This was a spectacular day!!!! We awoke to chilly weather – even jacket weather – no humidity and sunny day except for one big black cloud that kept following us all day long, but didn’t dare rain on us!! We had a fun start with lots of back roads and came into a small town of Marshallville where they have a great bakery with donuts, candy, fudge and anything else sweet that we might have wanted!!!
After our treats, we continued on through Marshallville on bricked streets that were a little tricky to ride on, but very pretty!!
We had our first SAG stop at mile 34.7 and continued on to a wonderful ice cream place – here are Gerrard, Alex, Brian (who had Blue Moon ice cream), and Bob Horn. A lady here asked me what we were doing and was it a fund raiser and several other questions – then she looked at me and said, “how old are you?” When I told her, she gave me a big hug and told me that she would pray for me. People are really interesting and most can’t fathom what we are doing!!
Out back I saw the cow that they used to get the milk to make the ice cream!
I came past this bike tract with several very young kids riding and racing their bikes.
It’s good that the scenery was nice and the weather was wonderful because the roads of Ohio left a lot to be desired!!! They were absolutely horrible – holes and bumps all over them – couldn’t make any time, several cue sheets fell off of bikes and had to be chased across the road – where the roads were the worst, there usually was very little traffic – it was interesting that climbing hill and coming down the other side were exceptionally bad !
Second SAG was at mile 73.6 – we had a bunch of hills and more bad road after that for another 11 miles and finally ended the ride on a delightful very smooth bike path into the hotel.
I also want to comment on Ohio drivers – they were not very tolerant of cyclists – the roads were bad, and no shoulders, so there were times when it was very hairy!! The other thing I have noticed a change in is the type of road kill – Ill., Ind., and Ohio all have many many raccoons along the road – out west we saw mainly dead snakes!! Still haven’t seen dead squirrels or rabbits!
Today's hurrah goes to the Maxine and Clodius Willis who were the first to take me on a long distance ride - 25 miles - I am sure they never expected it to turn into something like this?!?!?
Thank God for the safety, health, and energy!
Carole,
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking about you all week and finally got caught up with your posts. Thanks so much for sharing each day with such great logs complete with pictures. You have created a remarkable descriptive essay of your whole trip across the country giving us a day-by-day summary of each day. I cannot imagine how you did all that riding each day and then wrote it up before succumbing to a much deserved rest. Thanks also for including us in your list. I was just thinking about you on that first ride as I popped out of the door this AM!!!! Be safe and well for the rest of what should be a beautiful ride across NY State, Vermont and New Hampshire.
Carole,
ReplyDeleteSounds as though the Ohio drivers could use some "behind the wheel training"! Keep on riding, you must be able at this point to see the light at the end of the tunnel!