Ohio & Erie Canal

When I woke up this morning, it was a bit chilly - about 35 degrees.  No big hurry to get out for a bike ride.  Went over to have breakfast.  Visited with a couple from Indiana (with roots in Naperville, IL).  After breakfast, i spent some time working on the web site paged for the reunion trip.

About noon, it was in the mid to upper 50s.  Bright sunshine and almost no wind.  Time to head over to Boston Store Visitor's Center Towpath trailhead.  Grabbed the hybrid off the bike rack, topped off the tires, and headed out South.

My fraternity suggested that it would be more scenic riding South from Boston Store than North.  The trail surface is mostly hard packed crushed stone.  There are some paved section (mostly at intersections).  The trail takes you to some of the ruins of the locks.  Other places you just see where the canal used to be.  Often, on one side of the trail you have the canal, the other side is the Cuyahoga River.

There lots to see and photograph.  In my 9 mile ride, I ended ip with about 45 HDR photos.  Obviously, I was not setting any speed records!  It was just an enjoyable ride exploring this section of the Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail.  More about the trail will be written in the web site page.

Back at the hotel, I processed the bike ride photos.  Soon, it was time to drive down to Akron the check out "Locktoberfest".  Had a little finding the location as the wrote down the address as East North St.  But it was West North St - I was off by a couple blocks.

The festival was a small community function.  Could not go wrong as the donation to the Cascade Locks Park Association was $10 and I got 2 cups of local craft beer and a large brat.  I probably could have had another brat if I wanted.  For food there also hot dogs for the kids, baked beans, and chips.

Visited with the folks from the brewery.  Can got to a brewery tour at 2pm tomorrow.  For the record, the brewery is Thirsty Dog Brewing Co.  On tap for the festival they had their "Labrador Lager".

Kids were carving pumpkins and a group of fraternity members from the local Lambda Chi Alpha (Lambda Chi) were throwing bean bags.  Others were visiting.  Now, I did not know anyone at the festival.  Thankfully, I was wearing my Green Bay Packers jacket.  It was the ice-breaker.

One of the Lambda Chi brothers stopped to talk - he is a Bears fan and from Chicago.  His older brother is a Sigma Chi from DePaul. The Lambda Chi chapter were helping for the festival as a community service project!  Had another conservation with a local originally from Cudahay, Wis.  I ended up spending almost 2 hours there, about an hour longer than I had planned.

Was a very enjoyable day!