2020, Day 11: IN n' Out

New state, new phase of riding! Dad finished up his Michinanigans yesterday and traipsed across state lines into Indiana to claim a corner before swinging back off into Ohio today. If only all the states were that small!

Dad also let me know that, even though he didn't ride THE Route 66, he did ride A Route 66 in Michigan for a good while, which is appropriate and commemorative of mom & dad's upcoming birthdays this week!

Mom & Dad ended up in Wauseon, and then drove to Maumee to stay the night, having covered almost 20% of Ohio already!

From Dad:

Swales and crests today--you can’t even call them hills. Weather was sunny, started out cool and warmed up to about 72 when we finished at 1:00. 49.6 miles in 4:10.

I had an encounter with what I believe was the inspiration for Velcro. I stopped at the Ohio state line to take a selfie in front of the Ohio sign. A selfie makes it say OIHO. They gotta figure out how to make that right!) I stepped off into the weeds by the sign, and suddenly I was covered in a host of little burrs about twice the size of a BB. They were on vines, and when I pulled the stems off, the burrs stayed. My shorts, especially, were just covered. I spent about 10 minutes picking off what I could, but finally I had to ride ahead to where Mom was parked and get another pair of riding shorts out of the suitcase. Then she got to spend the next couple of waiting times picking the stupid little things out of my clothes. Even worse, sometimes you grab the burrs and they disintegrate. No more forays off the Ohio roads for me!

We drove forward to Maumee to try to go over the route to take through the city tomorrow, and came upon a DETOUR on Alt. 20. This is my third detour in a week! So we spent about an hour trying to figure out the best way around it. Turns out, it will be fairly simple, but we had to test 3 or 4 ideas before we discovered the best way. There are too many freeways on the south side of Toledo!