Continuing on to Canada

OK, it is official. We plan to continue our trip to Owen Sound, Ontario, Canada, and complete the remainder of the Underground Railroad Bicycle Route.


All has gone well with the myriad of things we needed to take care of here at home this past week. We will be in Washington DC for a day this week to celebrate with Mike's mother as she receives an honor for volunteer work she does (way to go, Mom!), and then will return here to load up our bikes and hit the road again.


We expect to be leaving our house on our bikes on Friday morning, June 22, and will rejoin the northbound UGRR route in Milford, Ohio (approximately 10 miles from home).


Let me briefly recap the route that we will follow. We will begin by largely following the great network of bike trails that exist in Ohio, angling northeast through the state. The route will pass west of Columbus, go between Cleveland and Akron, and will hit the shores of Lake Erie at Ashtabula. It will then follow the lake shore east through Erie, Pennsylvania, to Buffalo, NY. In Buffalo, we will cross over the Peace Bridge into Canada, and will follow the Niagara River on the Canadian side of the border past Niagara Falls to Niagara-on-the-Lake (on the shores of Lake Ontario). The route then heads west, following the shore of Lake Ontario past Hamilton, then turns north and northwest, eventually reaching Owen Sound on the shore of Lake Huron. The total route is about 800 miles (1275 km) long, with about 275 of those miles being above the border in Canada.


Here is the list of all the cities and towns that we will be passing along the way. (Click on the document to enlarge it, then hit your BACK button on your browser to return to the blog.)

We are really looking forward to this, more than we thought we would. We had half-expected to get home, and not even want to look at our bikes again! But instead, we feel like we have left a task only half-completed, we miss the days and the adventures out on the road, and we feel a real energy for continuing. Especially while we have all of our traveling "systems" well-honed now and fresh in our minds, and the callouses on our rear ends still in place!



As before, we will do our best to update this blog with our status as we have the opportunity to do so.