1000 Miles!

Day 14 – Portsmouth, OH – 45 miles

Today was a fantastic day on two wheels and off. As can be noted by the mileage above, it was a very short and leisurely ride. Note: I still can’t believe I can call 45 miles “short and leisurely” but I guess its all relative. Anyways, conditions were perfect. Mid – 70s temperature and clear blue skies. We did not have cue sheets today so we rode the first portion as an entire group of 30 cyclists and eventually turned to reading chalk marks left on the road for directions left by the van. We took route 139 south through Ohio and saw some outstanding countryside on a fairly quiet road. We even stopped for delicious milkshakes halfway through and enjoyed the laid back attitude of the day. The group rolled into the church around 12:30 regardless of our slow pace and so theres only one thing to do after a day of riding, and that’s get back on the bikes and go exploring. So we spent the next few hours zooming about the city which had some great murals along the levies next to the Ohio River. Looks like we are almost ready to enter yet another state early tomorrow morning: Kentucky! Home of…. KFC I assume.

Two more days of riding until our first day off! I don’t even know what to do will all that time. Maybe I’ll go for a ride…..

Day 15 – Paris, KY – 93 miles

Another long day was in store for us when we crossed the Ohio River for the second time. We entered Kentucky and had a moderately hilly day of riding with several great points to it. First of all today my odometer hit 1000 Miles!!!!! We stopped just before our 40 mile lunch break on the top of a Kentucky hill and did a small dance in front of a very confused local’s house. We explained our excitement to the startled lawn chair jockey, chalked a proclamation of achievement in the road for the rest of the team, and coasted the last half mile into town for Peanut Butter and Jelly Time.

Around mile 67, we stopped at a service station along route 32 in KY and talked to the folks working there. We ended up spending 45 minutes talking to the residents about their town, received a decent donation for the organization, and even got a reporter from the local newspaper to come out and take pictures for an article on us. We eventually rolled into Paris where we took up residence at the YMCA for the evening and got 14 Pizzas donated for dinner. An amazing day of donations I must say.

While riding today I began making a list of themes I’ve noticed for the summer. I will post new ones periodically but so far two of them are:

Being Chased by Dogs: Apparently bicycles give off a sound any dog in a 20 mile radius can hear, telling them to run after us. Nearly every rider has been chased by this point and it is occurring on a daily basis. A good point about heading west however, has been that the farther west we go, the smaller and cuter the dogs get. Today’s ride was marked my chauauas and Pomeranians running along fences and out into the road to try and get us. Cuteness unmatched anywhere.

Public Urination: When you are on a bicycle for seven hours a day, you find you need to excrete regularly and at inconvenient times. Thus we have come to take after a pack of dogs, roaming the countryside and marking our territory. Incidents on this matter vary but I’m sure we have surprised more than one motorist. As a side note, today I mastered urination while riding a bicycle. A small victory but a victory nonetheless. This process allows a rider to relieve himself without stopping a group to answer the call of the wild. Just make sure you are at the back of the line before you attempt this.