Well, today we continue our string of bike riding the BT, this time pedaling out for 21 miles! The day started off with DRAMATIC skies, which should have forewarned us that the weather forecasters were about to mess it up again, just so we could get wet! The NCIT was long and straight to begin with, as usual, and ran through some nice small towns. We passed some gigantic grain (?) elevators, multiple times, and I am now beginning to appreciate just how important agriculture is to western Ohio. They dot the landscape everywhere, and go hand-in-hand with all the flat land we pass by. Just as we finished up the NCIT and were entering Elmore, we came to a nice shelter to stop and lunch, and a brief shower immediately started- WOW, what good luck for us we thought… unfortunately, we were soon to find out that idea was fantasy! Elmore was a historical town, log cabin and old train station and all- and we happily kept right on biking out of town on what seemed to be a brand new section of the NCIT. Then it dawned on me that this seemed too new, and of course we were not on the BT, and had to backtrack into town to find it again as it wiggled along small roads out of town. THEN it started, rain and wind-in-your-face, which made the going slow, tiring and not too pleasant- gosh we missed the NCIT, with the wind at our back! Too bad about the %^$#@& weather, because the roads we travelled were ideal back roads that ran along the Portage river and could have been quite scenic if I could see through my fogged up and rain-splattered glasses. We endured, though, and actually raced faster in the end when we saw some VERY dark clouds off in the distance, obviously pouring rain, that seemed much worse than anything we had yet experienced. Luckily the bad weather went south of us. Didn’t take any pictures after Elmore due to the rain, except of some chickens that were huddled for safety under a side-door porch roof as a turkey vulture was circling overhead- they are smarter than we give them credit! We finally came to Pemberville, again surprised that we all still felt kind of ok, but there was not much to the town- even the lure of a sign advertising fresh pastries was a disappointment- more like a bake sale in an antique store. Oh well, perfect finish to our day.
