Wind, Drizzle, Tim Holt, and Rest at the Russell's Huron, Ohio Day 13 - Saturday - June 15, 2002  Back   |   Next

Dr. John Zachary bids me farewell It is a cool and overcast morning. John gets up early to see me off. During breakfast I ask him about the deadly mosquito swarms that almost sucked me dry. Perplexed at first and then realizing what I was talking about he tells me about a tribe of insects known as "midgees." He says they don't bite. So that explains why I'm still alive, and not scabbed over with bite marks. Before I leave he tells me to be careful, there are many bad people on the road. He knows this to be true because a dear friend of his was run off the road because he was on a motorcycle. The killer was never caught. The 57-degree F. weather isn't bad, but the 10 to 15 mph wind makes me feel that if I stopped I would be pushed clear back to Cleveland. The rain is freezing and the wind flings it in my face. I tell myself that I will look for a place to chill out, find a park with a pavilion, or maybe even a coffee shop. But I have no such luck for I am on a desolate stretch of Route 6 between Vermilion and Lorain that is dominated by industrial wasteland, train yards, power plants, and derelict factories. It is only 11 AM and I think that I had better look for a place to rest on Sunday and go to church. Up a head a black pickup truck pulls over and man gets out. He waves me to stop and asks if I need a ride. Not having any qualms about shaving a few miles of my journey, especially in this weather, I accept. Tim and I talk about hiking and biking. He was in the Air Force and he now works as an air traffic controller. He also runs a Bible study for the adults of his church. We talked about military service and the new Air Marshals. Then he asked if I had a place to stay and I said no, that I have camping gear. Then he asks if I have camping stove. I tell him no, that I didn't need one. So he brought me to his church, Lakeshore Community Church in Huron, Ohio, where I meet his pastor, Shawn, and his friend, Brian Russell. Even though he already had plans to visit his father in Detroit, Brian immediately volunteered to allow me to stay at his place. It was only noon, the sun was just beginning to come back out, and several more hours of hard riding awaited me. All this just happened. It unfolded before I was fully aware of what was happening. So rather than let an abstract future goal of mileage cloud my vision, I choose to go with the flow in the here and now. I thank Tim for bringing me to Brian and tell him I'll be at his Bible study the next morning. Tim, who has a hard time believing that I am depriving my self of a camp stove and thus, a hot cup of coffee in the morning, promises to bring me one. Rest at the Russell's The Russell Family: Bronson, Connor, Brian and Chris Brian Russell used to be an "obsessed" runner and cyclist, and had served in the Coast Guard. Now he serves his community as a firefighter. He and his wife Chris raise their two sons Bronson and Connor. Chris used to work in a factory, until ten years ago when she bought her first computer. At first they bought their computer so that their kids could become computer literate. After seeing her children become computer whizzes, Chris decided to dabble with the machine. Ten years later she dropped factory work to become a computer operator tracking and assisting victims of family abuse for their county. She now attends a community college, and writes stellar English papers. Bronson and Connor are talented athletes. Both bicycle and bowl, while Bronson is a play station junkie, and Connor pitches for his baseball team. As the Russell's finish up packing for their day trip to Detroit, they leave me final instructions to call my mother, and in case of a fire make sure I wheel out the bird cage containing their pet, Abby, an orange parrot-like ball of feathers with yellow wings, and a green tail.