Amy’s Ride Past Atwood Lake to Harrison State Forest for Horseback Riding
Isn't she pretty? Here is Amy's Honda CB650SC Nighthawk at Atwood Lake.
Today’s update was written by Amy.
My first long solo ride Sep 28, 2008
So my parents decided to take our daughter camping with two of our horses for a few days at Harrison Sate Forest in Cadiz, OH. It is located just off of State RT 9 between Cadiz and Scio. I made plans to ride my bike down to go horse back riding for the day. My day started out at 7 am after caring for the two horses left behind at home and jumping on my bike and heading to the gas station. The morning was nice and cool, grey sky’s, but so wonderful. I knew that this ride should take around 45 minutes to an hour on a normal day, BUT in my book there was nothing normal about this day or ride.
Now for you folks that ride daily you may find my situations as no big deal but to me out by myself they WERE very big deals. I started off heading down State RT 800 to State RT 212. There was nothing too crazy on this part except the two traffic lights in a town that is no bigger than a blink of an eye. Once I turned onto State RT 212 and headed toward Atwood Lake, I noticed that the roads were starting to get a little wet but it was not raining. I thought, “Well I hope I missed the rain, because I can deal with a little wet road.” It did this off and on drizzle till I turned onto State RT 151 at Bowerston, OH. I had more ticked off people behind me because they think they need me to go flying around corners on wet pavement and when I would not do it they decided that maybe if they rode my rear tire I MIGHT go faster. When I started to slow down more I swear I could hear them calling me everything in the book. Oh well, they should have left 5 minutes before I did.
After I turned onto State RT 151, if it could be in the road or happen by or on the road it did. I counted four fat old ground hogs crossing the road in front of me, one BIG nasty vulture on a dead deer in the ditch right next to the road took flight that I have to say scared the pee out of me. That was the ugliest and massive bird I have ever cared to see that close up. I counted 13 dead things in my lane that had birds snacking on them. One large tree branch was crossing most of my lane. As I came into Scio, it started to rain a little harder and to top it all off, I had three deer run out in front of me. I saw the deer before I made it to them, but two of them didn’t like the other side of the street so they ran back in front of me and down the side of the road until they decided they liked the grassy field and finally got off the road. AHHHHH! All of this and rain too! Of course I didn’t stop to put my rain suit on because I thought it isn’t that bad, then I got to my destination and saw just how soaked I really was. I guess that I was so intoned to what I was doing with the bike that I never paid any mind to how wet I was getting. I got to enjoy the day with my daughter and my parents and had a wonderful horse ride. The ride home was the best. The sun was out and NO rain or weird things in the road. I stopped by Atwood Lake and took a great picture of my bike and just had a great time. If everything goes right I will be doing the same ride Monday night and coming home on Tuesday.