Fiona packing all her stuff in one trip. I do prefer my suitcase but I end up making two trips.
It was a little nippy this morning to start out but it looked like our first day of no rain since Indianapolis and the forecast was for sun. Hurray! It actually seemed kind of weird to come out of the hotel into the sunshine this morning. We started out the day with some rolling hills way to early for my quads to be excited about it but eventually everything settled in and started working together. I felt pretty awake and ready to go for the day. We got out into the country a bit and things were still a bit misty and spread out before us looking very pretty.
The pictures never do it justice but that gives you an idea. It reminded me a bit of Colorado with the layers of trees in the distance but in Colorado those would be mountains.
Patty caught this shot of us pedaling away.
Going through the town of Canal Fulton, they had brick streets. Someone can explain the beauty of that to me. Not so fun on a bike! Why do that? Is it in some way more cost effective or are they thinking it's charming or what? Not a big fan. It makes me very sympathetic to the riders in the Tour de France when they go over the cobblestones.
First sag stop. Kids will be kids! A past rider of this trip who lives in the area showed up with treats and rode to the next sag stop with our group. There was road construction going on and he talked with the construction people to let us go through rather than making us detour around. He also premarked a lot of the route for us. Nice guy!
After the sag stop we were excited to move along to New Baltimore where there was an ice cream shop with a great reputation! They opened at 11 so we timed our ride carefully and arrived at 11:01. Only to find that they've changed their hours and now open at noon. Much despondency and pouting. A group of six of us showed up there, salivating and ready. The big issue was there was nothing else in this little town, not even a gas station (or petrol either) and we had been counting on calories from the ice cream to get us through. Bleh. So it was 15 miles on to the next sag stop. They did have fresh cherries and cinnamon rolls but it still seemed small compensation for our missed treat. Found out later that the two last riders to come through there found the store open and they declared it to be the best ice cream they'd ever had.
Between the closed ice cream store and second sag there were some horrible roads. We thought our teeth were going to fall out and I started wondering about retinas detaching. Apparently we rode through one of the poorest counties in Ohio and they don't allot much for road repair. It shows. Although Ohio is still beautiful and green! The extra rain this year has it looking greener than normal even.
After second sag we just wanted some lunch. It looked like 10 - 15 miles to the nearest food so we set off. As we came into Canton and were turning onto Broad Street we noticed someone waving at us. Vern was flagging us down for a DQ stop! Hurray! Pineapple mango fruit smoothie and a chicken sandwich, followed by a small caramel shake. Ahhh. :) And only 7 miles to the motel. While pedaling those 7 miles I wondered if the shake had been a good idea but it seemed to be ok after a while. We had spent quite a while off the bikes at DQ and it was around 3 when we got to the motel but our room wasn't ready. We sat around about an hour waiting to check in. Then a shower, laundry, route rap, dinner, blogging, and bed!
Tomorrow is our longest remaining mileage day of the tour and we are into single digit riding days. We will enter Pennsylvania tomorrow after about 70 miles of riding. Woohoo! Plus second sag is at a rootbeer float stand which is supposed to be the best ever and we are promised that it WILL be open by the time we get there. :)
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