47.0 mi /  5:11:13 time /  9.1 mph avg. / 926 ft. climbing
Staying at Harrison Lake State Park Campground

We knew Rett wasn’t a morning person, though she’s actually been more of a driver of us getting up and on the road than me. That’s just one example of us working really well together, since it wouldn’t be tons of fun if I felt like I had to be the taskmaster. But in terms of riding, it has now repeatedly taken until second-breakfast before her legs stop feeling like lead pipes. Yesterday we unfortunately verified that coffee isn’t a sufficient elixir, but we’ll keep experimenting. Obviously riding three of her most challenging rides ever, three days in a row, contributes to the lead pipes, but the alchemical transformation into gold after second-breakfast has been remarkable.

Today’s second-breakfast was at a hippie-style lakeside bar, and extended to do some planning using their wifi. Then through the small town of Fremont, and then, into our third state: Michigan!

What? Michigan is on the way to New York? Yep, for us it is. And then 20 minutes later, we made it to our fourth state, Ohio!

Damn, we’re fast. OK, really it’s just some weird twist of geography and history that drops a corner of Michigan into Ohio, but the important part is that either way, we made it through the whole width of Indiana. Yeah!

Today was scheduled to be a “short day”, and with no threat of rain, and comfortable 75 degree temps with low humidity, it should be easy, right? Well, I forget to take into account the miles of up-and-down hills upon entering Ohio, and the constant 10 mph headwind sure didn’t help matters either. And all the while Rett was still fighting through the pain in her rear.

But oh, what a fighter! Powering up the hills in defiance, keeping the miles ticking down, even when she was losing hope of making it to our destination. But just near the breaking point, the hills flattened, and the impossible seemed possible again. I even learned yet another bike-touring trick from this supposed novice: the mid-ride baby-wipe wash of the face. It breathes a whole new life into you!

We really entered some remote territory today, with only two towns on the whole route, and lots of country roads where we rode side-by-side. One of them sounded like the snap-crackle-pop of Rice Krispies under our wheels, and Rett quickly deduced that it was sun-heated tar bubbles bursting as we rode over them. Weird and kind of fun! There are lots of little ponds around, presumably created when the former swamp that covered this region was more formally separated into water and land.

Harrison Lake State Park is as nice and clean as all the reviews stated, but I can’t shake the feeling that it’s some dystopian paradise-hell where beauty and order is maintained only through a set of draconian and unnecessary rules: no alcohol, no driving on this bit of road that is an important connector in the park, one hour parking at the shower house, etc. So we had to carefully hide our wine from the roving park rangers, and likely the overhead drones as well. But nothing like contraband wine to make your soup and cheese-and-cracker dinner.

The one thing not controlled by any rules? You guessed it: raccoons! We were  both sitting in the tent in the fading light, and I was about to go back out and do some final cleanup, when another brass-balled raccoon sauntered right up to the door of the tent and took off with our box of crackers! I burst out after him, and he dropped it before he could do any damage, though I chased him into and out of a tree with more water bottle missiles anyway (again, none met their target, but he eventually ran off to harass someone with fewer projectiles in his arsenal, I hope).

Why was there a box of crackers right in front of our door? Because I had bagged up all of our food to bring into the tent with us in order to… keep it from raccoons! I just hadn’t yet brought it in. Argh, death to all of them! Thankfully, while Rett isn’t a big fan, they don’t do much to break up her sleeping. We have our fingers crossed that we may have turned a corner on her skin pain, but she still needs as much good sleep as she can get, especially on this second night in a row in a tent. Back to a bit of civilization tomorrow!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 28th, 2014 at 3:00 pm and is filed under 2014 Bike Tour, bike. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.