Monday, June 29, 2009

Day 14: Columbus, OH to Dayton, OH

After bidding farewell to Jillian's parents (and enjoying an amazing Hampton Inn breakfast), we had to start the day with another sprint through construction, but this time on a Monday morning. Unpleasant, but at least we didn't lose our chain.One thing that surprised us was how rapidly Columbus disappeared. One moment we were riding in the suburbs of Columbus, dealing with big box store traffic, the next we were riding past llamas.

There really wasn't a lot to see in this part of Ohio - just miles and miles of corn. But every so often our travels took us through a small town. One of them even featured Ronald!

We saw more Mail Pouch barns.

Then the winds started to blow. Then I got miserable. Riding into a strong wind means that you start conserving energy, which takes weight off your legs and puts it on your butt. Before long, I was really hurting. Jillian was kind enough to switch with me for a little while (though it was probably in her best interest as well, since I was in a really foul mood).

While Jillian was captaining we even outran a dog. To celebrate, we stopped and got an Freeze.

Then there was more wind. This really slowed us down, because we'd go between four and five mph, when it felt like we should be going twenty. Eventually, after what seemed like forever, we arrived in Springfield. Jillian got really excited about Springfield, because it's the home of Wittenberg University - the school Hamlet attended. After initially missing it, we backtracked with the Garmin and found our way back to campus. Unfortunately the bookstore we closed, but we still took some photos.

Then we were back on the bike to fight traffic instead of wind. We stopped a few miles out of town to take a picture of some sun rays. They were pretty awesome, but it was very difficult to capture.

We arrived in Vandalia a little after dinner, and received a room with very appropriate art at the Super 8.

My friend Kate lives up in Findlay, so her boyfriend Justin and her came down for a visit. Justin is an avid cyclist, but he wasn't able to help us with our headset problem that was causing very shaky handlebars. They took us out to dinner and we split the hotel room for the night, since they were on their way to North Carolina for a few days.

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