Mile 3798.1 - The flat starts to unflatten

I woke up to the sound of farm equipment plodding along in the distance. My tent hidden by sturdy green stalks of corn, somebody would have to be going no more than 10 miles an hour to see me from the road. I ate a quick breakfast from the bag because my goal for the day was over 100 miles away. I wanted to make it to Fidley State Park where I could camp for the night.

After half an hour's ride, I hit mile 3700, 288 hours and 16 minutes worth of saddle time since California. But there's still most of Ohio and all of Pennsylvania ahead of me. A few miles later I came into McComb which is best known for its largest employer, Consolidated Biscuit. The complex stretched along the western end of town and contained buildings capable of everything from processing the whole grain to packaging and shipping the finished products. They make all sorts of packaged cookies and crackers that you quite likely have one of their products in your pantry.

Further down the road I passed through the larger towns of Fostoria and Tiffin. It was soon early afternoon, so I took a longer break at the city park in Republic, watching a tee-ball team practice in a nearby diamond. Passing through small towns and fields, the land began to change. No longer was everything flat and straight, but there were now curves and angles involved too. At highway 61, I came to the first warning that there were mountains in my future. The hill climbed at a 8% pitch for most of a mile. As I took a break at the top, a guy in his car at the stop sign called over to me. He and a buddy had climbed the hill earlier that morning and had a hard time on their lightweight racing bikes. He wanted to know how I got up. I laughed and we talked about the trip for a couple minutes until another car came to a stop behind him.

Going through the town of Greenwich, I saw a truck loaded with furniture that had been backed up to a house. Two men on the back of the truck were handing chairs up to a teenage boy on the second floor balcony. I wanted to take a picture and stop to see how they dealt with the couch, but I didn't.

The hills were starting to get more frequent and there were starting to be more trees on the landscape again. As I was just coming into the foothills of the mountains ahead, the climbs were generally longer than the descents. After spending the warm day heading east I turned north for the last few miles, getting into the shade of the Findley State Park. I wound around to the campground and found a spot among the trees away from the campers and cars.

As dusk fell the trees lit up with dozens of fireflies. Assuming it's not the same group following me, I've probably seen 600-700 fireflies since Minnesota.

Day 61, Leipsic, OH - Findley State Park, OH
105.1 miles in 7:59:10. Now 3798.1 miles in 294:36:41 and a top speed of 28.2