Day 24
Findley State Park to Cleveland, OH (off route in search of a phone!)

At 3:16 am I woke to an insane crashing noise and my tent walls lit up like the fourth of July. This was followed by more crashing that rumbled right thru the paper thin walls of my tent and shook the ground beneath my 2” Thermarest pad. Fearing for my life and unaware of what was going on (my sleeping bag had full drawcord synched up and only one eyeball could make out anything that was going on thru the small face opening I had left to prevent suffocation). I shot up into sitting position. I’m not sure if you’ve ever been terrified in a tent and sat up ridiculously fast but when you’re all zipped in a tight mummy backpacking sleeping bag and you sit up THAT fast you can be a bit off balance and your darn arms are totally tucked in the mummy cocoon. This in turn means you have absolutely no way to stick your arms out to brace yourself and regain balance. This is especially awesome when you’re by yourself, half asleep and terrified. The result was me shooting up into sitting position followed by tipping over sideways and doing a semi-face, semi-side-of-face, face plant into the floor/sidewall of my tent. I prayed I hadn’t broken my nose as I frantically tried to find the zipper on the inside of my sleeping bag to evacuate and free myself from this straight jacket. Once out of the sleeping bag I came to realize it was just an insane thunderstorm outside. This was followed by torrential downpour and gusty winds. After all the trauma, I had a difficult time going back to sleep. About half an hour later the storm had (for the most part) passed. Being wide awake I thought this was the perfect time to go move my laundry from the washer into the dryer so I did that. May as well be productive. Sometime later I managed to fall back asleep.

I finally got up a few hours later. Folded laundry and packed up. As I was just about packed up, Amanda came out to leave for work. She pulled her car up. Got out. Walked over and handed me a few dollars. I refused at first. Then she insisted and said she just wanted me to have a coffee/muffin on her in town because my trip/story was so cool. “Pushaw!!!” I thought to myself. I mean their trip/story is SO much cooler!

I finished packing up and left to go ride into Wellington. Wellington is a village of maybe 5,000 people. It has a few claims to fame. The artist of the painting “Spirit of ‘76” lived here. And then there’s the Oberlin-Wellington Rescue – escaped slave John Price was arrested in Oberlin and held in Wellington and was set to be transferred back to his master in Kentucky (lawful under the Fugitive Slave Law). Abolitionists broke in and rescued him and he eventually escaped to Canada to freedom! Whoohoo Wellington. 

Onward to Oberlin I went. Oberlin was the first college to let black people in. There is also a Frank Lloyd Wright house here so I had to make a detour to go check it out.

There’s a large Underground Railroad Museum being built here but unfortunately it’s not done yet so no visiting that today. In Oberlin I found some cyclists in a parking lot, gearing up for a ride. They gave me some suggestions on routes to take to get to Cleveland by bike. One of them, Gary, even gave me his number in case I got into any trouble. Not having my phone and my URR map doesn’t connect to the Northern Tier route so this section I was just riding completely blind, no map, no GPS but it wasn’t super far and I had tried my best to memorize the map on Gary’s phone. I mean…what could possibly go wrong?!?! 😉

Actually nothing went wrong and I rapidly found myself approaching Lorain which was on Lake Erie west of Cleveland. Approaching Erie, the weather rapidly changed from a pleasant riding temp to SO crazy cold!!!! Today was 40 degrees cooler than the same time yesterday. I kept adding layers. My fingers went numb even with my fleece gloves on. Finally, I saw the lake! Photo op! I finally felt like I was really truly getting close to my goal.

 I found a Verizon store and went in to show them my bunk phone. They were nice but not overly helpful. They said they could send my phone out for diagnostic/repair and send me a new one in a week, which does me no good. They called Verizon tech support who had the gall to ask me if I had tried holding down the power button to turn it on!!!! I just about jumped through the phone and pummeled the lady (and I’m not even a violent person. Seriously?!?! Turn the power on?!?). Instead of pummeling her…I just remained silent, reverting back to the childhood lesson of not having anything nice to say and just not saying anything. She then smartened up and said perhaps the Verizon store employee should get on the phone instead! Brilliant! Ask him your ridiculous questions. : ) In the end, they suggested I try to go to an Apple store and they may be able to help me. The Apple store was only 15 min or so down the road…IN A CAR. Dude, that’s like an hour and a half in my world. <sigh> I got back on my horse and pedaled to the Apple store praying the whole way that they would help me out and this detour wouldn’t be in vain. They got me right in at the Apple store (which in my experience never happens!) Cute Apple guy hooked it up! He said normally they need to be sent back to Apple for diagnostic before they consider warrantying the phone but…given the nature of my predicament (and being a fellow cyclist), he fudged stuff in his system so it would print out a return tag and give me a new phone and just typed in a few comments explaining the accommodation and I was on my way!!!! PHONE IN HAND!!!! SO awesome!!!! Detour worthwhile. Now I was only short my stinkin’ GoPro! I pedaled towards Cleveland. There were some sketch hoods I pedaled through. Bars on doors, no problem. Bars on windows is usually indicative of a potential problem and despite my super charged uber fast speed of approximately 10-15 MPH, makes me a bit weary of who I may encounter. At least I had my phone and in turn, had a map! The Nemo “just keep swimming” song kept playing over and over in my head to the tune of “just keep pedaling” and eventually I rolled into Cleveland and my hostel!

At the hostel I was greeted by Max, a cyclist from Germany that was a few days into his cross country trek from NY to CA! We chatted for quite a while in the lobby. He was the only touring cyclists I had seen since Don at the Tennessee/Kentucky border and was a welcomed sight. He is finishing his trip in SF in July so we exchanged info and I’m hoping he gets there in time for us to catch up on our adventures over a frothy brew! Go Max Go! Cleveland hostel was pretty sweet and I highly recommend that place for a cheap overnight stay!