled for choice (all the trails / routes we’ve ridden have been great).
Pretty soon we found this nice art installation at the Mount Vernon trailhead for the Kokosing Gap Trail.
I field-dressed the bagels and we fortified ourselves for the rest of the journey.
Here are a few photos of the beautiful Kokosing Gap Trail.
Horses are banned from many of the trails we have ridden recently, but we weren’t on the Kokosing Gap long before we found strong evidence of passing horses. And it didn’t take long after that before a horse and buggy driven by a couple of late-teenaged Amish girls appeared. We pulled over to let them pass but our ‘bad example’ was followed by their pony and they had to urge it along, slightly embarrassed. We enjoyed the interaction.
Over breakfast we made the final decision on our destination so we had to get off the Kokosing Gap Trail soon after the small town of Brinkhaven (unfortunately long before its termination in Glenmont). After a brief descent on a rutted dirt road we found a ford, from which we retreated hastily.
Thankfully there was a bridge alongside; unsuitable for vehicles, but we made it across on our bikes
Safely across the creek we discovered that eastern Ohio doesn’t share the same flat geography as Western Ohio and we found ourselves on a fairly tough gravel ascent; it lasted about a mile and was followed by another mile of gravel road. At the end of that we rested for a few minutes. Although it was notably cooler (or less humid) today than on previous days, it was still hot and my shoe left an impression in the asphalt.
The roughly 25 miles of beautifully surfaced roads through rolling bucolic countryside that followed were marvelous.
At about 10 mi from our campground we found an ice cream shop and enjoyed ice cream and sandwiches while thunderstorms raged around us, but not on us.
Over dinner, we agreed that today was one of our favorite riding days of the trip.
In other news, Steve proudly wore his new socks today! We were all starting to get a little embarrassed at the formerly white socks he has been wearing since the beginning of the trip. 😀
Trailside flowers seen today.
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