Today was a little longer, but beautiful day of just riding. Like the author said in "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" (I was listening to the audio book today while riding), for motorbike riders it is the ride, not the destination, that is important. More about the book later. Today we started at 7 a.m. in Hubbard, Ohio and ended up at 5 p.m. at Watseka, Illinois, a total of 403 miles or 648 kms. We passed through such international locations as Berlin, Lima and Peru, Van Wert (where we enjoyed a Mexican lunch), Cairo, Ottawa and Ontario, and Monticello.
It started out a little hilly in Ohio but soon became virtually flat by Illinois (forewarning of things to come). The small towns and villages characterized by 35 mph zones) separate the farmland almost all of which is covered with head-high corn, grain or other crops, with cattle operations interspersed as well. While styles of farming vary widely, it seems to the casual observer to have suffered less than other parts of the country in this economic downturn. There was the overall-clad, straw hat wearing Amish farmer balancing atop his horse-drawn harrow (or cultivator - very similar to the picture below [not mine]), slapping the single horse's back with the reins in hand as the low-tech instrument slowly turned over his field, while his white apron and bonnet bedecked wife hung out the wash. Not a modern convenience to be had. There were also the huge baling machines, hauled by monstrous dual-tired tractors with air conditioned and sound system wired cabs sitting high above the 6 foot round bales spit out onto the cropped fields. It was so dusty traveling down the Route 224/24 we had chosen that the cloth I used to shower and wash my face with was black with field and road dust. Serves me right for riding with my visor up.
We managed to avoid getting wet again by serendipitously avoiding the storm clouds, sometimes narrowly (while we were just a few miles south of Cleveland there was a public warning issued over the radio announcing flash flooding from the two inches of rain expected in the space of one hour).
Simply glorious!