The Captain's Blog

… The news is … there is no news.

The weekend started out with an extremely stressful Friday night.  I didn’t do much besides watch “Dispicable Me” and monkey around on the internet.  I didn’t have any big plans for the weekend because I knew I had to come in to work on Saturday.

Saturday went pretty much as I had figured it would.  I went into the office and did what was necessary.  I had thought about going on a motorcycle ride to Cook’s Forest but had forgotten about needing to help Rick set the DJ system for Oaktree Country Club’s banquet hall.  The weather was beautiful so the bike was my primary mode of transportation for everything Saturday.  I figured I couldn’t squeeze a long run in with things that needed tended to, but I could certainly enjoy the ride in between.  After leaving Oaktree, I went back to the house to relax a bit before finding some dinner.  I ended up napping for an hour or so.  Dinner ended up being at the Golden Bear in WM.  Why eat dinner at a bar when I’m not a big drinker… ’cause the food is good! … and its right behind my house (or my house is right behind it depending on where you’re standing).  The Expendables 2 rounded out the night along with chatting with folks on the internet off and on.

As various topics of conversation came and went, I decided that the predicted weather for Sunday called for a motorcycle ride.  My nerves needed it too.  I know several folks that are always talking about Geneva-On-The-Lake.  I had a pretty good idea where it was and how to get there.  I looked it up on Google Maps to plan out my times for leaving and such.  Initially, my thought was just run up there.  Check out what goes on around the area and head back.  I decided to leave after lunch instead of getting up early and taking off.  This was going to be a fairly average ride… not too long… not too short.

Sunday morning came.  I goofed around until lunch.  Hopped on Maggie and headed out.  I stopped at Sheetz for gas and decided I might as well grab a meatball sandwich while I was there.  I also bought a drink to carry along.  I’ve been carrying snacks/drinks in case my sugar drops while I’m riding.  I ate a pretty decent lunch so I wasn’t really concerned about that this run.

I set off on what I hoped would be a pretty decent ride.  I wasn’t even out of Hermitage when a ’20 something’ idiot in a little white car decided to change lanes by Walmart.  The problem was… the spot he decided he wanted to occupy was the exact spot where I was riding directly beside him.  I saw the turn signal come on and car moving closer to me.  I turned my head to look.  His window was open and he was on the phone.  I shouted “HEY BUDDY! WAKE UP!!” as I laid on the the horn(s).  He still didn’t appear to be paying attention so I rolled the throttle and shot ahead of him while vearing to the left side of the lane.  I thought to myself, “This doesn’t bode well for the rest of the ride.”  It turned out that was really the worst of crazy drivers.

I crossed over into Ohio and headed north.  I’ve ridden in Ohio several times.  I’m fairly familiar with the roads from working for the vending company for so many years.  We drove all over eastern Ohio.  Even though I was pretty sure where I was going, I had the GPS on as backup.  There is one big difference riding in Ohio when compared to riding in Pennsylvania… the roads are straight in Ohio.  You ride in a very straight line with little to no elevation change.  What fun is that on a motorcycle… We wants twisties and changes… Precious.  I got up to Geneva-On-The-Lake without incident.  I decided to swing into the marina and see what the lake was like… Lake Erie that is.  I walked along the bike/walking path a bit watching some kids play in the sand while their dad took them in turn out on a jetski.

There wasn’t as much activity on the lake as I had expected for such a nice day.  I decided to head into town and see what the fuss was all about.  The town of Geneva-On-The-Lake reminded me of what Conneaut Lake Park might have been had it been built astride of a major road instead of a side street.  There were bikes and people everywhere.  Along the road sat one of the flying rocket rides that used to be a familiar site at small amusement parks across the country.  The difference was that this one had been equipped with a motor and drive train/wheels.  They were giving rides on it around town.  By this point, I had already made up my mind that I wasn’t stopping in town… too many people and too much walking.  By the time I was halfway through town, I had already changed my destination to Presque Isle, back on the Pennsylvania side.

I knew Rt 531 would take me along the lake.  The only drawback would be the city of Ashtabula.  There is a harbor there and some other touristy things. Maybe something would catch my eye worth stopping at.  There was a nice breeze coming off the lake.  The road was two lane and average condition.  At this point, my GPS did something annoying.  She (female voice) fixated herself on travelling Rt. 20 which runs east to west about 5 to 10 miles south of the shoreline at Ashtabula.  Just about the time I got her convinced to follow Rt. 531, we entered downtown Ashtabula.

There was a street festival being held on the main drag going through town.  Guess what the Rt. number of the main drag is…. Yep!… 531.  There was a little detour posted.  No biggie, I would follow traffic.  It wasn’t terribly bad like the time I got caught in Franklin during the Fall Festival.  There was one drawback… The detour took us into a… shall we say… ‘less than desirable’ section of town.  It also brought us out at a ‘Y’ in the road which once again proved to me that humanity was not meant to ‘merge’.

I flipped the bike around on the narrow two lane road (half the lane on one side was filled with parked cars) and headed out towards Rt. 20 as quickly as possible.  The GPS was constantly updating.  I ignored her for the most part because her directions took us deeper into an even less desirable area than the detour did.  I’m pretty sure she was getting hoarse as I pulled us back out into the main shopping district and onward to Rt. 20.  I bet she was thinking “I tried to tell you earlier you wanted to be on Rt. 20, but noooooo… ” in the back of her smartphone driven brain.  I ran Rt. 20 to the next north bound (and decent looking) road which would take me back on Rt. 531.  Onward I rode.  The goal now to get to Sara’s at the entry to Presque Isle to eat dinner and rest my now aching back.

The 40, or so, mile ride across to Presque Isle was nice.  It was almost all country roads except for the town of Conneaut, Ohio.  As I approached Erie, I passed the airport.  A B-17, all decked out in refurbished USAF paint scheme, was just coming down the runway.  I watched it take off as I sat at the traffic light.  I’ve always been interested in aircraft.  It was nice to see this old war bird taking off in person, not on some tv documentary.  I almost forgot the light had changed as the B-17 soared out of sight.  I continued on to Sara’s for dinner.

Sara’s is one of these themed places.  Its actually called Sara and Sally’s Diner but they no longer open Sally’s Diner.  It has a red and white motif with lots of old driving memorabilia and neon.  This place gets busy throughout the summer.  If you go there, don’t be intimidated by the long lines.  The grill in this place takes up almost the whole width of the restaurant and they crank out the food.  I’ve been there when it was packed to the gills and have never waited more than 20 minutes from the time I got in line to the time I got my food.  You can wait longer in most McDonald’s these days.  They have really good milkshakes and the most delicious Orange and Vanilla twist cones.  I had a bacon cheeseburger and onion rings.  I then, of course, had to go back and get my Orange/Vanilla twist cone before heading back home.

The GPS said I should hit home about 8:30.  My aunt and uncle live not far off Presque Isle so I’m pretty familiar with the run home.  I had decided that I wasn’t going the normal back roads route through Meadville and down to Conneaut, PA.  I wanted to back track a bit to Rt. 18 and down.  I haven’t run Rt. 18 between Erie and Conneaut for a long time.  I pointed Maggie toward Rt. 18.  The GPS once again took a fit and fixated on Rt. 19 as the best route home.  I muted her.  At one point, I watched the mileage to home jump from 88 miles to 58 miles as she figured out that Rt. 18 took us in the right direction.  I would now hit home around 7:38 per her ‘recalculated’ estimates.  I’m not sure whether I have her set to ‘fastest’ or ‘shortest’ route but apparently she didn’t want to give me either of those yesterday.

I was approaching 180 miles for the day by this point.  My back was telling me that it wasn’t happy so I knew I had at least one, maybe two, stops before making it home.  I might as well plan them while I’m riding.  I stop at Sheetz in Conneaut alot, but I didn’t really need anything to eat.  There is a little park along the lake and marina just as you come in to Conneaut.  This would be good stop.  I could walk around and plop down on a bench and watch the boats for a bit.  I did just that.

It must have been a day for seeing old planes and cars.  On the run from Conneaut to home, I saw a bi-plane, several really nicely done older cars ranging from a Model T to a Ford Coupe that was all flamed out with just about all the chrome you could imagine, a woody that even had the surfboard on top and a Ford Mustang in full blown ‘Eleanor’ dress.   It really didn’t surprise me to see the oldies-but-goodies out with the beautiful weather that we had Sunday.

The rest of the run home was made without stopping.   I needed to stop at Walmart but I was so stiff and sore by the point I got there that I said to heck with it and headed back to the house to do laundry and relax.  I should have stopped.  I forgot.  I needed milk.  My cereal was kind of dry this morning without it.

I took a major dose of Ibuprofen when I got home.  Fed Tink and gave her a scratch on the head for a while.  She’s not doing well but she purrs when I scratch between her ears and thumps her tail if I stop.  She hasn’t been running and hiding from me like she was.  I don’t know if that’s because she’s not as afraid of me or if she’s just run down enough now that she doesn’t have the strength.  That’s a whole ‘nother depressing blog that I’d rather not go into at this point.

All-in-all a good weekend even if it was only about a day and a half long.  I survived it at least.  Next weekend is a long weekend.  No plans as of yet.

~Cappy