We rode 84 miles today and most of it was along the shores of Lake Erie which is very much like the Oregon coast in the sense of tourists, traffic, and continuous  towns and shops. Most of the roads had zero shoulder to ride on so you just ride as close to the edge as you can without riding off the edge. Because of my lack of balance and proneness to wobble I get super nervous in those situations and grip the handle bars super tight and pretty soon my arms, neck, and hands are killing me. Ibuprofen really helps a lot in the evening to ease the tightness and ache. I came close to having a wreck today.  My front tire hit a pot hole and It caused my tire to jerk hard to the right and I hit the curb on the side of the road and the result was a major gyration of my bike with me on it. My thought was, oooooh, I bet this is going to hurt, but I managed to keep upright and to get everything under control. I had to stop and do some deep breathing exercises after that!

We are staying at a “Warm Shower” host home tonight in Cleveland. Young 25 year old college guy who is living with his grandmother who works as a bicycle mechanic part time. He is a music major and a very nice and personable young man. I was very impressed with his skill at asking good question and showing sincere interest in me and my stories about kids, grandkids, and Patty. He had about 6 friends over for a party which we joined, but we left early and they are still going.

Tomorrow we continue our journey up along the shores of Lake Erie and I expect more of the same stress for me. We will be doing another 85 mile day, and then we are going to stay in a motel for two nights as we have our last rest day for the trip. Our rest day will be on Sunday so we are going to try and find a church to go to and then watch football all afternoon. Sounds like the ultimate rest day to me 🙂

love you all very much. Dee

We biked 84 miles today and we battled a head wind all 84 of them resulting in a really long day. We got to Freemont, Ohio at 8:30 pm and we rode the last 30 minutes in the dark and in heavy traffic! Whooooeeee that makes me nervous!! It looks like from the weather report we are going to have a 5 mph head wind all day tomorrow as well. We will be staying at a Warm Shower host tomorrow on the shore of Lake Erie. Talked to the guy on the phone tonight and he is excited to host us and chat about our adventures. We are going to try and get started by 7:30 am so we don’t end up on the dark again at the end of the day. We will be in the Cleveland area tomorrow with lots of cars trying to run over me! One of the sorta funny things is that while riding in bigger cities in traffic when I stop at a red light people in the cars next to me start talking to me about our trip when they see all the bags on the bicycle. Usually starts with “where you going?” “Maine?!” “Wow” “where ya from?” “Oregon!!””you gotta be kidding me!” Then the light changes and at the next light the conversation continues. Hard enough for me to navigate in that traffic with my wobbling tendencies without having to carry on a conversation as well! Well, I think I will call it a night. Super tired tonight. Love you all. Dee

Pedaled 80 miles today, but 10 of it was extra add on miles to go into Defiance, Ohio during rush hour on the Main Street in town with 4 lanes to Walmart to pick up some Parkinson’s medicine for me that is very important for me. I miscalculated or didn’t count well or something, but I realized yesterday that I only had enough meds for 3 more days and then I would be in trouble.  Called doctor Ohling and he sent a prescription to the pharmacy at Walmart in this City we would be in tonight. Walmart and the Warm Shower host we are staying at tonight are 10 miles apart. Scary riding my bicycle in all that traffic. Got into the pharmacy and discovered that Patty had all my health insurance cards and Medicare cards. Expensive stuff that medicine that I take without the insurance. I called Patty and the Pharmacist lady who I had told my bicycling across America story to and was very interested and sympathetic with my dilemma talked to her and got the information she needed so that All I paid was $5! Whooeee that worked out all right even if it took an  hour extra riding and an hour waiting in Walmart and scared 10 years off my life riding in that crazy traffic!! Our Warm Shower host is an avid biker and owns 5 bicycles which he keeps in his house. Very nice guy and we talked a bunch tonight. He ordered 3 large pizzas for us for dinner and I ate until I was stuffed, stuffed!! Nice weather today. Cold but clear. It is supposed to be warmer tomorrow as we head up towards the Great Lakes. Tomorrow we will hit the 3,000 mile mark in our trip. I thought about doing another dance, or Rap song, but decided instead to eat a big bowl of ice cream for lunch! Yeh, now that is celebrating! We lost a day in our schedule because of the bad rain a couple days ago so we have decided to move the next rest day out 2 days and eliminate the last one. We will be so excited about the prospect of coming home in a week we won’t need it anyway. Love you all. Dee

Yesterday as I rode my bike I knew something was not working right. Last night in our wonderful $50 motel room I inspected everything carefully, and discovered the problem, my chain was running off the idler or jockey sprocket on the rear derailer or shifter. I took a picture of the sprocket with the chain off with my iPhone and sent it to Pastor Gary Schmid who is a bicycle guru. He texted back and said it looked like the sprocket had all the teeth worn off. I looked at it and sure enough there were just nubbins instead of teeth.  I googled all the bicycle shops in the area, and this morning  at 8 am I called the closest one.  An old guy answered and said he was sort of retired and didn’t go into the shop until 1 pm. I explained what we were doing and my problem and he said he would be there at 9 am. I asked if he thought he had what my bike needed, and he responded rather coldly, ” I have been fixing bicycles for 40 years and there isn’t anything I don’t know or have”. We were about 30 minutes bicycle ride from his shop so we took off and got there just before he did. He fixed it in about 10 minutes and then did a bunch of tuning and tinkering and pronounced it good as new. I asked what I owed him and he said $5, but I gave him $10. He enjoyed hearing about our adventures and talked our ear off about bicycles. He did make me a bit nervous when he got out this really big set of channel locks and started bending on the arm that held the jockey wheel declaring that I must have dropped it at some point because it wasn’t quite lined up the way it should be. I didn’t want to tell him that it had tipped over often and usually with me on it! It worked like a charm today.

we didn’t get on the road until 10 am today but we still made 74 miles. We are staying in a “Warm Shower” host home tonight in Zanesville, Indiana. The weather today was wonderful and we are hoping for more tomorrow. We move into Ohio tomorrow.

love you all. Dee

My bicycle has some problems. All the teeth on my rear derailleur jockey wheel are worn off and the chain won’t stay on it. Makes it hard to peddle. I am going to make a bunch of calls in the morning to closest bike shops and see if I can find one, and then we will head off and see if we can get there before it quits working altogether. To bad the wives left already!! Just love excitement 🙂

love you all, let you know tomorrow how it all works out. Dee

Yesterday was such a nice day, and the weatherman last night said today would be nice as well, but it wasn’t. About 6 am the thunder started and when we started riding at 7:30am the rain started and rained harder and harder and harder. At noon we stopped at a little store to buy some chicken strips for lunch and my feet were so cold I couldn’t feel them. Our plan was to stay at a Warm Shower host home that was 80 miles ride. I had texted them several times and they were looking forward to having us stay with them. At 51 miles I saw an Inn beside the road that had a big sign that said rooms for $50, and I road in and John followed. It was very, very rough looking but the new owners were remodeling and it had the basics, two beds and a shower so we decided to cut our day short in the name of wisdom and long life. I texted our Warm Shower family and they understood and hoped our day tomorrow would be better, me to! So we are staying at Logansport, Indiana.

It looks like we are the only ones staying here tonight. They have fixed up a very nice lounge area with comfortable chairs, tables, WiFi, coffee, microwave pop corn and the host Lady said just make ourselves at home so we have.

Our plan tomorrow is to ride 91 miles to Monroeville, Indiana where there is a special shelter just for bicycle riders that is free. Beds, shower, laundry even bicycle parts and tools if that is a need.  The forecast is for good weather so we are hoping the weatherman gets it right this time!

Our wives left this morning so my weight loss goal should get back on track. I gained 2 lbs while Patty and Mary Ann were here. They bought all kinds of snacks and treats and would drive ahead of us exactly 10 miles and we would stop and have a nice break and then again in 10 miles, and again, and again. Sure missed seeing that car parked along side the road up ahead with chocolate, fruit, pop etc today!

My bicycle seems to have gotten a bunch of road grime in the “workings”  and my chain won’t stay tight so I am going to do a little bicycle repair work tonight in our room. Hope I do it right!!

The lounge area has a microwave so I heated up some water and poured it into my freeze dried dinner, “Chicken Terriyaki with Rice”, it actually tastes delicious, and has 500 calories, and don’t forget the microwave popcorn!

I love you all. Dee

Pedaled 88 miles today after doing 98 yesterday and we will do 80 tomorrow, so we will get to Portland, Maine on time!! Today was a wonderful day. It was cool but sunny, with no wind, flat roads, great scenery, and very little traffic. We are in Rensselaer, Indiana tonight.

We left Illinois and entered Indiana and still there is bazillions of acres of corn.! We crossed the State line while on a little country road with no lines on it so I don’t have a picture of “Entering Indiana” though Mary Ann and Patty made one on a piece of paper so I could get a picture, but it just wasn’t the same!

the ladies are flying home tomorrow so John and I will be on our own. It has been very nice having them stopped along the road every 10 miles with snacks for us to eat. Though I haven’t lost much weight since they have been here!

I will write more tomorrow. Very tired and sleepy tonight. Love you all. Dee

We have seen hundreds of wind Turbines as we have been riding our bicycles across Illinois. I was curious so I googled it tonight and read that Illinois has over 2,500 wind turbines which supply electricity for over one million homes. It sounds like the goal is to supply 100% of the States electrical needs from the wind eventually. There certainly is a lot of wind!!!

The other thing that there is a lot of is corn. Corn is everywhere. I can’t believe the bazillions of acres of corn there is in this State! The corn makes great cover for a potty break and because it is everywhere and right down next to the road waiting for a rest stop or gas station is not necessary, cool!

Today was very cold. 38 degrees when we started this morning, but I had my long underwear under my biking shorts and three long sleeved nylon athletic shirts on. The one next to my skin was soaked when I took it off this evening and Patty made quit a fuss about what it smelled like! It was sunny in spite of the cold and the wind was light and from the North so it was a non factor today.

We had our most miles so far on the trip today, 98 miles. It was so close to 100 I thought seriously about biking up the road a ways to make the century mark, but I was to tired to do it or really care. We are in Pontiac, Illinois tonight. One more day and Patty and Mary Ann fly home.

i love you all very much, Dee

Because of weather, hills, wind, and old tired bodies we got one day behind on our schedule. Today is our rest day so John and I took our maps and iPad and we spent some time recalculating the rest of the trip and by picking up a few miles each day we have it figured to end right on time, we will make our plane and be home October 3rd! Yeh!

i have a cool App on my iPad where you can put in pins of the route from our paper map that I purchased from Adventure cyclist Association of the sanctioned route called the “Northern Tier” that we are following. Each time I put in another pin it gives me the total miles to that point for that route for the day. When it goes over 70 miles we move to the next town that would not be over 90 miles that has a camp ground, or a Warm Shower host, or a cheap motel and begin sending texts and making phone calls until we get something lined up. We then type the name of that town in on our list along with the address and phone number where we are staying. We got the entire rest of the trip planned out today while drinking 3 cups of coffee.

I enjoy planning the future, and making plans on how to accomplish something like what we are doing. Often the planning is as fun as the doing is for me. Planning gives me a feeling of confidence and replaces a nervousness or even fear of the unknown with a great and positive sense of anticipation of adventure and accomplishment.   But, all plans are subject to change. Reminds me of one of my favorite Bible verses in Proverbs, “The mind of man plans his way, but The Lord directs his steps”. Proverbs 16:9

God expects that we will do all we can to be successful and to do well, being wise, diligent, and responsible, but we also acknowledge that He is in charge, and so we are flexible and submissive and trusting at the same time. Being diligent to plan but being genuinely flexible and trusting when our plans  change without getting uptight is a fun way to live life with God.

I love you all very much, Dee