"I want to bike 67 miles for my 67th birthday!" Bob exclaimed a couple of weeks ago. I'd been thinking about what to do for his birthday; although he doesn't think so, he's come a long way in the past year since his major heart surgery.  I happened to be off the week of his birthday and my friend Leslie agreed to take care of the animals during that time, so I said it sounded like fun.  We decided to ride part of the Miami Bike Trail  since it's supposed to be flat. 

We found  a place to stay  called "The Kickstand Bed and Breakfast" that was right on the trail.  With a name like that, we were intrigued. It turned out to be a  little place with 4 suites.  Nicely decorated inside, with a bike motif and lots of homey sayings and paintings on the walls. I noticed there were no pictures of the outside of the building, which I wondered about, and when we arrived, I saw why. While the building itself was fine, it was next to an old granary building whose better days were long gone. But, there was a nice little sitting area outside and the rooms are spacious and reasonably priced.  The suites are upstairs, with a combination ice cream shop/laundromat/antique store downstairs and  a restaurant two doors down.   It's right on the trail.  I figured we'd have enough scenery on our ride to keep us happy, plus we see rustic sights all the time biking in KY, so who needed an exterior view?

Our trip started out auspiciously enough, we took a detour to the Performance Bike shop in Cincinnati, and since Bob had originally bought his bike at a Seattle branch of the store, the bike mechanics' there asked him to bring his bike in and they'd do his free maintenance check.  They discovered bent links on the chain, so replaced it and we were on our way.

It was pouring rain the next morning so we waited until around 11am for it to slack off then decided to hit the trail.  As we were riding down the trail, enjoying the canopy of trees overhead and the cooler temps from the storm, I noticed it was getting very dark to the west.  Just about the time we reached the town of Corwin, the skies let loose with lots of thunder, lightning, and heavy rain. We looked around for some shelter, and spotted a dilapidated house just ahead.  We got to the porch just as a big clap of thunder shook it.  I tried to grab hold of a post holding up the porch to help me climb up and it moved a good 4 inches to the side, so I quickly let go before it broke off. There was a sign on the porch that said "use side door" and there was a piece of lattice work lying on the porch at the top of the steps with a dirty plastic chair on top of it which served to cover up several big gaps in the rotten wood. The house had obviously seen better days, whatever was supposed to trickle down the economy to this dwelling had long since ebbed away.  There was a sign on the wall by the door that said the house was originally a stagecoach stopping place.  The sign looked fairly new, and was in stark contrast to the rest of the house. There didn't  seem to be  any electricity inside the house, it was dark,and we kept expecting to see the butt of a shotgun come out of the door, or maybe a character from one of those old "B" Hammer horror movies.  Riff-Raff from the Rocky Horror Show would have been right at home.

Bob  and I on the porch

Our shelter. The wind blew the chair over so before we left I put it back exactly like it was

Shelter # 2, where we later met Elvis

We kept checking the radar on Bob's phone and as it showed things to be resolving, we set off again. We'd gone less then a half mile when there was a big flash of lightning and clap of thunder seemingly right on top of us. Luckily there was a bathroom shelter nearby, so we hurried in there for our second shelter encounter.  At least this time we were able to bring the bikes along with us.  Two bikers rode by not even wearing helmets, they seemed totally oblivious to the weather and zoomed right on past us.  Maybe they were locals and had someplace to be, they didn't even seem to be aware that lightning was flashing all around them.

Finally things let up enough to start out again, although I was a bit worried that another storm would form on top of us.  We had the trail to ourselves, I guess no one else was foolhardy enough to go out that day, and the cyclists who had passed by the bathroom shelter earlier were long gone.  There were lots of branches and sticks on the trail, so we had to keep a sharp eye out.  We came across several downed trees  totally covering the trail requiring us to dismount and bushwhack our way around.  As I encountered the first tree, I was so intent on staring at it ( maybe I thought it was going to come to life and get out of our way?) that I came to a stop and completely forgot that I was strapped in the pedals. About the time I figured it out, I was on my way down, so I fell and landed on my left knee. I came down hard!  I had to sit there a minute and catch my breath, and Bob came over to help me up.  Nothing seemed broken, it just hurt every time I bent it. At that point I only had about 50+ miles to go, so I figured I'd be OK.

Two of the downed trees we encountered

                                                                           










Did I mention it turned cold after the rain?  Not wintry cold, but not the 90 degree temps we'd been expecting. Plus we were soaking wet.  We had a pleasant, albeit slightly chilly, ride dodging tree limbs and sticks and trees down to Morrow, to an ice cream shop our cycling friends had told us about. The ice cream looked good, but they also served bar-b-q sandwiches, so we had those instead.  I would have loved to try the ice cream but we were just too chilly.                                    

              


At this point we were about 22 miles into our trip, so we decided to come back up the trail. That way we could stop by the B&B and change clothes and finish our ride.  The sun had come out and it had turned into a gorgeous day.  Along the trail we met a couple  who came to the KY Horse Park several times a year to see their daughter compete in eventing, and we saw quite a few dog walkers.  We passed the same downed  trees, but this time we knew they were there and how to best navigate around them.  I saw several people ride up to the trees and simply turn back, but of course we couldn't do that. Bob also checked out a canoe/kayak rental place. I saw they had a canoe ride advertised for seniors that said the boat would not tip over, that sounded like a ride for me!

Bob at the canoe rental building

As we drove back into Corwin, we stopped again at the little bathroom shelter. As we were coming out, there was a man riding by on a bike. He was short, looked to be our age, and the bike might even have been a  kid's bike, it was way too small for him.  It had a little bell on it. As he rode by the bathroom, he rang the bell three times, said "One, Two, Three," then rode around the building and repeated the routine.  We said hello, and on his third rotation, he asked if we wanted to race. We told him no, he'd probably beat us, so once again, he  rode around the building ringing his bell, then continued  on down the street.

 We wanted to stop by the house where we had taken shelter to get a picture. As we rode up, I noticed two men playing cards alongside the house. I told them we'd stopped on the porch earlier during the storm, and one of them came over. He was tall, wearing a torn undershirt  and shorts, with a  hearing aide in one ear. He said that his father had told him about the house's history, and his brother had made the sign hanging on the porch referring to it having been a stagecoach inn .  He apologized for the holes on the porch, and I told him it didn't matter to us, it was our port in the storm and worked out fine.  Bob was hanging back trying to get a picture. The little man on the bike rode up, ringing his bell and doing his counting routine and asked again if I wanted to race.  Without waiting for an answer he rode back down towards Bob. The owner of the house told me that the little guy was a big Elvis fan and they called him "Elvis" but he called himself  "The King."  He said Elvis had a house down the street with a throne on the porch and he'd sit on it wearing a crown and a cloak. Elvis also sings (Elvis songs, of course) and performs  at the local fair.  "I knew Elvis back in 1972," the man told me, "so he calls me 'The King 2,' and hangs around  here a lot."  Elvis rode back up to us and I asked him to sing one of his songs. He started singing; he didn't exactly sound like Elvis, but he could carry a tune, and just about the time I was going to pull out my phone and get a video, I spotted Bob riding up. Elvis saw me look at Bob, said "Oh, that's your man over there!" and rode off, disgusted.  I didn't mean to hurt his feelings, but it was too late.  I thought about calling him to come back, but the damage was done;  kings don't like to be ignored, especially self-appointed ones. But, if you're ever on the trail and stop off at the bathroom and Elvis comes by, be sure to say hello and ask for a song.

The rest of the way back to the B&B was uneventful but very pleasant. By now, more people had ventured onto the trail, so we encountered more walkers and cyclists and continued to dodge fallen limbs and sticks.  When we got back to our rooms, we changed clothes, packed up some more water and headed off to finish our trip.  We rode up to Xenia then turned around. It was slightly uphill going  to Xenia, which meant a slight downhill on the way back, although compared to our KY hills, nothing on that trail seemed anything like a real hill.

 At one point heading back down from Xenia, Bob got ahead of me at a crossing. I had gotten off my bike and when I got back on, something didn't feel right. I looked down, and sure enough, I had my first flat tire since I started riding several months ago.  When we'd changed clothes, Bob had taken the tubes for the tires with him, so I didn't have anything to change a tire.  I thought he'd notice I wasn't with him and come back, but he didn't.  I called him and left a message, then figured I'd start walking. It couldn't be too far back to our rooms, and I could walk if I had to. By this time, my knee was really starting to hurt and it had swollen to the point that it  looked like I had a ping-pong ball attached to my kneecap.  Finally, Bob rode back and we walked back together to the room, it was about a mile away. At that point I'd had enough, he offered to change the tire so I could keep going, but I told him I'd gone 58 miles, which was good enough for me and for him to go on and do the rest of the miles himself. It was his goal, so he needed to finish.  He continued on his way and I went up to the room to attend to my knee, take a shower and wait for him. While I was waiting, I took a walk around the building to see what else was there. I didn't get a picture of  the restaurant downstairs where we ate dinner later but it  had good food at a very reasonable price. The next little building down had a shop, which wasn't open yet but I spotted a cat and a dog in the window, so I had to take pictures of them. The dog was barking but in a friendly way, so I talked to him. The cat of course could care less about me.

I timed it pretty well, about the time I walked around the building again, I spotted Bob riding up the trail to the B&B, so I snapped a picture of him finishing his 67 miles.  He'd decided that was what he wanted to do, and he did it, encountering storms, wind, fallen trees, and Elvis along the way!  Congratulations, Bob! I hope it was a birthday to remember!