Two By Bike: Epic Road Trip, Part 4

Days 13 to 19: A Week in Dublin

What? Boxy is capable of transatlantic travel? Well, no, not Dublin, Ireland; Dublin, Ohio, a suburb of Columbus where Sandy’s sister, Cathy, lives with her husband, Harry. Our original plan was to go to Sandy’s reunion first. As Dublin is only about 6 hours from Niagara Falls, we planned to pay a visit to Cathy and Harry afterwards. Since we left on this journey two weeks early, this part of the trip was moved to before the reunion.

With Boxy parked on their long driveway, we were guests in Cathy and Harry’s house for the length of our stay. Nothing against Boxy, mind you, but it was nice to have a little more space. Other than one day when there was a terrific electrical storm with 3 inches of rainfall, the weather was fine. Okay, it was pretty darn hot with humidity over 90%.

As with every other state on our US journey to this point, Ohio seems to be home to many rivers. In 1913, a rain storm brought 6-11 inches of rain to various parts of the state. This resulted in serious flooding and significant loss of life. As a consequence, this small dam was built to control the flow of the Scioto River. Good thing, as the dam is less than two kilometers from Cathy’s house, and the river runs right along her neighbourhood.

O’Shaughnessy dam, Scioto River

Despite the heat and wicked humidity, we did manage to get out for a couple of bike rides. A ride through Glacier Ridge Metro Park was recommended to us, so off we went. The greater Columbus area has a number of “metro parks” that are funded through tax initiatives. We rode through Glacier Ridge (not sure how it got its name) and passed a few others. They are beautiful nature reserves with multi use pathways for all to enjoy. Dublin is known as the City of Trees, and the parks are home to major projects to re-establish the natural forest species in these areas.

Riding through Glacier Ridge Metro Park

At the time European settlement began, 95% of the state of Ohio was forest. Much of it was cleared to develop very productive farmland. As with most of the states that we travelled through on this trip, cornfields now dominate the rural Ohio landscape.

There’s even a field of corn in the city!

Ohio is also home to a number of bugs that are different from those we are accustomed to at home. The evenings are hardly quiet as the cicadas, which one hears more than sees, sound like loud buzzing from electrical transformers. Looking kinda like really stocky grasshoppers, they are harmless to humans, other than they might drive you crazy with the volume of noise a group of them are capable of generating. And, according to Sandy’s nephew, Brian, they aren’t too clever and tend to fly into you, then bounce off to continue where they are going.

Cicada (photo from internet)

Another delightful creature is the aptly named “stink bug.” Cathy practically flew out of her chair when we were on the deck to make sure one on the screen door didn’t find its way into the house. Apparently, when they meet their maker, they release a very vile odour. Needless to say, we didn’t try to confirm the story!

Stink bug on the screen

While we are on the topic of creatures, we spent half a day at the Columbus Zoo. Being after the long weekend, the zoo was pretty quite, human wise. Being over 90F, it was also pretty quiet, animal wise. Still, we had a good visit.

We were intrigued by the Flying Fox, fruit eating bats. These fellas are HUGE, with a body length of about 12 inches and wingspan of about 5 feet. There were a number of them hanging, as bats do, upside down in their enclosure. We watched as they would stretch out their arms, then wrap themselves up in their “sleeves” to continue their naps.

Flying Fox, open

Flying Fox, closed

Another huge creature we saw was the Aldabra Tortoise, the second largest land tortoise in the world. Two were on display, and as was we were checking them out, two volunteers came out to interact with them. The tortoises immediately stood up and moved towards them to get their legs rubbed and their shells brushed, which they obviously thoroughly enjoyed. One was 52 years old, and the other 71, the oldest creature in the zoo.

Bubba, 71 years old, and over 500 pounds

And what visit to the zoo would be complete without checking in on the family?

Kate, Sandy, Cathy, and Harry

Okay, so that photo wasn’t at the zoo 😂, but I think poor Harry thought at times it was like a zoo around there. He kept complaining that he was outnumbered by three women, three Canadian women at that!

We had a terrific time during our stay with Cathy and Harry. We enjoyed having lots of time to visit, see their kids and grandkids, tour around some, do a bit of shopping, and share many good meals. Now, its their turn to come up to Edmonton to see if our hospitality can match theirs.

Canadian cherries. A special find at Whole Foods

Day 20: Time to head to Ontario

With clean laundry and a few groceries, we got Boxy reloaded to make our way back to Canada. By the time we were out of town, we were into more pouring rain. After a couple of hours, the rain stopped, and soon we crossed into Pennsylvania.

Brian, Sandy’s nephew, was surprised we had never eaten at Chick-fil-A. “They have the best chicken burgers,” he exclaimed. So, when we saw one of their outlets, we decided we better check it out. Various chicken burgers and chicken fingers were on the menu. I had a spicy chicken burger, Sandy tried the chicken fingers. They were pretty good, alright, but the waffle style potato fries were a bit odd to us.

Lunch at Chick-fil-A

Our route had us nip across the north west corner of Pennsylvania. The scenery was still rather similar to that which we had grown accustomed to on this journey through the States, with lots of trees and rivers, and still some corn fields. We were only in Pennsylvania for lunch and a couple of hours before we crossed into New York State.

The highway Harry and Sandy picked out for us to travel took us off the main drag (and toll roads) and along Lake Erie. The scenery, you ask? Trees, rivers, lakes, and … grapes. We passed many vineyards as we drove through the Erie Concorde Grape Belt. It was nice to finally see some crop other than corn!