Cleveland rocks, Cleveland rocks, Cleveland rocks...OHIO!

Hello,
I'm in Lorraine, Ohio just past Cleveland. We're on our way to Melissa's
Grandparents' house.

First, let me explain something about my emails. I have had the same
experience at 6 different libraries across the northeast. We usually get to
the library and the librarian explains to us that we can go online, but due
to their rules we cannot use email. (one woman actually blamed it on Bill
Gates - "Bill Gates gave us these computers, but told us that our patrons
couldn't use email with them." I'm thinking, Bill Gates OWNS Hotmail, I
don't think he'll have a problem with me logging on.) So, after the
librarians warn us about their strict no email policies, we nod our heads,
walk over to the computers and promptly log into hotmail to check our email.
Then about 45 minutes later we have this conversation:
Librarian - "Miss, we are closing in 5 minutes, so you'll have to shut
down."
Me - "Ok, I'm almost done."
Librarian 5 minutes later - "I'm sorry Miss, but we're closing so you'll
have to log out."
Me - "ok, i'm just signing my name to the end of the email."
Slightly agitated librarian - "It's really time to go, I'm going to have to
ask you to leave."
Me - "ok, see i'm just clicking off who i want to send it to, i'm almost
finished i promise."
Angry librarian - "i'm going to have to come over there and press the power
button!"
Frantic Me - "ok look, see these are the last names to click, there i'm
clicking them, see now i'm pressing send, now i just have to see the
confirmation, there we go! ok! look i'm done! thank you so much have a
great day you made my night i haven't seen a computer in a week and you are
so wonderful thank you thank you." as I run out the door.

I hope that explains why there is never time to spell check, check for
proper grammer, even proper content, or proper tenses. I usually just pound
the keys for 30-45 minutes and then hit send as i'm running out the door
narrowly escaping the angry mob chasing me out of town.

Anyway. On Saturday, we had a lovely dinner with Melissa's parents who
drove up to Niagara Falls and an even better night's sleep in a hotel room
with an amazing view of the Falls. On Sunday, we went out and did the Maid
of the Mist boat tour and walked around the falls. Let me tell you, I was
really impressed by the Falls. As Melissa's father pointed out, "The word
awesome really should be reserved for spectacles like these." We biked out
of Niagara on the Niagara Highway bike path - about 16 miles of gorgeous
views over the Niagara river and really cool houses on our right. If anyone
is thinking about doing a week bike tour I would highly recommend combining
the erie canal bikeway with the niagara river bikeway and making a vacation
out of it. What amazing scenery and great trails to ride on.

That night we biked into Buffalo. We hit main street about 6:30 and saw
that it was some sort of festival. It turned out to be the Taste of Buffalo
that happens once a year. Yippee! what luck! as we made our way through
the crowds with our loaded bikes, people kept stopping us to talk to us. we
probably could have just stopped, set up a booth and made some money off the
whole thing. We collected so many business cards from people, saying "if
you need anything while in buffalo, give me a call". We got to our hostel
and decided that we would go take a shower before going out to sample all of
the local cuisine. We walked out of the hostel about 5 til 8 and we found a
ghost town. All of the booths were completely taken down. This was
devastating for two reasons - 1. b/c we were starving and all of the
restaurants in the area were closed and 2. b/c this disproved our theory
that we were the luckiest people on earth. As we sulked along main street
we finally came upon one booth that was still cleaning up. Melissa went up
to them and pitifully asked if there was any food that we could buy off of
them. They said that they were only allowed to accept tickets for it, but
after hearing our story, gave us pork sandwiches. Then the guy came back
and handed us 5 pounds of a chunk of beef brisket and a bag of rolls. We
went over to a bench and without a knife or napkins made ourselves a few
sandwiches. Appropriately, a homeless woman sat down near us and we gave
the remaining 4 pounds of brisket and rolls to her, Melissa explaining,
"earlier we were hungry and someone gave us a bunch of food, and thought you
might like this."

We met a few interesting characters at the hostel including 3 students from
the Czech Republic who came over on a 3 month visa and chose to spend their
3 months in Buffalo. It was a nice town, but I couldn't help asking over
and over again, "Why Buffalo?".

The next morning we biked out of buffalo and along the way stopped in at
Tony's bike shop in a little town. We ended up talking to the owner (Tony)
who had a thick Italian accent and had operated this store for the past 40
years. At the end he gave us his card telling us, "so when you get to the
West coast you show them all about Tony." (please read that last line with
a thick Italian accent). I nearly gave him a hug as we left.

At our campground that evening we spent a long time talking to Brandy and
Jason who were driving up to Canada to watch as 5,000 whales invaded the
something or other - they kind of lost me with their description of a
temporary virtual ecosystem, blah, blah, blah. But what i did find
fascinating was that they served 2 years in the Peace corps in Papau New
Guinea. One thing that we took away from them is that they keep a book of
the people they meet and write in their answers to the following question,
"what is the best place that you've ever visited." We got their answer - a
beach in Papau New Guinea that now goes on my list (unfortunately as you
travel, i've found that the desire to travel more grows exponentially).

On Tuesday night we slept on the beach (literally on the sand, 20 feet from
the water) of Lake Erie, in Erie Pennsylvania on Presque Isle. I was very
excited because as we rolled into our camp spot we were greeted by a hearty,
"Where did yunz start from today? We passed yunz on the road." I quickly
noticed the many Steelers bumper stickers on the campers and cars around me
and quickly felt at home. It turned out that our neighbors were from Amity
which is near where I grew up and actually is the town where Miranda grew up
(for those of you who know her). Miranda is the daughter of Mr. Nickles, my
high school english teacher (for those of you who know him) and went to
college with me. After setting up our tent we went for a swim in Lake Erie
as the sun was setting - yes, we know our life is good.

We biked into Geneva on the Lake on Wednesday and Melissa's Dad drove out,
picked us up and took us back to his house on Conneaut Lake. Melissa's
parents were amazing hosts - there we relaxed, did laundry, watched movies,
went to Walmart, ate good food, rode jet skis, and really just had fun.

On Friday we biked to Melissa's brother's apartment in Cleveland Heights and
dropped off our bikes and stuff. Then, my Uncle Chuck (for those of you
baseball fans out there, not that Charles Nagy from Cleveland) drove in and
picked us up and took us back to his house in New Ridgeville. (Are you
beginning to sense that Melissa and I have a few relatives in the Cleveland
area?) They brought my cousin Denise's son Khory with them to pick us up.
The best quote of the night was when I asked Khory if he would like to see
my bike. He quickly replied, "No." Yeah, my ego of I am so cool since i'm
biking cross country was crushed in 10 seconds by a 5 year old. We had a
great homemade dinner and enjoyed taking the tour of their new house.
Especially seeing their sprinkler. Their sprinkler actually rolls around
the yard on the hose that they set up as a track. Have you seen these? So
cool. Later my cousin Chuck (again, not that baseball playing Chuck Nagy
from Cleveland) came over and it was great catching up with
him...considering the last time I saw him was probably 6 years ago. More
Nagy's showed up the next morning when my cousin Denise came over to pick
Khory up. It was Khory's first time spending the night away from his
parents and he did quite well, even after his Uncle Chuck (not his
Grandfather, but my cousin Chuck...are you confused yet?) warned him of
bears in the basement and assured him that he would get him.

Saturday we spent with Melissa's brother and his friend Mitch by going out
in Cleveland and playing lots of games - volleyball, air hockey, various
video games that i was terrible at... Then we topped off our wonderful stay
in the land of Cleves by heading out on early Sunday morning to the
amusement park of amusement parks - Cedar Point. I mean it's no Kennywood
or anything, but it's really a fun park. One word of advice - if you like
to ride in the front car of roller coasters, ride the Millenium Force (the
fastest, tallest, steepest coaster in the world!...please read that line in
the same voice as the guy who does the Monster truck rally commercials)
during the day. You see Cedar Point is built right on the lake, and when
you go 93 mph at dusk in the front car you act as a human windshield for the
rest of the cars. We came down the first hill and felt tons of tiny pin
pricks on our skin. Once the ride was over we looked down and i probably
had at least 50 dead bugs all over my upper body. Added adventure.

Ok, well the librarian is walking my way and I'm pretty sure I know how the
next five minutes are going to play out, so I'll sign off now.
Hope everyone is doing well.
cheers,
leigh