I got up shortly after dawn and packed up my camp quickly. While it was great I had the invitation to camp on the property, I was still too self conscious and loathed the possibility of being discovered. After a breakfast of some reeces pieces, I set off on the trail at about 7:30.
It was cold – mid 50s – and so I put on whatever I could to keep me warm, which was only my rain jacket. After several miles I stopped in Xenia, Ohio to take a break and wait for things to warm up. Xenia is the hub of all the trails in southwest Ohio and so I had to decide if I wanted to go south or southwest. The men I ate dinner with last night thought southwest might be best so I wouldn’t have to deal with crossing Cincinnati, but after looking up campgrounds I decided on a little park about 10 miles north of the city so south it was.
Along the trail there were towns every 8 or so miles and so I kept an eye out for somewhere to eat. However, there weren’t many options. Town after town went by and all the places to eat were either closed permanently or didn’t open until later in the day. Finally after about 45 or 50 miles I found a bar right next to the trail that was open.
Despite it’s proximity to the trail and the fact that it advertised lunch and dinner, the place was empty. I had a good conversation with the bartender about my trip and life, and headed out. It turned out that about 2 miles later was a big and busy town with lots of places to eat, but I didn’t regret stopping at the bar.
I got off the trail a few miles later – about 10 miles before the end of it – so I could cross the northern suburbs of Cincinnati to get to the campground. I was immediately greeted with a pretty big hill, but after a couple more, things flattened out a bit before getting hilly again. I arrived at the campground at 4 which was probably the earliest I’ve ever called it a day. I went and had more okay Chinese food for dinner and used my free time to get some reading done.
At one point, another person staying at the campground came up to me and commented on how I had the best campsite in the park because of my view of the lake, and how she wished they would clear more if the trees so more people could see the lake. I looked around. This place was just a slightly glorified parking lot at this point because of how much they had cleared to make room for RVs. Some people are crazy.
Today’s mileage: 79 miles
Total: 944 miles
As a side note, the mileage is total miles biked including errands, getting food, etc. Not just progression along my path.
Yeah! Let’s cut down some trees! Build a strip mall! Fucking trees!