May 28, 2021
Day 23: Zero Day in Mentor, OH
A Rambling Man; But Not Today, Baby It’s Cold Outside
So today is a "zero day," meaning that we aren't adding any miles to the tour. It's hard to add miles when you huddle inside a hotel room all day, and except for brief forays to eat that's all we have done today. A big fat goose egg is all we rode today. Not that we haven't been productive; we have spent the entire day planning ahead, booking lodging, determining places we will camp, checking that we are "on schedule" as regards finishing in Washington by the required date - we have been busy.
It has rained all day, sometimes just moderately hard and other times hard. And with a temperature of 49 degrees F and a wind gusting up to 45 mph at times, it was a good time to take a day off and plan ahead. Planning is something that we would have done in advance of the tour, but if you recall, the decision to ride this particular route was made late in the game and we had no time to plan our stops. We have ridden for 10 days in a row now, including one day of 77 miles, so we probably needed a bit of a break anyway. All is well; our planning efforts have reassured us that we can make it to Anacortes, WA on our required schedule.
We slept late this morning and donned the rain gear to walk through the parking lot to the adjacent Bob Evans restaurant. Breakfast was good and our waitress, a cyclist herself, was very interested in our journey and asked for the url of this journal. Sometimes it's easy to forget how privileged we are to be able to go an adventure like this; I occasionally have to remind myself that I worked for 45+ years to be able to have the time and money to undertake these tours. I'm a lucky guy!
Returning to the motel, there were 3 police cars in the parking lot with lights blazing. As we entered the hotel via a side door, the police were escorting a handcuffed young man down the stairs. I didn't have the gopro ready for action, and with all the recent negative police publicity it might not have been wise to film them anyway. But later I went outside to film how hard the wind was blowing a flag, and upon returning I noted that the police were back and I captured a small and worthless snippet of a police vehicle - now you will understand what that was all about. The police were interviewing a young lady that had some connection to the perpetrator/villain they had captured earlier - as I walked past, the little bit I heard made me think that she was a victim. It was very exciting to have all this police activity right there in our own little Super 8 motel; no wonder they call them "Super!"
So we managed to plan ahead for about the next 20 days. It takes more effort than you may think; you have to consider the mileage combined with the amount of climbing to evaluate the physical effort required for the day, and it needs to fall such that you can make another reasonable jump the following day - and then there are considerations regarding nearby restaurants or stores (otherwise you need to stock up for dinner and breakfast the following morn before you reach your destination). And since we do laundry every 3 days, that has to be planned as well - if there isn't a guest laundry at the hotel or a nearby laundromat, then you may need to do laundry earlier than the optimum 3-day cycle. All I'm saying is that it takes a lot more thinking than what is required when you are traveling by automobile. And so that's what we did today - we thought a lot, and now we are tired of thinking. We have a plan to stay in hotels, camp, stay in a park cabin, and stay at a hostel over the next 20 days. So we are well planned for now. But the best laid plans often get mislaid, or some such thing.
Found Money Update. I have been finding money here and there and haven't updated things in a while, so maybe a pic is the best way to tell the tale. As you see, the found money fund now stands at $1.91 and I'm not even halfway through the tour. So the end-of-tour celebratory coffee might become a Starbucks caramel frappuccino instead of a plain old coffee if the fund keeps growing. Some of the coins look like they were run over by a semi, because they were!
Health Update. Doc was putting super glue on a cut on his finger that won’t heal while we were in a McDonald’s during second breakfast recently. I guess the good news is that we’re both over the cold Doc had (and I caught) early on. We’re both feeling a lot stronger now after having been on the road for 3 weeks and ridden over the White Mountains, Green Mountains, and the Adirondacks. It's pretty safe to say that we’re getting our sea legs now. Leg cramps are an ongoing problem, so Gatorade has become a part of our daily diet as we try to replace electrolytes lost through sweat. My rabid dog bite wounds are nearly completely healed now, and I no longer have to put a band-aid or bandage on the worst of them. The black fly bites are much better now, but they are still there and I still put benadryl cream on them to control the itching. At least for the moment we don’t seem to have to deal with the black flies anymore, I certainly hope it stays that way - those creatures are truly evil. I have to attend to some issues dealing with the skin graft on my heel each night, but it's only a nuisance in that it takes some of my time. So for the moment, all is good with us. Now if I can just keep Doc from socializing with folks and giving me COVID then all will be well.
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Black Fly Tutorial. Since many of our followers are from Arkansas and Oklahoma and don't have a clue about black flys, I thought you may benefit from a tutorial. These evil little creatures were spawned in the fiery pits of hell and appear each year to wreak havoc on man and other animals. There are some 1,700 species of black flies worldwide, and about 250 species reside in the U.S. I never felt them bite me, and there's a reason for that. Their saliva contains an anesthesia, so when they attack you don't notice it. This is a pretty neat evolutionary trick, because if you knew what they were up to you would swat them. They don't actually bite you, instead their razor-sharp little pincers cut a hole in your skin. Since you don't feel it, they are then free to feast on your blood. Later, after they have done their evil work, you react to the saliva-anesthesia by developing a powerful itch. This itch is really awful; it's as bad as poison ivy, if not worse, and you really can't help but scratch and make things worse. Fortunately, benadryl cream and calamine lotion and such ointments help to relieve the itch. It supposedly takes about 10 days to heal from black fly bites, but I think it's going to take a bit longer for me; I have the itching under control, but the welts are still there. So now you know about black flies. They can be repelled with insect repellents containing DEET, and you really should use it if you are in a black fly area during the season. They tend to be active from mid-May to the end of June, so we may encounter them again.
That's about all for today. But I'll leave you with a video, so you won't be disappointed - or maybe you will, but regardless you get a video. Weather forecast for tomorrow has been improving, but it still calls for cold and rain and wind. We planned for a shorter ride tomorrow (40 miles), so we have to do it now or else we would bust the plan. Good night all...
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2 years ago
Thanks for the good wishes. We had a good ride through the heart of the Cleveland area. The cooler weather probably helped in that few were out on the lake path and we sailed right on through. Cleveland seems like a great place for biking!
Buddy Hall
2 years ago
2 years ago
Hey, that's a great idea - I can easily play dumb, so who knows? Thanks for the suggestion!
Buddy Hall
2 years ago