By the time I woke up and tried to dry the tent, have breakfast, already it was 10 o’clock am in the morning. Thanks to weather, it was a wonderful day with full sunshine. I left the camp w/o seeing anyone. After passing through Appalachian Mountains, the great plains from East (I guess) started, one farmland after another connected with small towns. It was nice to ride through the farmlands and occasionally stop to have a coffee. Honda Africa Twin with Rally style stock cushion is real pain in the butt. Meanwhile I’ve lost the cushion I bought during my stand ups while I am riding for circulation. It just blew away and had to go back to find out with no luck.
I had a long drive ahead of me, 212 miles to be exact. I am always fascinated by Amish people defying technology and living a simple life. I saw a lot of them minding their own business and attending them with their carriages. I also noticed that people are mowing a lot, I mean a lot. Now I understand the sales of engined mowing machine sales in the USA.
I have also noticed people still hang presidential election posters etc. Trump seems to be winner out in the rural areas by far unless democrats were shy to keep the posters hanging.
Without any incident, I passed the imaginary state line to Ohio and clouds were gathering. Especially there was a big one and I was heading into it. ‘God please don’t let it rain until I pass this one’ was the thinking that crossed my mind. But hey! everybody has a different plan. Somewhere around Steubenville, it started rain so hard, I can’t see through the helmet. I didn’t have time to wear my rain gear and especially my pant was soaked already. Than came the hail, like bullets to my helmet, ta-ta-ta-ta…If this continues I will be miserable I thought to myself. I couldn’t gain speed due to potential water panning on the asphalt road so I had to hold on, keep riding and pass this big cloud and it did. The rest of the ride was under the sun and I dried quickly.
Rustic Knolls campsite near Mt. Vernon Ohio was a great treat with decent price. Showers, electricity, toilets, a small pond to swim in short everything that you can spend enjoyable time was available. It was a blessing.
