Defiance, Ohio

Indiana didn’t last long, just over 100 miles actually! Were now in Ohio after following a really peaceful ride along deserted county roads and under blue skies with big white fluffy clouds.

Before enjoying today’s events, we started with a philosophical breakfast this morning. Sitting around the breakfast table of LaSalle B&B in Fort Wayne, IN with the owners Rosie-Aimee & Clark Butler and a fellow guest Lynda (an antiques dealer from N’awlins who frequents the ‘shires of England to buy her Victorian treasures), we were privy to the sage reflections of Clark who is and has been a Professor of Philosophy for over 40 years. Needless to say, we fixed the issues concerning American federate policies and European Confederacy, identified the problems and inevitable downfall of the human race based on the exponential growth of the desire for instant gratification, predicted Arsenal FC were going to win the Premiership this season and of course Lewis Hamilton will be crowned F1 World Champion 2010.

With the world put to rights and satisfied with our hearty breakfast, we set off around 10:30 this morning. Despite a few short sections of extremely busy highway, we cruised the 53 miles to Defiance, OH at an average speed of 13.2mph. We didn’t meet any cyclists on the road but we did get chatting to a local Pastor who gave us his blessing …thank you local Pastor.

At one point in the ride, we thought we had been dropped into a low budget 1980’s horror movie! On a tranquil stretch of highway sandwiched between thick forest and a field of corn the size of Long Island, we cycled head on into a very large and angry swarm of Bees. With Kat emitting high pitched squeals and Anthony uncontrollably shouting BEES! BEES! BEES! BEES! we accelerated from 14mph to 26.4 mph in 2 seconds, just managing to escape the Wrath of B’s.

1 mile from our hotel the road was closed due to a Bridge Opening ceremony (cutting of the ribbon). Fortunately, the City Mayor and other dignitaries planned on making the grand opening at 4pm, giving us 20 minutes to scarper across the closed bridge before the TV crew switched on their cameras and Security tightened their grip on proceedings.

We made it to the hotel nice and early and had dinner in Buffalo Wild Wings, which was surprisingly quite nice.

Us x