Day 37, Bonaparte, ohio, (Napoleon)

BEST: TAILWIND! (finally)

WORST: The ride was too short. (Okay, nothing really happened today, so I made this up)

MOST UNEXPECTED: Rain for 50 miles.

There was a 30% chance of rain last night, but we stayed dry. Just as we were packing up, a few drops fell, but then we hustled over to a pavilion in the park for breakfast. After eggs, sausage and pancakes, we headed out on the road and went two miles when the heavens opened and it started to really rain. We quickly pulled over, put on our jackets, restarted our ride, and the rain stopped. The internal debate starts, Will it rain again so I should leave the jacket on, or should it get out of the jacket as I am starting to sweat inside. After two miles, the weather made up its mind and started a steady rain, and it did not let up for 50 miles. At this point I switched to a vest as an option accepting the fact that I was going to get wet, but at least it would be from rain and not from my gross sweat. We pedaled on without mishap, hit the lunch spot, and gradually the rain tapered off leaving everything wet that we were wearing. During this period, we did not follow each other very closely as we were throwing up some impressive rooster tails. We missed one turn and ended up with around 4 bonus miles, but the ride was so short at 70 miles, what was a lousy extra 4 miles. After we missed the turn and had to go back the way we came, we realized how it was that we were making such good time. The wind was strong in our face when we turned back, and when we got things right, we put up our spinnakers and ran with the wind.

We stopped for ice cream about 1.5 miles from our final destination at the County fairgrounds in Napoleon (after coincidently riding through Waterloo) and I had the Tuesday Turtle special. The lady serving the ice cream would open up the window above the serving window and ask what you wanted, then shut the upper window, then open the lower window to take your money, and immediately shut the lower window and if your fingers were still there, then you were now a three finger monte expert. When your ice cream was ready, she would open the lower window, shove out your ice cream, then slam the lower window again. Next person up started this all over again. .

Not much to report about scenery except we did cross into Ohio today. They did not spend much for the state sign as you will notice in the picture. The entering Napoleon sign is bigger, and they sure seem proud of their water polo teams although if you look at the dates there has not been much to be happy about lately. The picture of the courthouse is because it is on the National register, and the river picture just shows the river.

I haven't talked much about how my contact points with the bike are doing, and just let me say that they are doing.

The fan is working great, and I used it last night after I jumped in the shower and walked back to my tent to begin the sweating ritual. Tonight should be cooler after the rains, but the sun is peeking through just to say howdy, and poke fun of us mortals who will probably still be sweating tonight.