Friday 11. Today we conclude one month since we left home – a great thirty days.
As agreed last night we did not get up early this morning – 7:45. After one of Miriam’s fancy pancake breakfasts – blue
berries, nuts, whole wheat flour, etc. – they were on the road by 8:30 with three of the left-over pancakes, two tangerines, and two bananas which is traditional. In addition to that they will stop a number of times for sandwiches, ice cream, Gatorade, and just to take care of hynnie-it is, etc. The horses need to be fed to keep up the energy. About fifteen minutes after they left the camp the owner arrived walking her dog and with homemade maps highlighting a better route. What a caring owner
Miriam baked a cake before we left and Paul caught up on the journaling.
We left camp about 9:30, going a couple miles to the Aurora Mennonite Church. There was a car there so we rang the bell. The woman who came to the door was all smiles, “Your friends have already been here.” We talked a bit about the biking. Her name was Stutzman and Friday the pastors, Mr. & Mrs. Jim Engle are off. As I imagined his father is Bible professor at EMU and Karis Engle our Florida friend is his sister.
We went leisurely on north following Annie’s direction. It is pretty country up and down some steep little curves during which the big drawer under the oven kept opening.
We shopped at a Giant Eagle supermarket again and this time we signed up for one of their little discount cards. I hate being bothered by those cards just like Oregon Dairy does too. About two blocks beyond we found a Wal*Mart Supercenter – too late.
In the village of Austinburg we quickly located the rails-to-trails bike path – beautiful with many bikers and hikers going to and fro. We read the signs describing UR activity in this area while we waited for E&R who arrived at 4:30, hot and tired after a 65 mile day.
They cleaned up and then we went to look for a nice restaurant for our weekly dinner out – cook’s night off. We found a nice reasonable place about six miles east in Jefferson. They had all you can eat Pollock or muscles. Miriam & Ed had the fish and I the muscles – delicious.
We decided the parking lot at the restaurant looked nice enough to boon-dock. Permission was readily granted. Tonight we watched, laughed and wept over Patch Adams. What a great movie.
It was ten when we turned in.

Saturday 12. We were up soon after six, had a simple cold cereal breakfast and then drove back to Austinburg where they picked up the bike trail again and were off about eight on a cold morning – brrrr. In spite of being in a parking lot this was one of the quietest nights ever. It was a small but nice crossroads town.
We washed the dishes and went slowly on our way. Some of the time we were driving along Lake Erie today and it is cold. We noticed the tulips, daffodils, Azaleas and a number of flowering trees are in full bloom – beautiful. What a long beautiful spring we are having.
Today we crossed back into good old Pennsylvania. That does feel kind of good even though we are at the far North West corner of the state.
Going through Erie we discovered it to seemingly be a manufacturing town. The map gives the population as 103,000, larger than I thought. We found a Wal*Mart and replaced the faulty pencils and I got another watch.
Our site at Sara Coyne’s campground is right on the Lake Erie beach front where we can watch the waves on this cold windy day. While it is pretty here on the beach this camp is a sort of has been and the most expensive yet -- $42. There a lot of junky looking RV’s cramped in together. This is the first time a camp owner would only take cash or traveler’s checks. They are way behind the times. That was hard on my cash supply. We did three loads of wash including E&R’s. The bikers arrived about 4, cold and tired. For a while they rode in rain and then got so cold they holed up in a restaurant for an hour or more until the rain ended. Weather wise this was likely the worst day. It is really cold here.
Miriam is making a good hot soup supper for a cold day with a nice spinach salad. Along with it there was pizza.
We worked on how far and where to go to church tomorrow and agreed to an AME Church.
After supper we finished watching the last segment the Africans in America. It is just excellent. This AME church was active in the underground railroad. Our American history desperately needs correcting. It was near eleven when we hit the sack.