Dear Indiana,

I love your gentle breezes, and your sweet, little bitty hills that go so softly under my tread. I love them even more than total flatness, because they shield me from the wind, and they break up the monotony of an absolute plane. I love that deep blue over head that blurs into lightness around the edges, and all those benign, white clouds that dot the sky like a ghostly archipelago, or a herd of white stags. O, Indiana, I could roll on like this, forever.


Halfway through Ohio I started singing mariachi songs to pass the time as I rode along, and when I ran out of those I started singing anything else I could think of. Halfway through Indiana I became manic and started singing odes to the countryside. The sun and the sky and the fields were so beautiful. And, unlike Ryan, I don't have an iPod, so I have to find ways of amusing myself.

We had to cross some un-pavement to avoid getting way off course

These signs make me so sad. I can't blame a person for wanting some privacy, it just seems a shame that a fella can't wander down that lonesome road in search of shelter, or even conversation. I guess they save us time by letting us know straight off where we're not welcome.

The last of nine lives was wasted, here. Shame.

Amber waves of grain...

Ryan takes a sample

The day we left Fremont we rode 70 miles to Defiance, Ohio. That's the day we passed through the fair city of Wayne. The next day lightning storms kept us off the road for most of the morning, and strong head winds slowed our progress the rest of the day. As a result, we only made it about 44 miles, but we did make it across the state line and ended up in Auburn, Indiana. Yesterday we rode from Auburn to just south of Wakarusa, about 70 miles. As we approached Goshen we saw clouds unlike the puffy whites behind us. These had bellies dark with water, pregnant with the coming storm. So we got stuck in Goshen for a while. But the sun stays out later as we go west, so after the storm passed we had light until almost 10:00, and we rode through a glorious dusk.

A wonderful couple at a fork in the road let us camp on their lawn, last night. Their young daughter followed our movements with great interest from the rear window as we set up camp in the back yard. I think she was talking to the cat about us. Total cuteness. In the morning she brought out breakfast her mom had prepared, and handed it into our tents. So nice.