Autumn 2018, fresh off of the Pacific Crest Trail and a freeform cross-country hitchhike, i hopped on my craigslist touring bike and set out to bicycle from my hometown near Ann Arbor, MI down and across to DC. A jaunt across Ohio separated my start from Pittsburgh, and from there the Great Allegheny Passage Trail mapped my course to DC. The Ohio leg was wildly freeform though, no routes or destinations planned ahead.
A glimpse at my planning for this journey: a probing of ‘there is a town over here,’ ‘i could take this road for a while in this direction’ or ‘this place looks like i could find a spot as wide as me to sleep,’ as i started to the south and continued to the east. My laissez-faire hitchhike trip i had just completed had me feeling real loosey goosey for this one. The only proper record of my path remains on some forsaken server in google’s mind, i did a poor job of documenting this one. Some stretches of road and towns perk up to me when i look at a map of the middle of nowhere Ohio. I enjoy how much space in the states i have that relationship with.
Pictured above was my cozy villa for a night at a closed campground, lake adjacent. Generally my beds were not so developed and idyllic, usually they were in thickets of trees along country roads, or underneath bridges on the common nights of rain i met.
One night early on i set up beneath a highway underpass at the edge of Small American Town, Ohio. Conditions were calling to be difficult, wind and rain, so i curled up in my quilt and started watching nerd stuff on my phone as i waited for sleep. My bliss was disturbed by officers trying to serve and protect. Some concerned local spotted my kit beneath the bridge there and alerted the authorites. I informed them that i wasn’t green, that i was healthy, and i would be leaving at the break of dawn, but apparently that was insufficient for their check-in. Calls were placed up the chain of command asking what the next move would be until we reached the peak of this locality: the officer who drives the SUV. We loaded up my kit into his trunk and i was driven to a motel [in the wrong direction] with a room waiting for me on the dime of the Salvation Army. I made music in the back on the ride over; officer SUV gave me a fiver and said i was good. I spent it on garbage bags from a gas station to aid in waterproofing my kit.
I called out to a local on their front lawn for knowledge about the wildlife area nearby and its viability for camping. Instead i was invited to the backyard for a night around the fire and fed handsomely in the morning. Even upon my own trail does the trail provide.
A cold night, a wet night, a lonesome night, a restless night, a difficult night. The following day arrived with glorious sunlight as i crawled to the small small town of Mifflin to sit on the picnic tables next to the church under construction and this beautiful tree. Gas station coffee and pastries to rally morale, only to get approached by a local with presents in hand: a fresh pair of socks and a bag of snacks. we gonna be okay
One of the final nights brought me to a small town bar. I had my bed location for the night picked out a ways down the road, but it was too visible to set up before the sun set down. Perfect time to eat and drink some food and ambience.
I sit at the bar and present my ID to the bartender. ‘Michigan?!’ Record scratch – the customers turn to look and i survey my surroundings. Crimson and white everywhere, nary an eye without an accompanying buck in sight. The club loyalties of these NCAA football rivalries run deep, the buff lads of Ohio State and the University of Michigan foster a healthy one. I let them know i went to Central Michigan University and i cared little about this region’s conflict and the ambience returned. We spoke of my journey and the owners offered their deck to me to sleep for the night. A wise move on their part because i nearly closed out the bar that night before laying down to sleep, the company was comfy. deck popped a hole in my sleeping pad tho
Many days pedaling down numbered gridded roads through farmlands. Shorter days as the terrain got more textured with hills closing in on eastern Ohio. Plenty of rain too, i waited out a three day rainstorm around Halloween in Bucyrus. My sleeping spots migrated as the rains flooded my dry options, from highway underpass to picnic pavilion to hotel with spirit sodden. It was still cloudy as i left town.
Walking my bike along the bridge to drink in the Ohio River as i crossed to West Virginia. An intersection of dirt roads, uneven angles, on a hilltop crowned with trees. A rock wall outside of a gas station with the morning’s cup of mud. A cold soak ramen while reclined against a stop sign, eaten with the desire to never eat cold soak ramen again as a local drives by and asks if i’m okay. Yes, but not with this sorry ramen jar, friend. The countless times that, when pedaling on the shoulder of a two-laned road, cars and trucks passed by each other right next to me. A morning at the small local grocery eavesdropping on the locals. The talks with lifelong Ohioans about the ways their towns have grown and decayed over time. Many libraries loitered in while the robots fed and i hydrated. The one Sunday morning i spent in a church to hide from a howling rainstorm, one of the fellas in attendance drove me to a truck stop up the road after service was complete. Singing songs i was good at on the first day to bolster my confidence for the days to come. Scouting out couchsurfing options only to always back away because i felt shy. Nightly, laying down and scrolling on the map for a diner or gas station for the morning. The solo ad hoc nature of this one brought about many sentences, segmented moments, fewer paragraphs of full story.
probably waited a little too long to jot this one down lol, it’s squishy in the mind. especially since it stopped at Pittsburgh, it didn’t complete in DC as i had initially planned. the bite of late November sent my willpower away and i quickly followed. this was a thing i did for about two months and i am changed from it.
man i dunno 