Monday, June 19, 2006

2nd Day on the Road: Greenville to Paulding, OH (73 miles)

On the second day of the trip things continued to go well. I left at 8:40 in the morning from Greenville, OH. It rained during the night but wasn't raining this morning. I stopped in Coldwater and met Mr. Homan, who is retired, and took a picture of him and his son. We had a very nice conversation and he told me about his grandson who plays football for Ohio State. Later, his son wrote a comment on my blog that you can read (under "First Day on the Road").

Yesterday, I noticed star after star on the sides of houses. We recently got a decorative copper star to put on the side of our house above our hot tub and I thought that we were unique. Now I think we may accidentally be part of some secret cult!

The trip today was like two trips. The first part to Van Wert was on peaceful, bucolic secondary routes. It was very nice. The second part, from Van Wert to Paulding (about 18 miles on State Route 127) was quite harrowing because of the fast moving, heavy tractor trailer traffic. On one case one of these blew me off the side of the road. I'd like to avoid this scary kind of traffic, but from time to time Rt. 127 cannot be avoided. Suzanne joins me tomorrow morning, and will meet me at my bed and breakfast, The Bittersweet, that actually serves no breakfast. Unfortunately, it looks like we may have to ride on 127 for about 10 miles, not the best way to break yourself in.

Yesterday, I enjoyed a tailwind. Today, I had to battle a headwind for most of the trip. I had to work pretty hard, but managed to travel about 73 miles. Regarding my PMR, things seem surprisingly good, at least so far.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh my gosh! We have another Lance on our hands! Reading of your daily adventures is so fun. I was excited to get home to see how today went. It's great to get off your bike my mid afernoon - allows for lots of recoup time. Keep it up.

Anonymous said...

This blogging will be fun to read as you go along. I am pleased to hear that things are going pretty well. One thing I am aware of is how "retired" you sound. Since I was unable to be a part of your shin digs at UC, I am grieving a bit from a distance. It just won't be the same without you, yet I am truly excited about what lies ahead of you. Go with God! Jeri

Anonymous said...

Bob C., you are doing sooooo good and to think I had doubts. Now I wish I'd retired and James and I would have joined you. Keep up the good work. We check each day.

Fran

Anonymous said...

Bob - Although I don't really feel anonymous, I refuse to get my name logged into another website that will probably use my information to keep me out of the military or something like that (ok, so I really don't want to go there and they really don't want me anyway, but the point is still a good one, eh?). You are a crazy person, but I liked your poem a lot and it got me thinking about freedom and re-tiring. Ok, so 54 is too young to really re-tire. I like the word with the hyphen, makes me appreciate what it's supposed to really be about - to take another path, to throw yourself into another journey so that you can get tired again. But this bike thing is a little too literal, don't ya think? I'm glad you'll see your daughter today. Thanks for letting me in on this. Love you, and for goodness sake, be careful. :-) - Mark Pope

PS - Do you have some GPS tracking device on you so we can follow you that way too?