Wednesday, October 9, 1996 - Time out 9:50 AM, 47°
We left in the rain.
Whether the weather be cold
Whether the weather be hot
Whether the weather be wet
Whether the weather be not
Whatever the weather
We'll weather the weather
Whether we like it or not
(source, GRABAWR bicycle tour bulletin board)
We wore our rain suits. Ritt wore his GoreTex mittens, hat and booties along with his warmest clothes. I wore a North Face insulated long-sleeve shirt under my TCBA jersey and my Bellwether long pants under my rain pants. I don't own any rain gloves or booties.
Before we left, we carefully checked our packing for water resistance.
Both of us are using One-Zip
plastic bags for all our gear. Each day's bicycle outfit (jersey, bike shorts,
underwear, socks, headband & gloves) goes into a 1 gallon bag. Bike
hats, extras, etc., go in smaller 1 quart bags. The computer is always packed
away in double OR (Outdoor Research)
waterproof bags. My sleeping bag is packed in a compression bag (water-resistant)
and then in an OR waterproof bag. My tent is stored in a black trash bag
and then packed in its case. I didn't take any verbal notes with my micro-cassette
recorder today because it was safely packed in a One-Zip bag. Also packed
in One-Zips were: both cameras, maps, address book, medicine, etc. All the
clothes (in their One-Zip bags) are packed in a large clear trash bag in
one of my rear panniers. Despite all my vigilance, today, the One-Zip bag
containing my clock-radio (which was packed in the clear trash bag with
the clothes) had about 1/2 ounce of water in it at the end of the day--but
the radio wasn't damaged. I cannot comprehend how the water got there. I
can only assume I didn't close the zipper and that the trash bag was open
and the radio (being dense weight) ended up toward the bottom of the pannier,
where the water is constantly being kicked up from the tire.
Just outside of Bryan, we passed an unusual barn (6 sides).
What's that called :"a sexagon"?
Then, about 5 miles south of Bryan, we reached a construction
impasse. As I've noted previously, 
I usually ignore
"Road Closed" signs and ride right on through the construction.
This time, I only rode 1/16th of a mile to see for myself that there was
no bridge at all over the river which was swollen in the rain. I asked a
truck driver for alternatives to the detour. It wasn't bad at all; just
about a mile extra to get around two bridges. We did ride in the rain for
a couple of hundred yards across an unpaved farm field, but we then reached
a relatively untraveled road segment for a couple of miles between bridge
construction projects. We had to detour for the second bridge too.
Despite some areas of heavy traffic, for the most part, US-127 through Ohio is real good for bicycling. The shoulders have been at least 2' most of the time.
In Michigan, we usually ride on the road, not on the shoulders. That's actually the law in Michigan. Since I wasn't sure what the law is in Ohio, and I wanted to avoid conflicts with motor vehicles, I was riding on the shoulder.
The truck drivers were great. Whenever there was room to give us the lane, they gave us the lane and we waved. There was no apparent conflict or tension between the two modes of transport.
I had pie twice today. The first time was after a turkey sandwich lunch at the Fire House in Paulding, OH. The second time was at a rest stop in Van Wert, OH.
We were looking for a place for a cup of coffee and some pie
in Van Wert, when the folks at the Red Cross office saw us and inquired
about our journey. They invited us to park our bikes in their office while
we went for pie. The pie was good.
The Van Wert courthouse was spectacular.
From Van Wert, we rode on to Celina, where we sought advice on lodging and dining from the local Marathon gas station. We ended up staying at the lesser of options (the Celina Motel rather than the Comfort Inn) on the premise that we'd be close to the laundromat. It was a pretty bad motel and I had extreme difficulty with web access due to their telephone system.
Total miles today: 72.
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© Ed Noonan 1996, 1997