We left our hotel and travelled to the Sippo Valley
Trailhead. The trail connected downtown Massillon with Dalton. Heading south
from there, we traveled several miles on the open road through Amish farming
communities. I had worried about there being no off-road trail in this area,
but the locals had all the turns clearly marked. The area was very beautiful
with rolling hills, but traffic was practically non-existent.
In this picture you can see the hand-harvested hay that is
not typical of the machine-produced bales we are used to seeing. Near the back
of this picture you can barely see the farmer and his horse along the fence
line.
We stopped for lunch in the small town of Fredericksburg.
Numerous Amish were doing their shopping, often arriving by bicycle pulling a
cart. They, too, stopped at the Pizza Parlor on the corner for lunch. Since the
Covid 19 pandemic was in full force, most of the people, including the Amish,
wore facemasks. It was difficult to “social distance” while placing your order,
but pizza and banana shakes were delivered to us at a picnic table outside. We
met another cyclist who lives in Columbus but had driven north to ride this
section of the trail. He told us of some of the not-to-be-missed scenes that we
would encounter, complete with pictures on his phone.
After a very satisfying lunch, we were able to enter the
trail that would take us to Holmesville and Millersburg. This is truly Amish
country. The trail was extra wide because one side was devoted to horses and
carriages.
As I rode along, I encountered an Amish family on the trail. I was trying to
respectfully request permission to take their picture. There was no response except
for a smile. Only then did I realize that they may not speak English. Many of
the Amish we encountered spoke to each other using a German dialect. My
hesitation in taking the picture made me unable to capture the entire horse.
The rest of the picture was too good not to include.
Bill was able to ride 53 miles, including a large stretch on
the road between Kilbuck and Glenmont. All-in-all, it was a great day.
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