Day 41, Newbury to New Waterford, 66 miles

Best:  Buying a couple of fried pies at Rhodes fruit stand

Worst: Forgetting my water bottle at the first check stop

Most Unexpected:  Tie between Anita's 15 mile wrong turn, and Jenn's chain wrap on her bike.

It rained again last night, but I was prepared.  The group tent site was mostly dirt, and I figured with any rain the tent would be a messy pack job.  I moved right next to our group site on unclaimed grass, did not get kicked off by a ranger, and after the rain I only had to pack up a wet tent and not a wet muddy tent. 

Last nights dinner was eggplant parmigan, baked ziti (not some teenagers acne issue), salad, and an apple pie for dessert.  Lynn couldn't fit on a bench so sat on a chair at the end of the table and appeared to be a very small person.

The bike ride today was a short 66 mile voyage with about half of it trying to get out of the Punderson campgrounds.  I of course exaggerate.  We started with hills, and had some rollers in the middle which were doable.  It is not crazy steep yet.  The best chain wrap occurred at Mile 14 when Jenn's chain came off her large chainring and did some amazing knotting around the front derailleur.  She was taking a picture of this.

While I was taking a picture of.

The Amish must of got mad and caused the chain wrap,

We did a lot of suburban riding through several towns. I recalled from the last Big Ride that on this segment several Big Riders rode into camp with fresh pies that looked like Hostess fruit pies.  I found them in the Rhodes fruit stand where I had a great conversation with the owner and his cousin.  The owner is the grandson of the founder of the fruit stand, and he said he recalled the Big Riders from 2012.  He was interested in my bike, and I was interested in his business, so we had a fun time conversing.

I ended up buying a peach fry pie, and a blackberry fry pie.  The peach pie is history and the blackberry pie will be going down the gullet tomorrow.

One of the towns we went through was Warren which housed the Packard car muserum, and there were a lot of other things named Packard such as the concert hall, streets, businesses, and bathrooms.

The Packard museum was of course closed because we went by it early morning, but I did look in the window and saw an actual car!

I really liked the City Hall in Warren which was formerly somebodies house.  The somebody was famous enough that there was a plaque acknowledging his famousness.

We got to the campground around noon today, and just before the campground I bought some Utz potato chips to balance out my peach pie.  The potato chips were cooked in lard which gave them a slightly different taste.  Between the pie and chips, I think I had all of the major food groups covered.

Showers were down the hill from where we are camped, and they were saunalike when I walked in.  Easy enough fix as I just opened up all of the windows in the sweatroom.  Dinner tonight will be roasted chicken, and I will probably finish it off with a nice piece of fudge bought when I was in Madison.  I won't be able to eat like this when I get home.

This is a coke plant, not that coke, and not that coke, but the coal stuff.

Just because.

This is just one of the roads we were on today, just past the coke plant, not that coke, and not that coke. 

Lots of graveyards next to the roads.  On a typical day we will pass several.  Yesterday, there were a couple of graveyards right on Lake Erie, very valuable real estate.  I am sure there would be no issue with develpment of the graveyards into housing.