After what turned out to be a very wet and cold day of riding yesterday, we arrived in Franklin, PA (about 70 miles). The first 40 miles before lunch were extremely wet, semi-hilly, not the best of scenery, and I was frozen by the time we got to the stop. About 5 miles away I was joking with the guy I was riding with about my toes probably needing to be amputated since they were so frozen and I couldn't feel them since we left Warren. Thankfully Marita (the leader driving the van yesterday) was awesome and pulled through on finding an AMAZING lunch stop. It was this cute little coutry store/restaurant type place called Nancy's. It reminded me a lot of a Cracker Barrel except not so commerical and more quaint. Marita somehow managed to talk the manager into letting us all have lunch there, dripping wet, muddy, and shivering. She even let us bring our own food and drinks in and just sit at their tables and eat. A lot of us ended up ordering hot drinks (coffee =) !), soup, or compelte meals. I ordere the "Logger" which included 3 awesome wheat pancakes, two eggs, homefries, and sausage. It was delicious, just what I needed, and totally hit the spot to help me get through the next 30 miles.
The second half of the ride was really nice since we took two really pretty bike paths into Franklin. The pastor of the church we stayed at in Franklin, Pastor Sam, is an avid cyclist himself and he actually rode the 70 miles to Warren the previous day so he could ride with us and show us the route. He was an animal on that bike! He can really pedal. The last 30 miles weren't too bad at all and ended with me and three other people happily pedaling and singing beach boys songs haha.
Pastor Sam was really kind to us all and bought all 31 of us Subway sandwiches for dinner and even showed us a really cool coffee shop in town that his son worked at (best peppermint vanilla latte ever!). After a good night's sleep on the church floor and waffles for breakfast that Pastor Sam also provided us with, we waved goodbye and began pedaling once again with sights set on Ohio.
The ride started out extremely hilly, with more than a few big climbs. The downhills of course are always fun, and do make all that hard work somewhat worthwhile. The sky threatened us with rain all day, but ended up just being really overcast with no showers (thankfully, I don't know if I could have handled another day of wet, cold, and shivering). It was a bit chilly though and I was wearing quite a few layers to get me through the day. It was a pretty short and easy ride of 60 miles.
The best part of the day though was definitely around mile 50 when out in the distance I could see the blue "welcome to Ohio" sign. I got so excited and pedaled really fast to get there. We all got off our bikes and took pictures. There was also a field right next to the sign on the side of the highway that had huge bales of hay in it, so I ran and jumped on top of one, which was pretty fun and caused everyone to come and jump on them as well. After some more pictures and playing, we got back on our saddles for the last 10 miles into Youngstown, OH. We are staying at a church here and walked about 10 minutes to the Youngstown State University where they allowed us to shower in one of their dorms. Tonight we are having dinner at one of the girls on the trip's cousin's house in Youngstown. They are having a BBQ for us (yay cheeseburgers!). Of course, as the theme of the trip goes, dinner is hours away and I am starving. I am at the public library which is right next door to the church we are staying at so I am just going to finish up this post and probably go find a snack.
Tomorrow we are going to Akron, OH which is suppose to be about 85 miles (our longest ride so far) and we are staying in Akron for two nights. We have a build day there on Saturday. I am so excited about being in Ohio! Pennslyvania although prettier than I thought, did not treat B&B well with it's wet and cold rain and monstrous rolling hills.
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