Day 32 May 30th Mentor OH – Edinboro Pa.

  
I have been waiting for this day for, well since this trip began. The day that I make it to my home state & to my son Garths adopted town of Edinboro Pa. My wife will be coming out & this will be as close to being home for me in what seems like a long, long time. The reality is it hasn’t been that long, just 32 days to date.

I started off on Rt 84 out of the suburbs of Cleveland. This was a genuine listed  “bicycle route”. This route takes you through beautiful neighborhoods & into the countryside where you start into a series of mini climbs that grow into more substantial climbs after about 50 miles. These hills are a good warmup for the mountains of Pa that lay ahead. Ohio was a great state to bike in, but as a going away present, it gave me my second flat tire of the trip! I had hit a hidden crack in the shoulders pavement that slammed the front tire pinching the tube. I changed out the tube in semi record time & was back on the road. That being the best Ohio had to throw @ me, by my measure I would say I did OK.

I stopped @ the old stone Pa stone marker that stands on the Pa -OH border for a picture. I have 2 pictures of Garth standing there touching the gritty, hard to read marker, once @ the completion of his Run X Pa & the other as he entered the state from the west on his Run X America. I felt a connection of sorts with him as I stood there touching that same old gritty stone marker.

72 miles today didn’t seem like much of a day after the long rides of the past few weeks.

I worked my way into Edinboro @ 2:00, arriving before my wife I just sat out front of the local Sheetz Station, like the vagrant I have become. Garth showed up first & we spent the rest of the day Drawing parallels between our trips. One would start a sentence, the other finished it. It was so nice seeing my great wife, who without my trip wouldn’t be possible. It was a great day indeed.

Garth & I share a little inside joke that goes back to his run X America. It was a little mental game where we would say ” all you have to do is make it Cleveland & really the trip is over”. Friends & family are less than a day away, you know the roads from there east, & you can limp the rest of the way to NYC from there .A trip like this is conquered  this way . One day @ a time, one town @ a time one little lie told to yourself each day . Just get to Cleveland! Works for me.