We Made It!

10 July 2012

Stats for the day:

Depart Celina, OH 7:35 a.m., arrive Muncie, IN, 2:30 p.m.

Trip mileage – 1163.4 miles

Today’s mileage – 68.46 miles

Time on bike – 4:29:43

Average Speed – 15.2 mph

Max speed – 29.5 mph

Our last day of biking started with the blare of honking geese as they came into land in the channel of water just outside our tent.  After a wonderfully quiet night it was a bit rude to wake up this way, but they seemed to think it was time for us to “get up and at it,” so we did.  

Another clear blue sky welcomed us into the day with the sun warming the air and another northerly breeze.  There is some comfort knowing that this will be our last day of biking, at least for a little while.  As much as our legs have been holding up pretty well, the bottoms have become just a bit road weary, or should we say saddle sore.  Even with gel seat covers that get swapped back and forth in order to change pressure points, the seat time has added up and is finally taking its toll.

 

Once again our route was through field and farm, with rolling knolls and small towns.  Fort Recovery, OH, was one of the communities we visited, and stopped at in order to enjoy a very impressive war memorial.  Originally erected to honor those lost in the Great Indian War, it has incorporated those brave souls killed in WWI, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam.  Both of us were very impressed with this park/memorial. 

 

We knew we didn’t have many miles left in Ohio, and when we hit the Indiana/Ohio border by 9:30 or so, we were both surprised.  It was going to be a fairly quick day if we kept up that pace.  There was no “Welcome to Indiana” sign, so we settled with this street/road sign.

When Nola was planning the route for our trip, she specifically sought out the town of Farmland because of the Chocolate Moose shop.  This little restaurant, besides having a really cool name, has great food and best of all, wonderful shakes.  It’s always nice to have a destination in mind, and when it includes ice cream all the better. 

Megan met us at the shop and we had a fabulous lunch as she described the rest of our route for us.  No major hills, no surprise, but a few steeper knolls around the reservoir.  For us, that meant pretty smooth sailing.  She also told us that Debi, Abe’s mom, had talked with a reporter from the Muncie Star who was very interested in our trip and wanted to be here when we pulled in.  So we stayed in touch with Meg and made our grand arrival with a welcoming committee made up of Meg, Abe, John (the reporter), and Patti (the photographer).  Crossing the finish line, constructed of black and white checkered crepe paper, brought home the fact that we actually made it.  Whew.

We spent a little while with John and Patty, of course Bottle had to get his two minutes of fame as well, then retired to the air conditioned house for some much appreciated soft seats.  

It has been a very event filled three weeks of biking, one that we will surely remember and tell stories about for some time to come.  We want to thank everyone for your well wishes, help, and prayers as we traveled.  We couldn’t have done it without you.  Please check back now and again as we visit Indiana and do some sightseeing.  We are planning on posting picks and commentary as we go along.  As my new T-shirt says, “There’s more than corn in Indiana, we have soybeans and hogs too.”