Mile 737: Reaching Fremont, OH

Early the next morning, we were awoken by rain drops falling on us. I'm not sure what it is, but there's something about camping under the stars and feeling rain on your dry sleeping bag...that the

rain actually sounds louder when you know you have to address the situation. It's almost as if you can hear each rain drop and feel each drop drenching your warm and dry gear.

Though we were both in denial about the rain for a few minutes as we lay there, both feeling pretty silly and miserable...hoping we could postpone any major movements by reaching to the shower curtain (that was being used as a tarp) and  draped it  over us with minimal movements.

However, as we laid next to eachother, under a shower curtain, in a park at 5:00 in the morning, I think we both realized that the reality of sleep was beyond our reach and at this point it was pretty ridiculous. As much as both of us wanted to continue being in denial, we decided getting up and continuing our bike trip, getting a warm cup of coffee, would be a better way to spend the time...that biking on to find a dry camping spot would be wiser at this point.

So, luckily, a few miles down the road, a gas station was open and we both happily and miserably drank our coffee, perhaps a little doubtful of the future success of our trip. Although Sasha and I both tend to make amazing things happen in our life, for some reason when we are together wonderful catastrophe strikes---and we realized there is very little we can do about it.

So after a nice cup of coffee we sleepily trekked on, Sasha on her last leg, and me most likely trying to be more positive than I really was. After a couple hours of biking, in the distance, off the busy road, right before the town of Vermillion, I spotted a pavillion that belonged to a church. Within the rain, it looked like an oasis, a beacon of hope for the possitibly of rest and peace.

Some trees wrapped around the paviliion with a cooking pit made of stones with a cross in the center. There was a campfire with logs around it, behind a simple Lutheran church, in the midst of a busy highway leading to Vermillion, OH. It seemed perfect. I braked immediately when I saw it....when we biked to the Pavilllion there was something peacful about the area. We took out our sleeping bags, I turned on some peaceful music, and knew immediately, that we would have no problems finding rest.

As parishers came and went, due to monday meeting of some sort, Sasha and I caught up on much needed sleep as the rain came pouring down, and as we rested in our new and pefect campsite.

A few hours later, when we woke up...it felt like we were finally ready to face the rest of the day. However, we knew it was an odd start to our tour, an in reality we weren't making a lot of progress in mileage...but I knew that Sasha would not enjoy the rest of the tour without catching up on some sleep from the weekend and didn't mind finding ways to make up on the lost mileage.

Though the reain was still coming down, we continue on to Vermillion to find a cute little coffeeshop with young servers excited to hear about our adventures...however we felt a little silly for the little progress. So we sipped on our coffee and a little snack and started packing as the rain came down even harder. And as we sat there under the awning hesitant to take on the road, up the hill in the distance we could see a single cyclist loaded down with touring gear. We all had smiles at our faces due to the irony.

He rode up to us and stopped and told us his story about being on the road for three years. He was completing a tour from Alaska to Argentina, with intermittent stops back home in London and other stops to break up the monotony of riding. As we continue to talk we realized he had left Cleveland that morning and had stayed the night with Sasha's close friend that runs a bike shop. He was heading towards Michigan and didn't seem to mind the rain.

So a few minutes later we followed his lead. Ambitious to reach our next campsite which we had planned would be on the Wabash road down quite a bit down the road. When we hopped on our bikes to head out of town, Sasha got her first flat, which at the time, we did not know would be the beginning of bike mishaps. So we sat under a tree, with the rain coming down and Sasha fixed her first flat, at the exact same spot that there was a flat on the last trip she took through Vermillion. However, we continue on.. our ride was pleasant, we had our last day alongside the lake and came across a park with roses and crossed a river that led to Fremont. It was a small town with that looked a little run down, but had a significant amount of shops and fast food restaurants, endless amounts of pizza shops. We stopped at the police station for directions, and the officer was confused and didn't have shoes on:)  We decided that when we entered Fremont, we would get some real rest in a bed with showers...and I caved in by sharing a hotel room in pretty low-cloass hotel---it was amazing.