June 6, 2019 Thursday From Defiance, Ohio

     Yesterday on my family message center one of my children posted that one of my best friends daughter had passed away two months after she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.  She was 49.  This morning I was dressed and ready to ride when I remembered I hadn't called my friend and his wife to express my condolences.  This was the third of their seven children they had lost.  My friend was also battling cancer.  I asked his wife how her husband was doing and she said not good.  He was in hospice care at home and could pass anytime.  Before we started on this adventure we had discussed that if anything happened to anyone in our families or to anyone close to us that we would not hesitate returning home.  This was one of those situations.  So we started driving home to Mesa, Arizona.  We haven't decided if we will resume this journey when this crisis is over.  If we do not return to continue we have had a wonderful experience that we will never forget.

June 5, 2019 Wednesday Fremont to Defiance, Ohio

 Rained early this morning before we got up and it turned into a beautiful day.  I deviated form the mapped bicycle route and got on US Highway 6.  But a quick look

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June 4, 2019 Tuesday Berea to Fremont, Ohio

Beautiful ride today on the Lake Erie Coastal Ohio Trail.   Prestigious home along this route.

One of the homes where the beach of Lake Erie is their backyard.

These restaurants are only in Ohio.  

This home appears to have violated the building code for this neighborhood.

Porterhouse steak and shrimp with baked beans, cold slaw, potato wedges, and a dinner roll.  Frickin good food from Frickers restaurant

Another home with Lake Erie as their backyard.

A lady waved me down near this town on Lake Erie.  She and her husband had passed me and honked and waved and now stopped me to give encouragement.  Then they invited us to a beach party that evening if we were staying in that area.  But we needed to be further down the road.

June 3, 2019 Monday Erie to Berea, PA

     Did not ride today.  Hardly slept last night because of the pain in my ribs from the fall at church yesterday.  We drove to Berea, Ohio but stopped along the way in Kirtland to see some church history sites of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  In the group taking the tour of the historical sites was a couple from Gilbert, Arizona.  Their last name was Carroll.  He had taught some of my grandchildren.  Her parents were Frank and Myrna Gibson and I had coached her brother, Scott Gibson when I was teaching at Mesa Junior High School in Mesa, Arizona.  Sometimes this world shrinks a little bit.  After the tour of the historical sites we drove a little out of our way and had a dinner at a Amish restaurant.  It was really good food and Revis satisfied some of her shopping cravings as they had a well-stocked gift store.
     Pictures I took today have not come through from my iPhone to the blog.  Sometimes is takes a couple of days.  When they come through I'll edit them in.

June 2, 2019 Sunday in Erie, PA

L to R Mark and Cindy Johnson, Revis, my wife, and me.  Mark helped pick me up off the floor of the entry into the church in Erie, Pennsylvania.   Mark was holding the door open for us as we were entering the building when I tripped on the step-up into the foyer and down I went.  I hit the floor on the same side I had injured in my fall off the bicycle a few days earlier.  Mark and another man helped me up off the floor.  What a grand entrance that was.  It also increased the pain level of my ribs from eight to ten.  They invited us to have dinner with them that afternoon.  We had a very nice visit getting acquainted with them.  We learned a lot more about the grape industry there.  I had just assumed that the vineyards were producing grapes primarily for the wine industry.  Mark estimated that perhaps about 70% of the grapes went to Welch's for juice, jam, and jelly. He has a few acres of grapes and he sells them all too Welch's.

Mark and Cindy with their grand daughter Ka;yla.

Strawberries near the Johnson's farm.

The blueberry plants in the Johnson's garden are putting on the berries.

You see the fencing around their blueberry garden.  Before the blueberries ripen and are sweet they will unroll a netting over the top to save the berries from the birds.  The birds can destroy an entire crop of blueberries.  They will poke their beak into a berry, suck out some juice then move on to the next berry.

While we were eating the man Mark contracts with to spray his grapes for mold came and started spraying.  He has to do that  maybe three times during the growing season or the mold will ruin his crop.

As we left the Johnson's home we noticed some of the vines that grow in the area like to climb the power lines.

June 1, 2019 Saturday Dunkirk/Fredonia, NY to Erie, PA

Traveling due West today directly into a 15 to 20 mph headwind.  Very slow progress.  But the scenery and landscape is fabulous.  Miles and miles and miles of wine vineyards.

Wine vineyard.

Pink elephant in front of a winery.

A little patriotism this Memorial Day week.

Entry to the winery with the pink elephant in front.

These vineyards are not quite as well groomed as those in the Napa Valley of California.  Of course those in California don't have the rainfall that these in Western New York get which really waters the weeds.  The vineyards in California I remember were using drip system irrigation.

The grapes are off to a good start.

More vineyards.

Hello Northwestern Pennsylvania.

Cherries, too.

No telling how many more miles of wine vineyards along the Lake Erie Wine Country Trail there are.

More vineyards.

May 31, 2019 Friday In Fredonia to catch up on blog

Didn't get the rest I needed last night because of the rib injury.  Decided I needed some more rest so we stayed in the motel another night and that gave me some more time to catch up on this blog.

May 30, 2019 Thursday Albion to Fredonia, NY

Crossed over into Canada for the view of Horseshoe Falls.  The volume of water cascading over the falls is astounding.

  

The blooming tulips are beautiful.  Arizona State University colors, maroon and gold.

We are having a wonderful time.

The bridge across the Niagara River.

This must be a Canadian Goose because he's on the Canadian side of the river.

Looking downstream from Horseshoe Falls to American Falls.

May 29, 2019 Wednesday Victor to Albion, NY

I've been looking forward to riding the banks of the Erie Canal.  After a few miles that asphalt ended and I was on a muddy road due to construction along the bank.

Another view of the canal.

What started out as a very nice paved bike path turned into a single track trail. They sent me  to the emergency  room at a hospital in Medina, about 10 miles away.  They said nothing appears to be broken, but I sure have a hard time getting a good nights sleep.  And there's nothing pleasant about coughing or sneezing.

One of the several locks on the canal.

This is the nice paved part of the canal trailway.

Another view of trailway and canal.

Crews working on the trailway.

The trailway is starting to narrow.  This is about a mile before my crash landing.

The big goose hissed at me as I slowly passed his family.

The mud only got worse until I finally wised up and found my own detour to a paved highway.

This is the backyard of some residents which extends up to the canal bank.