Ohiooo!

It's getting late when I arrive at my aunt and uncle's place. We catch up real quick, and I shower and we head out to dinner at Skyline, which kicks off my tour of staple Cincinnati cuisine. Skyline chili is pretty much a delicious chili sauce that is served over spaghetti with onions and cheese. The next day I have to myself since my aunt and uncle are at work. I do laundry and clean up and tune my bike. It's been a long time since I cleaned my bike, and all the chrome is fogged up from thousands of miles of roads, and the paint has water spots from rain and dirt gathering in random spots. The base of my radiator is blasted with dirt from the front wheel. When I am done with it, it's no show piece, but it is a whole lot better, and I have thoroughly cleaned off and re-lubricated my chain. That evening we continue the Cincinnati cuisine tour at the Montgomery Inn. I get pork chops and ribs. Apparently this place is famous for its ribs, which are certainly good, but nothing worth calling famous. Our waiter is pretty snotty, and the place isn't classy enough to have snotty waiters. I don't know what his deal is, but he sure wouldn't cut it at Faustina.
The next day is Friday, and Uncle Mike takes the day off. We go over my bike some more, adding air, adjusting the chain, checking the spark plugs and spokes, and the air filter. The paper in the air filter is half dark red, half black, and I'm not sure how dirty is too dirty. Uncle Mike suggests getting a new one just to be safe, which makes sense. Fortunately there is a Honda shop right near by, and we pick up a new filter. Up near the ceiling, the shop has raised a whole bunch of classic motorcycles for display. Uncle Mike recognizes most of them which is pretty cool, because I really don't know much about motorcycles. I can hardly recognize a Harley from a Honda from a Yamaha on the road, but I think that is more from a conscious design choice the Japanese bike makers have made. The new air filter is a clean, bright orange, and comparing the old one to it shows how badly I needed the new one. After putting it on the bike, we head into town for another stop at a classic Cincinnati restaurant, Camp Washington. This is another chili place, and is pretty similar to Skyline, but I guess it has more of a reputation in the area. The next stop is the Cincinnati Museum Center which is in an old train depot. There are a few museums here, but we just go to the Cincinnati History Museum. The big deal at this museum, as far as I'm concerned, is a sprawling model of Cincinnati circa the thirties and forties. This model is humongous and ridiculously detailed. It takes about forty-five minutes to go over the whole thing, and probably not notice all the little details like the tiny people arguing over a car accident, or a lit up furnace on the street next to a moving pulley for roofers, or smoke coming out of a building with firetrucks pulled up next to it. They have ever neighborhood and the old baseball stadium and probably many more things that I didn't recognize since I am not intimately familiar with Cincinnati. The rest of the museum is pretty standard stuff: and old streetcar, a bunch of World War II displays and info about industries and pre-colonial history, and boating industries and so forth. From the museum we met up with my aunt at Dana's, a bar my aunt and uncle have been going to for decades, since they were in college, where my uncle used to both work and play at in a band. It's a pretty cool bar, small and worn down and dark, they way I like my bars. That night we eat grilled brats instead of going out because maybe we hit all the standard Cincinnati restaurants already.
I am leaving the next day to head up to Kelley's Island on Lake Erie, and have to miss the Oktoberfest celebrations in Cincinnati, which has a large German heritage. I eat a great big breakfast and pack up my bike and go over my route one more time. I have to get on I-275 for a little bit, then take 28 northeast until I get to 68 which runs north through most of the state. 68 is a pretty nice road that runs through farm country and small towns. After a couple hours, I stop for gas and lunch in a town called Arlington. I fill my tank at a BP and see an IGA down the street that I get a pre-made sandwich from. This is clearly a tiny town and I can tell I am getting the stranger look from everyone at the grocery store as I am sitting on my bike in the parking lot eating my sandwich and chips. I check my map before I go to figure out where I am and I notice I am just about where 68 ends. From here I see that I can take 12 to 53 to 163, which brings me to Marblehead, where I can get the ferry to Kelley's Island. I have noticed that when I am studying a map to plot out a route from point A to point B, I often overlook roads even smaller than the ones I am initially planning on taking. It's a matter of focus, because I look for the obvious route, outside of interstates of course, first. When I find that route I am looking for, only then can I look at it with more scrutiny, to see if there are better looking roads around, or roads that will cut off some time or miles. Often, I have to be on the route I initially found to focus on the smaller roads because at that point I have already found a road and begun driving on it, so my focus is available for something else. Case in point, 12 and 53 and 163. This is not the path I had planned on taking, but I am in a good position to take it and it would be better than going on I-75 north to another road going east since it would be more direct and avoid an interstate. A great score.
I soon find myself near Marblehead and the ferry. The farm country has faded into strip malls and traffic lights, but I eventually make it to the ferry, which is easy to spot, but still I drive past the entrance and have to turn around. The sun is bright still, and the ferry soon comes, making this the second time I have been on a ferry on this trip. This time I am on the opposite end of the country, north instead of south, and I am not out of gas. When I get off the ferry, I wait for Terry to come meet me. Terry was my one-time uncle, or ex-uncle, or uncle once-removed (if that is the term - I cannot wrap my head around family/relative jargon) or whatever the term. He is the father of two of my cousins, and looks identical to his son Jesse, the only member of my family that I have not yet, or will not see on my trip. This is the only reason I recognize him, since I have only met Terry when I was three and don't remember at all. I follow him back to the bed and breakfast he owns and runs and we jump in Lake Erie for a swim before dinner. It's pretty chilly in the lake, but I get used to it quickly. We hang around the kitchen before heading out and I tell him about my trip and he tells me about his travels when he was younger. The conversations spills over to dinner where I get an awesome steak with an equally awesome heap of mashed potatoes. Terry seems to know everyone at the restaurant which makes sense because he owns it, but when we go to a bar down the street, he knows everyone there too. I guess that's just what happens when you're a friendly person living in a small place for long enough. That night I relax in my personal jacuzzi tub in my own room with my own deck. In the morning I take a bike around the island. I find my way to a dead end that nearly runs into the lake, and to a nature walk around a marsh, and to a three hundred foot long set of glacially-warped and grooved rock, and to a rock covered in old Indian inscriptions. I make it entirely around the island in under two hours, and back to Terry's around noon. He is getting ready for a week-long bicycle trip in Florida with Jesse, packing up and checking his bike. We go into town for lunch and sit on the water and eat where everyone knows him of course. I feel like I have gotten the VIP tour of Kelley's Island in the short time I was here. I am glad I go to know Terry and I thank him before heading to the ferry. I have a short ride to Cleveland, where I absolutely need to be tonight so I can see The Brian Jonestown Massacre play.