Plymouth, IN --> Butler, IN --> Gibsonburg, OH --> Westlake, OH --> Conneaut, OH

We kept our visit in Plymouth low key and enjoyed barbeque with my dad on our patio. My childhood friend, Amanda, also took a half day from work so she could drive up from Indianapolis to share the evening and next morning with us--what a treat!

On our departure from Plymouth we felt a bit wary. Traveling through the Midwestern states--Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, Illinois and Indiana, the ride felt focused on returning to our hometowns and our families. Now, with both families behind us, the journey took a new turn as we headed further east.

We set our course across northern Indiana along the busy country roads up to Amish Nappanee, where we loaded up on Amish sandwiches and baked goods before setting out on Route 6. Route 6 is a bustling little corridor connecting a string of small blue collar towns to work sites in Fort Wayne, Mishawaka/Elkhart and Chicago. The shoulder wasn't always the best and if we had it to do again I think we would have tried to avoid parts of it.

We grabbed milkshakes from a pizza stand and dinner from the grocery store deli in Corunna before taking shelter down a quiet gravel road outside of Butler, Indiana with a very welcoming Warm Showers host, Kevin. Kevin is a semi-retired former engineer with a humble fiscally responsible ethos: he had paid off his first house at age 39 and a lake home not long after; he was debt free and had saved enough to leave his job--where he felt burned out--by the time he was in his 50s. He celebrated this semi-retirement with a trip around the world and has since been escaping the Midwest regularly with new travel exploits. Each room in his house was dedicated to one of his adventures, and he shared many of his stories with us. Thank you, Kevin!!

After the hectic experience on Route 6, we optimized for tranquility and safety on the next day's ride into Ohio. It ended up being one of our favorite rides of the whole trip. Where Indiana's back roads had been charged with the hubbub of workforce and thru traffic, northwestern Ohio's country lanes managed to stay unencumbered. We spent the day rolling side-by-side chatting as we coasted along fields speckled with giant Ohio-style barns--huge arching rooftops, double wide doors and a spacious wing on the side. Every so often a barn would bear the Ohio bicentennial crest, which the state celebrated in 2003. The farms appeared more stately and manicured then those in the rest of the Midwest. Ben and I joked that it was as if Connecticut and Iowa had melded to form a new kind of countryside.

After the ritual milkshakes, we pedaled another 23 miles through the cool air and peaceful golden light of evening before pitching our tents in Gibsonburg for the night.

Unfortunately what would have been a great night for sleeping was interrupted when our camping neighbors returned at 2am and resumed setting up their camper. We started the next day towards Cleveland bleary-eyed and lacking motivation or energy.

A scrumptious barbeque truck helped pick our spirits up, but may have also weighed our tummies down, and we stopped for a much needed power nap late in the afternoon. It was already evening as we neared the city, plodding through July 4th weekend traffic as we went. Given our slow speed, it became apparent that we weren't going to make it into the city as planned and we settled on reaching the outskirts. We grabbed Walmart dinners, trudged through a half mile of a construction zone, reached our motel after dark and promptly put ourselves--and the day--to bed.

Thankfully every sunrise is a new day, and we awoke with renewed determination to get ourselves back on track. We downed breakfast bars and rode ten miles to the second Starbucks of our entire ride for coffee, oatmeal and egg sandwiches and, of course, random conversations with the delightful and curious locals. With little delay, we headed for downtown Cleveland, happy to find bike lanes and paths for most of our ride into, through and out of the city.

After the last awful night of camping and the messy, unenjoyable day it wrought, we agreed that the investment in reasonably priced accommodations should be the default for the rest of the ride. We found a brand new B&B in Conneaut, just shy of the Pennsylvania border, that fit the bill.

The owner, Dale, was former military. He started out as a door gunner for the old Huey helicopters before the Army sent him to nursing school. Later, he switched to the Air Force and became a commissioned officer. Dale and his wife bought this huge mansion in his hometown years ago, and he'd finally retired from the service to make it a full-fledged B&B. The oak and cherry interior was stunning, and much of the plumbing was done in copper, back when it was still cheap. It even had a (now unused) copper basin which was intended to collect thousands of gallons of rainwater to meet the various laundry and dishwashing needs of the house staff. We were intrigued at the realization that conservation efforts have been around for awhile now...

Satisfied that we had redeemed ourselves since yesterday, we slept fitfully and prepared to take on Pennsylvania and New York beyond.