Monday, June 1: Lots of water today - and it wasn’t just the kind you paddle over! 

Got the ball rolling today a bit on the late side - about 9:30 AM - because I really needed to put in a longer morning with my work. It’s not all vacation out here as life does indeed have to get in the way more often than not. So we didn’t get me going on AD until I was able to get workouts done, emails sent out and correspondence finished. Now as I mentioned last night in the blog, I was kind of torn as to how to approach the next segment, from just west of Richmond Dale, through Chillicothe. My choices were riding on a pretty active RR line up to the outskirts of Chillicothe and then do either a truly gnarly hike-a-bike along the Scioto River to the norther outskirts or a paddle to the norther outskirts; OR just paddle the whole dag gone thing. 

My gut told me to really try to keep this thing on the legal side. And though I’ve been riding RR lines, these have almost exclusively been either abandoned or very, very slightly used - I call these very slightly used lines feeder lines because of their really light use. To do a 12 mile section of really damned live RR, I just don’t feel good about the ramifications of there. So with that being said I opted for the longest, yet the most legal option - to paddle the whole 12-14 mile stretch. My only downer for that choice is the amount of time I’d spend doing the paddle, because at this point I’m about a week off of schedule (who was the nitwit who came up with that ridiculous, unattainable timeline anyway?) and loosing a little bit of ground each and every day. As I told Judy last night - TIME is our greatest enemy at this point. So doing the paddle as opposed to the illegal bike would cost me a couple hrs at least. Nonetheless that’s a far sight better than have the Norfork-Southern on my ass for trespassing. 

So paddle it was, and a good one to, my longest of the trip at about 14+ river miles. And just to get it right I wanted to do it in reverse so #1 I could find a good put-in WITH Judy driving and me navigating so she wouldn’t get lost bum out, #2 so I could paddle with the current, and let me tell you, this little river isn’t a big quiet river like the Ohio and the Potomac, this pup has some current and some very light white water sections (I’d call it class .25 for you water junkies), and #3 I’d have the wind at my back. Wow, too many pluses here. We found a good put-in up in this park on the north side of town, and this is THE only put-in in the whole town!

Let me digress just a tad first before I go further into the paddle. Speaking of Chillicothe, I don’t feel good when I say this, and I’m not just trying to slam the place, but to me, it’s a pathetic little city, kind of dirty, old, run down, and filled with pot holed roads and decrepit housing developments. The industry is heavy and the pollution is thick. The people here are what most of the elite east and west coasters would call hillbillies. From what we’ve seen on the news, Chillicothe has a BIG drug problem, most notably meth and crack. Much of the crime down here revolves around those two cheap, additive drugs, and crime dominates the local news station. It’s a sad state of affairs down here in Chillicothe.  

So having Judy driving around here alone, that didn’t sit well with me. I definitely had to help her out in this place to find meeting and departing areas. Anyway, we found this one solitary put-in just beyond the levee and way the hell down this little dirt road way in back of the park area. I’m SO glad we did this together. Couldn’t have had her find this place on her own. Well, we got me situated with temps at nearly an all-time low of about 50-degree, and steely grey skies that looked like they’d burst open with rain at any minute. I was dressed with full bush pants, polypro top and gortex jacket. Got it rolling at just a tad after 9:30 AM. And as soon as I hit the river I could feel that current taking me to the southeast. I mean this was definitely a current compared to all the other rivers I’ve paddled thus far. I’d told Judy the paddle could take me 3 hrs, but man, with that current I was feeling greedy, thinking maybe I could do the thing in 2 hrs. 

I’d hit these little “mini” rapid sections, what I’d jokingly called Class .25 rapids at the beginning of this blog. I mean to any river runner, shit, they laugh at this. But to me, a cyclist dude, well, a couple of these pups gave me cause to use my full attention in order to NOT capsize the damned boat. I’d say this river is a tad bigger, like 2x, than the Cuyahoga, with nowhere near the deadfall. So I didn’t have all the lunkers you see on the Cuyahoga to worry about upending me. But it snaked around just like the crooked river itself. I passed beavers taking branches to their lairs, passed mother ducks with their cadre of ducklings right next to them, passed deer and geese, and I saw countless fish jumping out of the water and catching insects. It was kind of cool seeing life in a different way, off the bike and out in the middle of nowhere.

This took me under interstates, under county and state routes, and past farm fields and wooded highlands. It was relaxing and soothing at times - until I’d hit these little white water sections. Hell, I don’t even know if you COULD call it white water, maybe more like ACTIVE water. That’s when I had to really work on my steering to hold a straight line. That really brought me back to reality and needing to focus rather than paddle in a state of bliss. And out of all of these, there was only one where I kind of had the water really make me work to hold a good line, kind of made my heart do a quick tachycardia thing for about 10 seconds. Rain began about 1.5 hrs in and continued for about 20 min, very lightly though. It stopped but then started again at about the 2.5 hr mark. And yea, my thinking I’d do this in 2 hrs, that was out the door when I saw how long it took me to get to the Paint Creek junction. That’s when I knew I was in for at least the full 3 hrs. 

Managed to make the trek in exactly 3 hrs, but…nowhere to put-out with my canoe. Judy was waiting up past this Higby Road bridge, next to the RR tracks. But on her side was all private property. So I had to put-out in this farmers field on the other side of the bridge, then drag the canoe and full gear, including the folding bike, about 300 yards through this fallow soybean field up to this nice wide grassy berm on Higby Rd. This was a full-on workout for sure. Called Judy and told her I was about 400 yrds away. We got the canoe lashed and headed back to where we started so we could stop in the park and eat lunch before embarking on the next segment. So during the drive back the rain returned, and this time it was more of a soft drizzle. It lasted all the way through our lunch, maybe even getting a bit heavier. 

And there was the dilemma, do I continue and ride in the rain, or back it, or wait and hope the rain stops? Ah, questions, questions, questions. Well, in the interim I was able to get this little cabin at a campground about 15 miles west of Chillicothe, in the town of Frankfort, right along the next segment that I was planning on riding. So with that secured, I decided to just ride out on the bike-hike trail about 6 miles on the grassy berm, and then come back on the pavement. The trail, the Adena or Tri-County Trail, goes from Chillicothe to Washington Court House. It’s about 34 miles long east to west, and is paved…BUT it does have a grass/weed berm on each side. So this is my ticket west. Anyway I just had to get more done for the day, so even getting an hour of berm riding in IN THE RAIN, was better than nothing. Judy was parked in a nice safe parking area next to a public swimming pool and the park maintenance building, so we were good with her location. 

Dawned my gortex jacket again, wore the bush pants with a pair of cycling shorts underneath, put on my pack with a dry back inside containing my phone and electronic gear, and took off in a light rain. The first mile was just great, nice manicured grassy berm. Then the bottom fell out at mile 2, where the berm was more like woodland weeds, branches and rotten leaves. Got worse when I had to ride on fallow soy bean fields that were right up on the bike trail. By that time the light drizzle had turned into a full on rain, like an all-day soaker, white out, socked in mess. Yet that berm actually improved, to where I could hold a solid 7mph - yea sounds slow but to me that’s pretty good! So I kept rolling in the rain. 

Round about the one hour mark, I came to a trail sign, and found that I was 5.5 miles out of Chillicothe and 7.7 miles from Frankfort.  I got to thinking that now that I was soaked, I might as well just go that 7.5 miles rather than go back 5.5. So I called Judy, and thankfully she was game to just go for Frankfort without me navigation. I gave her the directions to the Frankfort trailhead, and that was it. Off I went and off when went. Got a call from her with me about 2 miles outside of town, telling me she was at the trailhead. All I needed to put it down and get that thing finished, completing 14 miles in exactly 2 hrs ride time. And man, as soon as I stopped I was cold and soaked to the bone. Temp couldn’t have been any higher than 52 degrees. 

We hit the campground and got in the cabin, cranked up this little gas furnace and here we sit warm and cozy. I’ve been able to dry off a good portion of my gear with the gas furnace. So today managed to get in 14+ miles of paddling and a 14 mile ride. Whoa…28 for the day. I’m crushing it! As I’ve been telling people, “this is going to be a grunt all the way through Illinois. My life gets easier once we hit the Katy Trail in MO. Until then, it’s slow going and tough days ahead. I can only look at it one day at a time, as cliche as it sounds, that’s the only way to approach something this long. See you tomorrow.