I left Lancaster a little later than planned because Rob wanted to try to dry out my solar battery charger, which has had condensation in it since Ludington.  He wasn't able to make much progress, but he gave me some suggestions.

Since there's no UU church in town, I just hung around the house with Rob all morning and did computer stuff.  After lunch we drove to Keller-Kirn park and hiked around, got a roll of film developed, and then hiked at Rising Park / Mt. Pleasant.  We had some excellent pizza for dinner, joined Aunt Dully for dessert, and then played backgammon.  A low-key day.

The road south to Lancaster was pretty uneventful.  I carefully chose a route that several thousand motorists also chose, so I had to deflect onto less-direct side roads, but it was no big deal.

Entering Reynoldsburg (an eastern suburb of Colubus) I saw a banner for the Tomato Festival and decided to stop in, thinking I'd buy some salsa or sauce for Rob and Dully, but the only tomatoes they had were fresh, and I didn't think they'd pack well.  I bought some cinnamon-roasted nuts instead.

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on September 10, 2004]

Well, it's official: I've been on the road for a month now. More than that: for the past month I've been going east, and for the next month I'll go back west before turning south. Lancaster, OH, which I'll reach tomorrow, is the farthest east I plan to go until next winter. It feels really good to look at the map and see how far I've gone in just a month!

Today my plan was to ride into Columbus in order to see the city and decide whether it's someplace I'd like to live.  However, I was unable to find good information about recommended bike routes or even bus routes.  So I rode into Westerville and visited the library, where I got sucked into the Internet for over an hour.  The librarians were also unable to tell me about bike or bus routes.

The ride into Westerville from Delaware State Park was uneventful, except that Jeff Kirn's place turned out not to be in Westerville.  When I got close to town I thought to call him for directions and found that he's on the east side of Hoover Reservoir, while Westerville is on the west side.

This morning I woke to find that my tent had dried thoroughly during the night.  I hurried to pack it away because the clouds (and the forecast) were threatening a day of rain, and sure enough, as I was rolling up the groundcloth the sprinkling started.

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on September 7, 2004]

Hi, folks. As I write this it's the evening of Labor Day, and I'm at a beautiful campground near a swimming beach at an old limestone quarry south of Bowling Green, Ohio, but I'll probably send the message tomorrow from the vicinity of Findlay. My sister and I had a great time in Ann Arbor, catching up, seeing sights, and visiting friends. On Friday we walked rather too much around downtown -- Ann Arbor's downtown covers about as much area as Minneapolis's -- and then had dinner at Hei Wa House.

I took my time getting up this morning because I could hear rain falling on the tent.  When I did leave the tent, swarms of mosquitos chased me back inside twice!  So it was probably after 10:00 when I finally left Portage Quarry.

I knew I was overdoing it yesterday, but I couldn't seem to stop riding... so today in addition to a strong headwind, I had a lot of muscle cramps and that special kind of fatigue you get when yesterday's sunburn meets today's sun.

I got an early start because I kept mistaking the glow from my hosts' security light for dawn, because they hadn't offered me a restroom, and because I didn't want to still be there when they woke up.  I was in Ohio by about 9:00 and in Waterville (southwest of Toledo) by noon.