Cadiz, Ohio

What a day what a day. What a mighty fine day. The morning started off in fine fashion with some bike decorating for the holiday. Thankfully, Linda and Ray has sent me a care package last mail drop with patriotic decorations. My bike and camelbak were adorned with 22 flags balloons and sillybands. I handed extras out to the group so eveyone was decked out with some red white and blue paraphenalia. It was a patriotic ride with people driving by and honking and cheering. While I missed my customary America runs with my friends, this was a comparable substitute. All day long we sang patriotic songs as we cycle through the changing landscape. There were plenty of hills but no real mountains so to help the pain and struggle of longer climbs, I named them holiday hills and independence inclines. This made cycling in low gear almost enjoyable because we all tricked our minds to make it into a fun game. On top of that there were numerous occassions where I would drop back from the pack and then cycle hard to charge up the hill and scream freedom or liberty as I flew by. Atleast it really amped me up. I shared interesting American history facts and got to learn some traditions of how others spend the day. The 94 degree heat made us all glisten, and i drank 6 liters of water while riding, but it still wasnt as hot as its been before. It was nice to have semi fresh legs (they were still sore as anything and it hurt to climb stairs) from the day off in Pitt and my butt was happy about a short ride in almost comfortable gel chamois spandex. I never thought I would be relieved and call 67miles a short distance to ride, but that was the deal. At lunch we rocked out to the Team America theme sing and then had a circle sing to American Pie. Needless to say, I was in heaven. The ride today was gorgeous and we got to see a shift from country to industry back to a different type of rural. We ate breakfast in Pennsylvania, lunch in West Virginia, and dinner in Ohio. Cadiz is the birthplace of Clark Gable, but other than that it is small and relatively uneventful. Because of the holiday, all businesses were closed so we uses the church kitchen to cook up leftovers we had. It turned into quite a nice meal as we enjoyed hotdogs burgers tacos quesadillas and of course twenty pounds of various desserts. I picked and awful year to test my willpower by giving up ice cream because it's eaten everyday on bike and build. I'm still going strong though, and very proud of it. Post dinner we went to a combined park/cemetary (I know, I think it's an odd combo too) and we played frisbee, blew up some fireworks and watched the neighbors light their own fireworks. It was no trip to DC like was supposed to happen this year, but still a great time. 2011, the moon...