108 miles into Ohio

 We started the day on the Indiana Ohio border, 



and so all 108 miles today took us northeast across  state number ten.   


The Columbus ladies were hammering all day, excited to be home. And they had friends greeting us at the SAG with Buckeyes and with pizza at our arrival hotel.  To my way of thinking, buckeyes (chocolate and peanut butter treats) are the state of Ohio’s main cultural contribution to the union.  Good work ladies!   And kudos to Tanny Crane, whose bike ride across the country has raised $150,000 for the pelotonia cancer research charity.

(A number of people have asked me what cause I’m riding for. Answer:  Pure selfishness.  But if you’d like, you can make a donation in my name to the Human Fund.)

https://festivusweb.com/festivus-the-human-fund.php

We enjoyed some spectacular country roads and views through at least 2/3 of the day.


When you’re riding in a group, you try to call out things on the road and where they are at for  the safety of your fellow riders. So you call out holes, and glass, gravel, anything that could be a danger. Today it was “horsecrap left, horsecrap right, Big pile of horse crap center.”   Glass is bad, but you really don’t want that in your tire treads when it comes time to change a flat.

I couldn’t figure out what was going on, until we came up on this guy

Horse and buggy, getting ready to sprint

 Then we rode past a German Baptist church and an Amish church. I would hate to be the parking lot attendant at this place.

Parking annex

That’s the parking annex. There were at least another 50 to 60 horse and buggies on the other side of the church.  

I started the day thinking… I am sort of ready for this trip to be over. Seeing friends and family and being home in Indiana made me wish for a quick wrap up. But then we started riding and the wind was cool in our faces and the sky was sunny and we were laughing as we rode and, just having the best time.  Even a last-minute detour around a closed bridge that added more miles to an already long day turned out to be fantastic. It took us down a tree lined bike path along a quiet river. Very Walden.

Now I think 10 more days of this isn’t going to be enough.  But I guess it will have to be, because we have less than 900 miles left to go. 


As Steel Panther, and my friend Chris have encouraged… I’m keeping it metal for the fellas.

—-

Stay tuned for the ride across America hotel power ranking.  I’m not sure what will be top, but I have to say, the Best Western “Classic“ in Richmond is a strong contender for dead last.   We stayed at a number of best western “plus” hotels out west, and they were consistently pretty decent. I couldn’t figure out what the “plus“ was supposed to mean. But now I understand. It means “not completely terrible”.  2/10 do not recommend.

Tomorrow we ride to Wooster, which as my east coast friends know, is pronounced Worcester…


Comments

  1. Mark ScheererJune 9, 2024 at 7:12 PM

    That must have been the same crappy Best Western we stayed in last yr. The fire alarm went off very early when they burnt the eggs. Not only a contender for last place in the hotel category but THE last by far.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousJune 10, 2024 at 4:41 AM

    The elevator was broken too,.

    ReplyDelete

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