County caching...

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY TO US--

My oldest son Brian and I are kibitzing (above) on Milan, OH's historic town square midway through our slightly tardy, Father's Day celebratory ride.  Scheduling conflicts shifted our cycling/geocaching outing ahead one week to a day that rewarded us with delightful weather for our rolling adventure.

Our statistics were:  220 miles ridden with 8 geocaches found, 2 each in the four Ohio counties  I added to my count of attempting to cache in each of Ohio's 88 counties.  That county total is now 34.

We left my place at 8 that morning and rolled north on my shadow-dappled township road with early mist dissolving in the rising sun and headed east on the Lincoln Highway out of Mansfield through Mifflin and Hayesville, joining SR 58 north of Polk in Ashland County.

We were headed for our first caching stop near the Findlay State Park just south of Wellington in Lorain County.  I had my eyes on two caches on a county road just west of the park.
 
In preparing for our ride I had selected two caches in each of the four counties I hoped to record.  I only needed one to log the county so the second cache was a spare in case we couldn't find the first one.  Turns out we found two caches in each of the target counties; a perfect score for the caching day.

We parked the bikes just off the berm of that county road, promptly found the first cache and decided to walk to the second one just 1/10th of a mile west.  Once again the caring side of humanity emerged when folks in several passing cars asked if we needed some assistance.  We no-thanked them with a big smiling wave and enjoyed a restored sense of the basic good in people--at least the country-folk variety.

With the second cache in hand we headed back to the bikes and decided on a fuel stop in Wellington which would leave both of us with enough gas to complete our ride.  That tank rewarded me with a score of 57.8 MPG by my 750cc powered Honda Shadow.

We rolled west from there on OH 18 and turned north on OH 601 right beside the Norwalk Raceway where I could imagine myself racing the cars I could hear blasting from the start-line and heading north right beside us.

Route 601 deposited us on Milan's town square where we zig-zaged our way on town streets to the birthplace of very prolific inventor Thomas Edison.

We found that cache while pondering the fact Milan once, very early in Ohio's history, was a world-class sea port with hard to imagine nautical commerce launching in the vast-for-its-time basin/harbor right behind what is now Edison's museum.

From there with a little more zig-zagging on town streets we nailed the alternate cache for Erie County in a local cemetery then wiggled our way to the town's square for lunch at the Invention eatery then a brief stop for the above photo, done by an obliging, fellow tourist.

State route 113 treated us to a nice ride west to Bellevue, passing Lyme Village, a delightfully reconstructed showcase of Ohio antiquity.  Right smack in the middle of Bellevue we were careful to note the Sandusky County boundary which bisects the downtown.  We were careful to insure the neat railroad museum there (and our next cache) was on the correct side of the county line.

It was and we scored it quickly then hopped into their museum for a brief visit and an extremely welcomed bottle of water as temps by then had achieved the mid to high 80s.  I was grateful I had invested in a very protective, armored jacket with terrific ventilation--at highway speeds.  Even my helmet, with its adjustable visor and adjustable sun shade, has a variety of adjustable vents.  The vents were wide open on that ride.

Our only caching glitch of the day happened in that town/county.  On the morning of our departure I had discovered my alternate cache for Sandusky County had been destroyed and archived so I hastily picked an alternate near a score board at the town's near-by high school athletic field.

As we prepared to head that way I remembered concealed handguns and school facilities, dormant or not, do not play well together so we abandoned that cache attempt and ad-libbed our way west to a little country cemetery found on my smartphone's caching app where we were rewarded with #6 cache for the day.

We continued ad-libbing our route from there, heading south on a county road we hoped would lead us to SR 18 on the way to our next intended town.  It did, and after sailing along on that arrow straight highway we slid through Republic with a gentle turn south on SR 19 and were delivered to another cemetery beside an aging, arched stone RR overpass.

With that cache found and recorded in the day's log we had one more to go; our alternate for Seneca County.  That turned out to be yet another cemetery and a quick find on SR 162 east of Republic.

I wanted to cheer after we had our perfect score safely tucked away but chose to continue a decorum more appropriate for the location.

That left us with the comfortable task of trundling leisurely toward home:  SR 162 east to SR 4 south through Attica then a left turn in Caroline down a county road to New Washington (once known as Dutchtown) where we stopped at the local custard stand for another refreshing beverage.

From there we rolled east on SR 103 to SR 39 south through Shelby and into Mansfield.  Along that last four-lane stretch son Brian took the lead and headed us to their family pontoon boat on Charles Mill Lake for a wonderfully relaxing boat ride and fitting conclusion to our adventuresome day.

Happy Father's Day indeed!

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Postscript:  On the final leg home, I stopped by lady friend Sue's digs to insure my day's dalliance on the motorcycle without her would be forgiven.   Shortly thereafter I wound up leaving the cycle in her garage and appreciating her driving me home under a dousing thunderstorm.