Monday 9th July

We were woken by a phone call from Richard who was in the hotel lobby, waiting for his complimentary breakfast, courtesy of Alex, as were ours. I didn't feel too bright as I'd had such a stupidly late night, again, and neither was Kev, but his indisposition was caused by cocktails rather than lack of sleep. Of course, being how he is,he couldn't admit this. Instead he said he'd been awake 'half the night' because of me snoring. What bollocks, I was still up at three while he'd been snoring for three hours! No wonder they call him a gobshite. Breakfast was really good, as was the accommodation. It spoiled us a bit, because it cost us less than our subsequent cheapo motels.

Richard then went back home to finish packing his bike, so fuck knows why he couldn't have packed it first and woken us an hour later! 

Eventually, we loaded our bikes and hit the road. As we headed up to Harrisburg it was already really warm. I ended up with sunburnt hands and arms, particularly the creases inside my elbows - lobster boy, or what? We rode through some beautiful green scenery; miles of forested hills, or maybe even small mountains. whatever, our PA host didn't know what they were called. Both of the 'old' Shovels ran very well, but Rich was still having problems with his Fire Engine. The road surfaces in Pennsylvania were very good, but on the run west to Ohio we hit a lot of diversions. We didn't know how many miles these added to the route. Richard led throughout but Kev and I had our snide TomTom apps running as back up and practice for the second part of our road trip, after Shovelfest.

We stopped for lunch at a Walmart, so that Kev and I could top up with pants ('shorts' for the benefit of our colonial brethren), socks and tee shirts. Kev had a Walmart salad and Rich and I ate ftrom Subway. I bought a bum bag (fanny pack) to strap to my handlebars to contain my wallet and camera while travelling. when I took it off, that evening, I was delighted to find that I could wear it as intended by design; a joyful event because in the UK I can never find one to fit...................but. it did come from Walmart and would, therefore, probably go around me twice.

Once well into Ohio, we decided to stop for the night. Kev wanted his own room, as he was still bitching about my snoring. We fannied about for over an hour trying to sort out cheap accommodation for the night, eventually staying at the Red Roof, just south of Akron, which we'd earlier rejected as too expensive, DOH! We needn't have gone to Walmart earlier as there was a 24 hour one on-site. The Walmartians were still busily shopping at 02.30, but none were about when we rode off in the morning. There was also an IHOP and Applebee's there. KeV and I decided to try Applebee's, as people rave about it, but it was only OK.

                                                       

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           I had really fond memories of the Chillicothe IHOP, from SF3, so will try one again at some point during this trip. Rich didn't want to eat, tonight, but stayed back at the hotel. We bought him some Yuenlings, from a late-night visit to Wally World, but he was in bed when we got back. We woke him up to have some of his beer, though, of course. What are mates for?



Kev retired to his room and I tried to upload photos into Sunday's blog entry. In the end, I gave up with Photobucket and re-loaded the pics from my camera to Picasa. A bit of a scam on Google's part, but it had to be done as I was so tired and Picasa makes uploading reliable and straight forward. Once again, I hit the sack at silly o'clocvk, but had to get up at 06.30.

Here's today's route Monday 9th July