Day 5
October 8, 2021:
I was up in the wee hours of the morning to have a wee. For some reason, I just didn’t feel very tired. I eked out another phone charge from my power bank, depleting it so fully even the flashlight didn’t turn on anymore. I’m not sure when I fell back asleep, but the next thing I knew, bright sunbeams illuminated the tent. The morning air was muggy, and I had slept in until around 9:30. I sat up, playing on my phone for about an hour, feeling lazy. My camping spot was so secluded that I didn’t feel the urgency to get up and go at dawn, so I just didn’t. After a long while, I got out of the tent, ate breakfast, brushed my teeth, applied deodorant, and used a log to lay a log. (Glad the potty jokes are out of the way.) I took the cover off of the tent, letting the moisture inside to dissipate a bit. I lounged for a bit longer, then finally decided to pack my things and go. Packing would be quicker if I either had more urgency or fewer items. I finally left camp at around noon.
I wanted to reach Granville so I could visit the Slivy café on the campus in town. It looked nice from the google images, and seemed like the kind of hip place I could get a quality bagel. The country roads getting there were a bit dicey, with very slim shoulders and fast cars. Quite often, I found myself riding over the grass or gravel beside the road to get as much space between the me and the passing cars.
Upon reaching Granville, I had to ascend a steep hill to get to Slivy’s – or at least I would have had to. I decided it wasn’t worth it, my legs already aching from the strain the roads had given them. It’s important to listen to your legs, especially your knees, lest you risk injury. I headed into downtown instead, finding a pleasant main street lined with mom’n’pop stores and restaurants. I stopped at a place called Village Coffee, locking my bike to a rack before I walked inside. I got a classic BLT, a honey mustard turkey wrap, and a mango smoothie. I quickly wrote up and posted my Day 4 blog while eating. Unfortunately, the café closed at 4:00 pm, and I had to leave within about an hour of showing up.
From there, I continued on to Newark, OH, a short hop just two more miles down the Evans trail. This section of the trail was especially beautiful: a tunnel of green on a bed of multicolored fallen leaves. It was smooth, and slightly downhill, so I got there in no time. The trail deposited me on Main St, and I followed this to 30th for the Colonial coin laundromat there. I’ve used maybe 2/3 of my clothes, but despite using plastic bags to separate dirty laundry from clean clothes, some cross contamination must have happened, since now they all smell. My swim shorts especially, having never dried since Caesar Creek lake, were starting to smell of mildew. The attendant (Andrea), at the laundromat was very helpful, holding the door open for me to get my bike inside. She told me bike theft is quite problematic in Newark, and that while it’s getting better, she still doesn’t trust leaving things on her front porch. She totally understood my desire to stay with and protect my bike. Thankfully, there was a coin exchange and soap dispenser there, and the cycle times were quite short, so I was soon on my way. I quickly went next door to Jolly Pirate Donuts to get my bottles refilled. The employee on staff (Jennifer) was interested in my trip, so I told her about the blog.
I left, heading past the local high school (which was celebrating their homecoming football game), towards downtown. Despite being a much larger city than Granville, I found the downtown area of Newark much less impressive, with only a Moe’s BBQ joint that looked appetizing. I was eager to be on my way though, and made my way through the eastern part of town. It was very run-down, and I sped past many lowlifes on the trail, calling out “I’ll be passing on your left!” to be sure I didn’t hit them. There were homeless encampments, hookers, and drug dealers along the bike path. Litter was scattered in the grass and shrubbery. I flew by, not wanting any trouble.
The path followed train tracks out of town to the east. I needed to get as far as I could from Newark to safely make camp for the evening. As I sped on, I flew past a house that had burned down… that was still smoldering, small plumes of smoke rising into the air from its caved-in, sooty roof. There was also a gigantic crushed car center that creeped me out. I was reminded of the towering columns of smoke I’d seen rising from Foster City, CA, where a car crusher there routinely had fires.
The sun set behind me, and dusk settled quickly. The light dimming, I still didn’t know where I’d be sleeping. I needed a spot not visible from the trail, not visible from any building, and far enough away from either that my flashlights wouldn’t alert others to my presence. Preferably, also a relatively flat, dry, grassy area so that it would be easy to set up camp. Those are always my criteria. But today, I had to settle for a spot on the other side of a muddy ditch, on top of tall weeds, not far from the trail. It’s far from ideal, but it will suit my purposes just fine.
Inside the tent, I got comfortable, wrote my journal entry for the day, plugged in my GoPro batteries to my power bank to recharge them, and opened my computer to transfer files from my GoPro micro sd card to the external drive I carry with me. Upon doing so, however, the screen was a shade of green, with pink, flickering lines running horizontally across the top. The upper right corner is entirely black. Speaking with friends, the leading theory is that the digitizer is broken, and that while this may be repairable at a shop, it may not be worth doing. The thought is that the damage came as the result of vibrations on the trail which may have shaken loose a connector inside the computer. Even if I got it repaired, this could easily happen again further down the line. I’ll have to consider the repair bill versus the cost of a more rugged device.
