Sunday June 13: Perrysburg OH to Hamilton, IN

75.09 miles

A good day.  How do people stand watching The Weather Channel? We watched for half an hour while packing up and it was almost scary to go outside.  6 inch hail.  Flash floods in a campground in Arkansas.  Hurricanes starting in the Atlantic. Lines of thunderstorms advancing toward us.  87 degrees forecast.  10-15 mph headwinds.

Well, the headwind part was true but otherwise the weather was great.  I’d planned on 42 miles being on the Wabash Cannonball Trail. The first 10 miles were very nice, but then the path became overgrown with overhead brush and the surface one that only a mountain bike could love.  We abandoned that and used Alt-US20 until we hit the backroads again (County K in Williams County).

Abby and I took a rest at a gas station / liquor store near the border. Abby caught a small frog, which was the highlight of her day and something the frog will remember for a while as well.

Near the Ohio/Indiana border the road is gravel for a couple of miles, and the actual border is unmarked.  The picture shows the first road sign in Indiana. We’re in Amish territory,and perhaps there’s not much advantage to paved roads for a horse-drawn buggy.

Some barns only get started, not fully raised.  There's a story behind this partially completed barn, but I don't know it.  The picture below shows the typical views of rolling territory and green fields.

There’s only one place to stay in Hamilton, the Cold Harbor Resort Hotel on Lake Hamilton, and we seem to be the only people staying here tonight. It’s serviceable, but obviously has seen more profitable days.  It reminds me of Palisades, Michigan a bit.

We’re 207 miles from Chicago and so we are making considerable progress, particularly considering the strong headwinds.  All those people who said it didn’t make much difference whether you went west to east or east to west might have been true in general but not on this trip.  We would easily have make 100 miles if we’d had today’s wind as a tailwind.