Saturday, August 2, 2008 – Day 41

Start: Burton, Ohio
End: New Waterford, Ohio
Miles: 62.38 Total Miles: 3,064.46 BRAA Total Miles: 2,891.00
Time: 4 hours 01 minutes (avg 15.5 MPH)
Flat tire count today: 0 Total flat tires for the ride: 10

We had quite a storm last night blow through camp. Right before I went to bed, I was watching the storm coming in from Lake Erie. That was about 10PM. At a little after midnight, it arrived. The thunder and lightning was powerful and the wind was blowing like crazy. There wasn’t a whole lot of rain, but the combination of rain and wind made it seem like a lot. The storm came and went quickly and I fell back to sleep in cooler air.

Today’s ride was a very short one. The mileage was supposed to be just under 59 miles, but with a couple of route changes, it turned out to be a little over 62 miles. Even with the extra miles, it was still a really short day. It only took four hours to complete. We are resting up for our climb over the Appalachian Mountains that we will reach in a couple of days.

During the ride, we passed one of Ohio’s steel mills. The steel industry is a big part of Ohio – or at least it used to be. This plant was roaring away.

I was riding down one of the rural roads and was thinking about the lack of corn. The corn fields have definitely started to decrease. We still see smaller fields here and there. So, as I was riding down this road, I had a flashback to the cornfields of Illinois and Indiana. The only difference was this was a tree lined road as opposed to a corn lined road. Ohio is definitely a beautiful state during the right seasons.

In camp, the mysterious mischievous campers were at it again. The rider with the tent that is large enough to have a party in had some remodeling done to his tent without his knowledge. The tent is so big that someone put a picnic table in it and actually set the table. Needless to say, when he returned, he had to find a way to get the table out of his tent. There was no one taking the credit for the remodeling and no one offering to help take it out.