Today’s Date: July 23, 2024

Today’s Start Point: Cambridge, Ohio

Today’s End Point: Wheeling, West Virginia

Today’s Miles: 78.46 Miles

Cumulative Miles: 3,945.20 Miles

My final destination today is at a casino on Wheeling Island in Wheeling, West Virginia. Before the day began, I wanted to name today’s blog “Lost in America”, after one of my favorite movies. In the movie, Albert Brooks and Julie Hagerty play a couple who, frustrated with their lives, decide to take early retirement and travel across the country in a RV. Their dreams are short lived when the wife loses their “nest egg” (life savings) at a casino on the first night of their journey. Leslie would not let me near the nest egg, so that is where the comparisons would end.

By the end of the day, however, the blog title would have a different meaning. In the past week I have left behind my water bottles and my IPad and Tim Radcliff and Paul Kirsch were kind enough to retrieve them. Today, ladies and gentlemen, we have the existential question, if you are alone and lose yourself, how do you find your way to a casino.

The day started great. I wanted to replicate what Paul and I had done the past few days-identify stopping points about 10 to 15 miles apart, have sandwiches ready to eat, and if possible locate some Gatorade. There was a dense fog when I left the hotel and the air was cool. The first five or ten miles were through a commercial area, so the fog was nice enough to cover this unappetizing view.

I had planned on stops at the 13 mile, 30 mile, 40 mile and 56 mile points. Total climbing on the day would be about 4,200 feet, with lots of rolling roads and two hard and longish climbs.

I covered the first 40 miles as planned by 9:30 am. The last 16 miles would be where the two climbs were, but I felt pretty good.

The landscape was rolling farmland on small two lane roads with little traffic. I would see a car every ten minutes or so, which allowed me to listen to a playlist that my daughter Amy made for my ride (don’t worry, no headphones, I just listen through the iPhone speakers). Although the road rolled, the ascents were long and gentle so they did not put too much pressure on the legs.

After the 40 mile stop, my route was closed for construction, and I had to take a detour. This is where my problems began.

I followed the detour and was immediately hit with a mile long climb with an average gradient of 12%. When I started the climb, I had no idea how long the climb was or how steep it would be. It twisted and turned up the hillside so I could not see up the road, leaving me to twist around a corner and moan when I would see a continuation of the wall in front of me. Yes, there was walking involved (sigh).

The detour was not well marked (honest) and my Garmin was of little assistance when I am off route. My iPhone has a couple of apps that when used with the Garmin allows me to get out of any tough situation. I reached for my phone and the screen was frozen. I couldn’t Google any “how to” instructions on how to unfreeze it (I discovered how once I was back at the hotel), so basically my phone was a brick.

I kept going on the detour [?] for what seemed miles. I eventually tried to use my Garmin to locate where I was. The best I could tell, there were two parallel ridges with a valley in between them. My planned route was to the north of the valley and my actual path was taking me south of the valley.

Using the Garmin, I could not find a road to cut across the valley and get me to the planned route. I finally asked a Fed Ex delivery person if the road I was on went to the Ohio River. He said yes but was not sure how far it was.

I decided to take the road I was on to the Ohio River and then travel north along the river to my planned route. The climbs just kept coming.

The weather was heating up, but relative to what I faced in Kansas and Missouri, it was pretty, pretty, pretty good. As I approached the Ohio River, I started to drop down from the ridge that I had been riding. The descent went for over a mile and was beautiful, dropping through lush trees and visually stunning rock formations. It was some of the prettiest scenery I had seen in a couple of weeks and of course my phone was frozen so no pictures.

Once I arrived at the river, I tried to use the Garmin to get directions to the hotel. It did, but unfortunately it routed me up a long and incredibly steep incline with a deteriorating roadway. I walked the bike up the half mile “road”, which seemed to be as difficult as riding up.

I rode about a mile along the ridge until I came across a stunning view of the Ohio River Valley, with the river snaking down below and Wheeling, West Virginia with its multiple bridges. Oh, did I mention that my phone was frozen.

I dropped down off the ridge and I finally found my way across to Wheeling Island. Wheeling Island is a small Island in the middle of the Ohio River. The Casino and Hotel, along with a horse track, are on the island.

I made my way to the hotel, a new facility, which is nice and clean in the midst of urban blight. I pulled in and I have to admit I was pretty tired. What was supposed to be a 64 mile, 4,200 feet climbing day turned into a 78 mile, 5,900 feet climbing day.

I entered the casino and I think I lowered the average age by 20 years. If you want to see a sad sight, walk into a casino in West Virginia on a Tuesday afternoon. I checked in, did my post-ride rituals and ate in the food court (only place open on a Tuesday in the casino and there is nothing close outside the casino), with the contemplative sounds of the casino surrounding me.

Seriously, it isn’t a bad place to spend the night, everything is within the confines of the building. Now, where did I put our nest egg?

Not many pictures today. Tomorrow should be better.