We woke up to a morning that did not promise to be a great one. While there was a little sun, it was mostly cloudy and overcast, and more of it was in the direction we were going. But it was definitely cooler, probably about 70 degrees, so was just wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt and a hoodie. No gloves, and I was a little on the cool side, but it was nice.

Just leaving Findlay off to the right I saw a little critter, and I'm thinking it was a groundhog or something. It was sitting up on its haunches like a prairie dog does, but it appeared to be bigger. Cool.

Then I saw an old tree that was dead and topped off, with a carving of a bear in it. We weren't stopping do to much photo taking, though, since we need to get some miles in.

I had phoned home the evening before and Biker Bill said his sister, Janet, who lives in Michigan would be just above where we were when we crossed over I-75. I said I didn't know where that was. Well, first thing this morning, probably not 2 minutes after leaving the hotel, we crossed over I-75. Duh. I probably could have seen it from the hotel if I'd been looking for it.

Today we did a couple of the Harley shops. They are known as my Harley T-shirt tours as I've always tried to stop at a bunch of them. I like to get the little dip dots to put on a map at home as it shows a lot of the places I've been over the years. We stopped first at the Ottawa, Ohio, shop. It was very nice, but the best part is that they have a museum out back with lots of Harley memorabilia, and bikes. It was pretty neat so I took a few photos.

There were many cool bikes.  Loved the color on this one although it does not show up well.  It's a rich turquoise color.  I bought a shirt that color today.  YAY!!

1940s Hill Climber

1942 WLA 13,051 produced

We were riding along, and on the right hand side of the road, in the grass, there was a little gray kitty. He was all hunched down in stealth mode as there had been a bunch of little birds there. He was not having any luck right then.

At 9:40 a.m., it was 73 degrees.

As we were riding along, we were going to pass a vehicle. Probably a good thing he put on his left turn signal, as we didn't pass. There was a cop shop right there, and you know we might have been going just a little over the posted speed in order to get out, get by and get back in.

I've seen a couple of longhorn cattle on this trip. One of those was today. Seems unusual since I associate those more with Texas.

We rode all day with the corn, in all stages of growth. Some is very new, some is just getting the ears started, and others have what seem to be well-developed ears. I kept expecting the characters from the 1984 movie, “The Children of the Corn” to come walking out of the acres and acres of corn that we saw today. The movie is about children murdering adults, and participating in a cult that worships a malevolent force in the corn fields. I've never seen the movie myself since it's a terror show and those scare me.

Nah, actually the corn was beautiful, and it's hard to visualize how much corn comes from all the  plants we've seen, or to understand how many people it takes to eat all of it. I only recently learned to like fresh corn on the cob, but know I can eat about a half-dozen ears by myself at a sitting … with real butter and salt and pepper.

I made Jaz stop in the town of Markle, Indiana, because of the smiley face on the water tower. That's what we look like on a day of riding … good, bad or indifferent. Actually, Jaz and I are riding in Two Bike and Wrongway's old turf … Indiana. It's pretty around here, and some beautiful rivers. I still need mountains, though, and don't see anything resembling one here. Maybe in a part of the state where I am not???

Riding always makes me smile; what about you?

As we continued our journey for today, we saw a statue of liberty as a lawn ornament. It wass great, probably 3 or 4 feet tall. I was impressed, because that was in Indiana, near Markle. That town has lots of interesting things.

In Huntington, a little further down the road, we saw a sign for the Dan Quayle Museum. Geez, really sorry we missed that one.

Now Wabash was a great little town. We visited the Harley shop, and folks were so nice to us. The name of the shop is Brandt's. So, Robin, any relation? The lady who waited on me said they'd been the Number 8 dealership in 2008, the Number 9 in 2009, and were currently in the Number 5 slot for 2010. That's pretty cool. Wonder what the criteria is for that. I should have asked her.

We also took the opportunity to have lunch, and I let Jaz have Mexican food today. It was good, and in visiting downtown, we saw some little elephants all painted up, like the parade of Wild Salmon. These elephants were not full size, probably only about 2 feet high, 3 feet long. But there were about eight or so of them. In their midst were two larger elephant statues, gray in color like real elephants. Turns out school kids painted these elephants for in front of the coffee place, Modoc's. There's a story about an elephant named Modoc who in 1942 was visiting Wabash with the circus. Modoc escaped and smelled some freshly roasted peanuts. She smashed through the doors at the drug store and ate the peanuts. She then went on a five-day rampage through two counties. Her escapades made headlines across the country and she became the most famous elephant in America for one week in 1942.

There's just something about an elephant that is hand-painted by school kids.

Jaz's GPS and I are going head-to-head today more than usual. Zumo (the GPS) wants to take us on weird roads, and interstates. I read signs, and more than once asked Jaz about the direction we were heading. Zumo is a city girl, and she's great there. She's not so great in the outback, and map and sign reading are more practical. We had to make several turnarounds.

At Wolcott, the temperature at 3 p.m. was 85 degrees. The nice thing is that we gained an hour again.

Near Remington, Illinois, we saw a couple of wind farms, then near Gilman, there were two trucks transporting wind turbine blades. They certainly needed the entire road. That was cool. We saw several wind farms today. I always like to see them. It makes me feel like I'm amongst gentle giants, whoosh, whoosh.

We were ready to stop for the night, but no where around had motel/hotels. We ended up coming to Kewanee. The sky had gotten really dark, and then the wind started to kick up really hard. It was a race with the storm to see if we'd get wet before finding a hotel. The rain started as a sprinkle, but we saw lightning in the distance. Just as we pulled under the entry way to the hotel, it started to pour. We got very lucky in that we didn't have to ride in that. It would have been treacherous. And we even got to park under it … the gal working the front desk was very kind.

So, after eating an apple and peanut butter, and working on this, we are all in.