Entering Cleveland was very easy on bicycle coming up from the south. On the outer reaches of the city, a metropolitan park system begins with some 50 miles of paved trails. We could ride these trails all the way into the city. The landscape is a canopy of tall trees punctuated by wetlands and marshes. It almost has a wilderness feel within the city limits! We are descending towards the lake so the ground is nicely leveling out.

When Lincoln came through Cleveland, he seemed to address the crowd with a more serious and pressing tone. Reading his speech, I am impressed with his strategy of bringing me the listener along to follow his reasoning to it's logical conclusion. Feeling self interest was not a complete structure to build a civil society, he addresses the 19th century 'political noise machine' by stating, "If all do not join now to save the good old ship of the Union this voyage, nobody will have a chance to pilot her to another voyage."