American Discovery Trail: A Fork in The Road

Gazebo at the Rose Hotel, Elizabethtown

Today we are at Elizabethtown, Ohio, in the far southwestern corner of the state, and for the only time on the American Discovery Trail, we have a choice of paths ahead of us. We can veer left and take the southern route, which is a couple of hundred miles longer and stays in Ohio only one more mile, then goes through Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, and Colorado. Or we can turn right onto the northern route and head straight north, staying in Ohio another 59 miles, then go through Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, and Colorado. The two routes converge in Denver, and then there is only one route from Denver to the California coast.
 

The decision was made long ago, before I started on this hike, so today we leave the eastern section of the trail and begin the central portion - northern route. Still in Ohio for a couple of weeks, but past a major trail milestone.

We passed the tomb of William Henry Harrison, who was president of the United States for 31 days before dying in office. Harrison was the first of eight presidents from Ohio (so far), the last president born a British citizen (in the colonies), and the grandfather of Benjamin Harrison, who became president himself in the late 1800's.

American Discovery Trail: A Side Trip to Kentucky

A flying pig

This was a busy week, as we started in the Cincinatti suburbs, finished the 18th segment of our journey at Eden Park in Cincinatti, walked past the Flying Pigs statues and across the Ohio River into Kentucky, then walked a couple of days in Kentucky before taking the Anderson Ferry back to Ohio, all of which leaves us less than 10 miles from our next milestone at Elizabethtown, Ohio.

Eden Park in Cincinatti

The American Discovery Trail website says that the trail passes Riverfront Stadium, former home of the Cincinatti Bengals and the Cincinatti Reds. However, Wikipedia says that Riverfront Stadium was demolished in 2002, which is 22 years ago, so perhaps the trail description could use a little update.

We walked over the Roebling Suspension Bridge from Cincinatti to Covington, Kentucky.

Covington Kentucky has a significant German history, so one of the main attractions there is called Mainstrasse, which resembles a German village.

The Goose Girl statue on Mainstrasse. The Goose Girl is actually a princess in a Grimm fairy tale whose evil maid changes places with her and marries the prince in her place, leaving the real princess to tend geese. However, the wise king figures out what is going on, and the imposter princess is stripped naked, thrown in a barrel with nails poking inside, and dragged around the city by horses until she dies, so there's a happy ending,

 

The Anderson Ferry looks like a houseboat attached to a barge. I hope they have life jackets.

American Discovery Trail: A Place I Really Walked To

Our "pier"

I walked a long way this week, averaging 12,000 steps per day, which leaves me in the suburbs about 15 miles outside of Cincinnati. Rather than pictures of the Ohio suburbs, I have a few photos I took yesterday on my walk.

I never think of it this way, but I guess I live in a development with a private beach. Technically, the beach and the path to it are only open to people in my community and the one next to us, although other people come and walk there anyway. Arlo and I had not gone down to the beach yet this year, but yesterday we made the effort. It is a long walk: 10,000 steps and about two hours round trip. I let Arlo run on the beach unless we encounter another dog, so it's fun for him.

We live at the far south end of Puget Sound, not quite the southernmost point, but close. The beach is about two miles from our house. When we got there it was an hour after low tide. If you go at high tide, you can barely step on the sand, but at low tide there is plenty of beach to walk on.

When we moved to Jubilee six years ago, there was quite a bit of the pier still standing. There were places you could have stood on it, if you could get up there. It looked like an old, broken-down pier. Now it is just eleven pilings and one crossboard hanging on. Beyond the pier in the picture is Anderson Island, one of many islands in the Sound. People live on Anderson Island, and it has roads and parks and services and a cemetery, but you can only get your car there by ferry.

Looking east along the beach. We walk over to the tree you can see in the distance lying across the beach. On the other side of the tree is someone else's private beach. I have no idea where our beach ends and theirs starts, but the tree makes a good dividing line.

We have our own shipwreck, on the beach next to ours. I have walked to it a couple of times, treading on our neighbors' private beach, and you can see various pieces of the boat, now almost all covered in barnacles. It is not really a shipwreck, but rather an abandoned boat left there long ago.

We have shells on our beach!

Arlo checking out the beach.

Someone is coming! Or maybe going, appears to be paddling between us and Anderson Island.

On a good day, you can see both Mount Rainier and the Olympic Mountains from the beach, but today was not that good day. I will have to go back.

American Discovery Trail: 1,000 Miles

 

Today, I hit 1,000 miles on my trek, and that is worth noting. It is only a little more than 20% of the way to the Pacific Ocean, and I regret taking on this challenge a bit, because it would be nice to see more progress on a weekly basis and to celebrate some success more often, but I committed to this task, and I will try to finish it.

I started eleven months ago, and I am still just in Ohio. I will be in Ohio almost another month. Depressing.

I already have my next trip in mind, nevertheless. Once I get to Point Reyes, in a few years, I will have walked close to 8,400 miles total, between walking from Washington to Miami and walking the American Discovery Trail, so I will need just over 1,600 more miles to make it to 10,000. To get those 1,600 miles in, I plan to walk on the Pacific Crest Trail from near here in Washington to past Mount Whitney in Southern California. It's a walk I wish I could take for real, but my legs would never make it now, so a virtual walk is the best I can do. The pictures should be very scenic.

It's good to have plans.

My left knee feels good most mornings, then it gets stiff after I walk with Arlo. I am concerned that doctors may tell me to stop walking so much, because I do not want to do that. We will see.

American Discovery Trail: Slouching Towards Cincinnati

The Little Miami River

Well, finally I have at least started the segment that ends in Cincinnati, though it will take more than a week to get there from here. My walking this month has been very sad; I walked over 11,000 steps today for the first time this month, and my average effort has been about 8,000 steps. Blame medical appointments, bridge, various things. Blame me. But I walked today and looked for morels, and I will try to make up some of my lost mileage by the end of the month.

No morels this year. The time for them has probably passed now. Conditions apparently were not right.

This week, I should cruise past 1,000 miles since the Delaware coast and get to the greater Cincinnati area if not the city itself.

This segment starts near Mt. Orab, Ohio before reaching the Little Miami River. Pictures of Mt. Orab on the Internet look a lot like a lot of other towns, so this is a picture of beasts in Zimbabwe.

East Lake State Park, home of William H Harsha Lake. Bill Harsha was a Republican in the House of Representatives representing Ohio for 20 years. He got a lake named for him.

East Lake State Park is near Williamsburg, Ohio. Pictures of Williamsburg are unremarkable, so I posted this very nice photo of Morocco instead.

 

American Discovery Trail: Grant Lake, Ohio

Actually, I am still more than five miles from Grant Lake, but close enough. The picture here is called The Venue at Grant Lake, which seems descriptive enough. It looks like there is even a "V" for venue on the building. You can get married there.

Since I last posted, I have spent six of the twelve days playing bridge, and I have walked only 35 miles. However, I do not anticipate any tournaments for at least several weeks, so back to walking.

I am ready to be out of Ohio, though I have some weeks to go. Milestones for the rest of Ohio: 1,000 miles walked, which I should reach in about a week; Cincinnati, the only big Ohio city on my route; Kentucky, which I will walk into and out of all in a couple of days after Cincinnati; Elizabethtown, where the American Discovery Trail splits into northern and southern routes; and the Indiana border, almost 60 miles past Elizabethtown, even though Elizabethtown is on the border with Indiana, because we will take the northern route, which goes north along the Ohio side of the border for 58 miles before turning west into Indiana.

I promised a bridge update. I earned 3.5 silver points in the tournament over the last weekend in April, then 3.5 red and 1 gold in the tournament in Oregon this last weekend. That leaves me needing three silver points and twenty total points to reach my next milestone. I am not sure yet how I will get the silver points, but I expect to get there by the end of August.

The trail crosses a place called Sterling Run. This picture popped up on the Internet because this football player is named Sterling, and there he is, running.

An abandoned building at Neel, Ohio. Google Maps has trouble finding Neel, Ohio. It looks like the whole town was abandoned, or maybe this store was the whole town.

New Hope has a covered bridge, which looks like it is closed to traffic. The sign on the top of it warns about fines for damaging the bridge.

Wikipedia does not show any population for New Hope. There used to be a post office here, but it closed in 1906. Also, Wikipedia shows where New Hope is on a map of Ohio, and that map says that we are nowhere near the place, so who knows? Maybe we are close to this bridge, and maybe not.