And other thoughts of the day.
The cemeteries, more and more of them along the roads as we head east, bigger and older. One graveyard today had tombstones that the years had faded off of although it was easy to find dates from the early part of 20th century and last part of nineteenth. In another Jerry\MN and I saw a heartbreaker of a family story all on one simple monument. Dad born 1880, mom born 1876. Infant son died 1902, daughter died 1904, son died 1905, dad died 1907 and mom lived til 1950. Ugh. We also passed our first civil war monument in the middle of a town intersection, "for those who lay in unknown graves in the defense of the union 1861 to 1865". Seems like there are more interesting old houses along the roads, weatherbeaten, peeling paint, tall narrow windows with broken panes, a shadow of their former glory with their stone lentils and roof dentils and fancy decorations. They depict wealth and a bygone era here, certainly, interesting to wonder if maybe they were made a bit too fancy for their owner's good, the lower costs houses without the ornamentation seem more likely to be lived in still today. I can't find a good picture of one of them, will get Tom to take 30 or 40 of them tomorrow. This is best I can do in the meantime, it's got Veronica, Ann, Tom and Michelle (in that order) riding along, a not so cool house off the to the right. By the way, you can tell the riders by their jerseys and way they sit their bikes, we're getting good at this.
And trees, our first 1/2 mile through a woods with trees on both sides of the road and almost over the top of our heads, first time we've been in such dense woods since western Washington. True, the the Black Hills were a forest but they were burned out recently and looked much more barren.
The real issue of the day was the short distance. We left at 7:30, our latest start to date, for a quick 83 miles and 874ft out of Indiana and into Ohio. 83 miles... as Tom noted that would have been a long training ride just a month ago, now it's the second shortest day of the trip. 83 miles? We have lunch some days at 83 miles. The only problem is the expectation in your brain of how quickly it should go by vs the reality of getting it done. So off we went in a gloom of grey clouds, warm temps and very high humidity, we were dripping sweat just getting out of the parking lot. 15 minutes later our expectations fire up.
ARE WE THERE YET? No, dork, we've only been riding a few minutes and it's still a 5 hour day.
NOW ARE WE THERE? No, we're riding slowly, talking to Jerry\MN or Tom is riding solo in the small chainring by accident.
WHY AREN'T WE THERE YET? Because it's not even been an hour of riding! Settle down!
YOU KNOW THERE IS A LOT WE COULD BE DOING IF WE WERE THERE. Yeah, but we're not and we're not going to be for a while, here, I'll speed up a little bit.
OH GREAT, IT'S GOING TO STORM, A SHORT DAY BECOMES LONG DUE TO POUNDING RAIN AND WINDS AND WHAT A WASTE! Well, sure, there's a dark threatening cloud system with weird swirls and folds that looks like TROUBLE to the north that is moving over us by the minute, but it's not raining on us, more sprinkling, soaking everything through, but it's not bad situation yet. (it looked like this):
ARE WE THERE YET? No, but with the pace line with Tom and Jerry\MN and Tom\Mojave we jammed from the 2nd rest stop to lunch, and after lunch it's a quick 13 miles to the end which we'll reach by 1:00pm, so fine. We'll even head out for a delicious coffee in the quaint downtown area of Troy. Now would you please shut up? (note from Tom.....who is in Mike's head and would someone let him out?)
And so that was it, we arrived early, wasted some time on coffee (if it's ever a waste). Then went out at 5:00 for dinner with two guys that live an hour north of here that Jerry\MN knew from his attempted 2007 crossing, Doug & Dan. We had a great dinner in an old bank building, the Coldwater Cafe, just down the road in Tipp City which seems a lot cuter and interesting than Troy. If you visit, stop there. Our hosts were awesome, they hadn't done any bike touring before the 2007 Northern Continental, they just showed up and jumped in, a tad unprepared perhaps for the gear heads and the challenges ahead. The line of the night was when Dan was asked back then what kind of gearing he ran he answered "well I've got these big ones in the front and some little ones in the back." Good fun, great to get out of the chain restaurants. You realize you could grow up here and never visit an independent restaurant in the maze of Friendly's, McDonalds, Bob Evans, Ruby Tuesday, Appleby's, Sonic, etc..
Another short day tomorrow, will try to leave the expectations at home, they are quite annoying. Roadkill...more of the same....6 raccoons and 2 opposums.
Those clouds sure did look creepy
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