Monday June 20, 2016

Happy Birthday Big Brother, love you.

It looks as if we are in England – Eaton to Oxford, but no we are in rural Ohio.

Not a good night’s sleep – too hot and sticky. The alarm went off at 5:30 and once again we were up and packed and on the road by 7:00 a.m. Breakfast was pancakes which were o.k. but no coffee.

Headwinds, hills and heat!! Although very tiring it was a nice ride.

Today was Covered Bridge Ride today. Three covered bridges, two historic and one built in 2012. We had to walk our bikes through all the bridges for safety.

There were some nice houses along the route but the area was mainly farming.

The rest stops were a little further apart – first stop at 24 ks, the second one was at 62ks. If the rest stop hadn’t been there I would have had to stop for a snack. I had pizza and a slice of homemade cherry pie, very nice pie. Not things that I usually eat on the road. Surprisingly, I digested it well, it didn’t sit there like a lead weight. The last rest stop was only 8 ks from the end. It seemed like a waste of time to stop, but it was a nice little spot and we enjoyed a freezee ice-pop to cool down.

The lunch stop was in a school that “sat” on the State line – Indiana/Ohio border. The school had two doors with signs above that read INDIANA and OHIO – established in 1860.

We cycled through Hueston Woods State Park which had some interesting switch back downhills.

The afternoon and last rest stop was at a pioneer museum, which was interesting. The buildings were used to help escaping slaves on the “Underground Railroad”.

Tomorrow is a rest day or an optional loop route. I will take the rest day and Ralf of course will cycle 43 miles tomorrow.

I will do the washing and have a wander around the downtown of Oxford, which is actually called Uptown because it is at the top of the hill!!

We surprised Dick in the Dayton Tent. His response to Ralf was “What are you doing here?” Then he gave me a big hug.

We found a German Restaurant in Uptown and had schnitzel, spaetzle and good dark German beer.

When we got back to the school we chatted to Dick until after 10:00, we could have chatted longer, but we were soundly told off by a fellow Dayton Rider. He came out of his tent wearing a headlight (almost blinded me!) “It is past 10:00 p.m., some people want to sleep, if you want to stay up Take It Off Campus”. We blamed the “noise” on Dick, we are quiet Canadians (lol).