The Cannonball: Part 1: Where The Hell is It?

http://wabashcannonballtrail.org/

I read about the Wabash Cannonball Trail for the first time a couple of years ago and began plotting a trip to ride the trail immediately. The Cannonball is a multi use trail for horses. bikers, hikers, and x-country skiers. The trail runs from Maumee Ohio to Montpeiler, Ohio. 63 miles. You can read more at the url above.

I decide it would be best to stay overnight in Maumee, and to park in Montpelier at the municipal lot.  So in March I began planning an April trip on the Cannonball. Our hybrid Trek bikes would be perfect for a trip on "rail ballast" which is crushed gravel on top of stone. At the time, I used my old day pack for longer trips, as I had not bought panniers for the Trek 7500. ( http://www.nashbar.com/bikes//Product_10053_10052_172282_-1___ )

We drove to Montpelier on Friday night and stayed in a motel. The one feature of the motel that I recall is the Lazy-Boy which looked like 1000 flatbed truckers had sat in it with their coveralls on. That's the only way a chair could get that nasty. Having been a truck driver myself, it seemed like a place a trucker would stay. We didn't even set our luggage on it. I thought about putting it outside of the room.

 The next morning we drove into town, and parked in the municipal lot. Montpelier is a nice town and I wasn't too concerned about leaving the car across from a residential area which looked as nice as this. It was cool. But as I recall, warm enough that I didn't have long sleeves on. I think NJ had 2 layers of fleece on though. My temperature threshold seems to be much lower than my wife's.

I pulled out my google maps.  You can see the distance by following this link, but this is not the actual map I used. I would not reccomend using US20 as a cycling route. We hopped on our bikes and set out looking for the trail head. It was not where I expected it to be. We continued riding through town, and the trail head was elusive, as we rode east. We saw what seemed to be a grassy field travelling of into the distace. However; there was noting there to mark this as a bike trail, multi-use trail or public aceess. We rode past the field, active rail lines, and old train station. It was kind of cool, an adventure. Finall giving up, I pulled out the maps. I told NJ I don't know where the hell it is. We opted for County Road K, heading east. I wasn't about to go into a gas station to ask where the Wabash Cannonball Trailhead was. For me, County Road K would do just fine.

In fact County Road K, was lightly used on Saturday morning, quite an easy ride. And we were enjoying the ride, although we had no idea where the Wabash Cannonball might be, I knew that theoretically, we would intersect the trail if we continued on this route.