Friends,

On Tuesday morning, August 23, I heard from the shop working on my van that they were making some progress on determining the problem, but the bad news was that they thought it might be the compressor, the most expensive part of the system. I could tell that they were really trying to find something less expensive than the compressor to be the problem.

Mary was sleeping in on Tuesday, so Andersons, Diamonds, and I decided to try out some of Ohio’s bike trails. I knew about the city of Xenia and the five bike trails meeting there and that one of them, The Little Miami Scenic Trail, was on TrailLink.com’s Top 100 US Trails. Starting in Xenia we rode south to Spring Valley, a distance of about 7 miles. In Spring Valley we found an ice cream place called “Two Scoops” which advertised “Two scoops for $2 on Tuesdays.” And today was Tuesday!!! I had a scoop of moosetracks and a scoop of mint chocolate chip. I think it was the best IC I have ever had. Maybe it was just the beautiful day and great company, but “my” was it good!! We then had the energy to ride back to Xenia.

Not too long after we got back from our bike ride I got the bad news, and the worse news, from the repair shop. The bad news was that I need a new compressor. The worse news was that they would not be able to get the one I needed until about 10:00 am the next day.

About 4:00 pm John finished the work on Doug’s trailer and we sent them on their way to MI to visit with Doug’s sisters there for a couple of days. This was planned from the start, but getting them on their way allowed for them to meet up with us sooner than if they had waited another day to leave. Also, there were storms predicted for southern Ohio that evening and leaving right away allowed them to miss the predicted storms. Of course, they would only turn out to be predicted storms for Springboro, although regions to the north of Springboro had lost of rain and lighting.

On Wednesday, Jane, Dolph, Mary, and I drove to Corwin and rode north to guess where. Spring Valley , of course. Remember that’s where the great IC could be found, if only at a slightly higher price since it was not Tuesday. This time I tried their cotton candy and mint chocolate chip. I did not enjoy the cotton candy as much as I thought I would, but the mint chocolate chip was just as good on Wednesday and it was on Tuesday!!

The careful reader might have noticed that I lied a little in the last paragraph. You all know that Mary does not ride a bike. But, Mary did go with us on our ride. The truth is that Mary rode in the cargo bike cart that I modified just to allow me to tow her along behind me. This was the first trial on a real trail and it worked great. Mary enjoyed the ride and I found it reasonable easy to tow her on the nice asphalt trail without any hills! We peddled about 14 miles that day.

About 4:45 pm on Wednesday I finally got the van back. I still need two new tires, but at least we would be able to keep cool in the van, physically, on the rest of our trip.

More to follow…

Jared