Tuesday 10th July

I woke up a bit late and still feeling knackered. The youngsters had already loaded their bikes and were waiting for me to do the same. I got told off for not doing bike-check routines, leaving it up to the boys. I pointed out that I had every faith that Rich would conscientiously do it far better than me, and that I had the utmost faith in his engine and bike build.Eventually we set off, not as early as hoped but better than yesterday. Rich had decided we'd do a tank full of petrol before stopping for breakfast. . Not quite appropriate for my medication regime, but I'm just the token old bloke on this trip! He fiddled with his bike some more before we got going, but it still wasn't quite right.

I felt quite shitty on the first leg of today's travel, due to lack of sleep and because I'm supposed to eat twenty minutes after my pills, but also because I was cold and wanted a pee. I'd only worn a tee and jeans and the air was a lot cooler than yesterday, in some part due to us arriving in areas where it had previously been raining but also due to lack of sunshine. this stage of the journey was again marked by miles of detours, which impeded our progress. As it happened, Rich played a blinder in choosing where to stop; Kat's Iron Skillet in Greenwich, Ohio. Although I still wanted to unpack and wear my leather jacket, it was a lot warmer when we stopped in Greenwich.

When we pulled up at the diner, there was a lively group of old guys sitting outside smoking, drinking coffee and generally.bullshitting. Rich and Kev went into the diner, and as I unpacked my jacket and rainsuit, the old boys told me the bikes and gear would be perfectly safe, as any local troublemakers had been put in their place - not, they added, by the Police or Sherrif but by the community - 'A forty five is a good persuader'.

Kat's diner was excellent, especially for us Limeys. It was a proper bit of Americana and as hospitable as you could wish it to be. Rich and I had sausage, egga and bacon, whilst Kev had bicuits and gravy with a couple of 'dippy' eggs. The food was spot-on and the copious mugs of coffee were great. If anyone is riding a motorcycle through Greenwich, Ohio, on Route 224 I think, I'd heartily recommend it as a stop at any time of day. Interestingly, when I got back to the bikes, one of the old fellas asked 'Where'd you all get all them Shovelheads. He went on to say that he had a 77 FX bobber, which he still rode. We told him to join the forum, as Ohio has a few members and as it is such a good source of pooled knowledge. Fed, watered and drained, we hit the road and headed west once more.



Again we had lots of detours, but I felt a lot better having eaten and warmed up. In fact, as we were approaching the next fuel stop, I was becoming quite drowsy due to the day having by now become warm and by lack of sleep and the hypnotic nature of the journey. Richard's bike also really stank of overfuelling, which had been making me feel quite ill as I followed him, so I dropped back behind Kev for a while. Once we stopped, again, I sorted myself out with a large Red Bull and strapped my jacket to the my bag on the back of the Shovel, because it was getting to be another really warm day. We crossed the remainder of Ohio and had a stop in Huntington, Indiana, where we decided to work out a suitable destination for the day and sort out accommodation. The TomTom app was very useful in helping us do this and we located a Super 8, in Remington, Indiana, but they didn't pick up the phone so we booked into The Sunset Inn, instead. 107 bucks for two rooms and, for our purposes, ideally located by a McDonalds, KFC, Iron Skillet and a gas station.

Tonight we all ate at the Iron Skillet, choosing the $10.95 all you can eat buffet. It was what we needed and thei fried chicken was much better than KFC's. The only downer was them not selling beer, so we had to wait until Rich took his bike for a test run, having played with it yet again, whenm he brought back a six pack of 'Fat Tire, a Belgian brew. 

The kids sat outside drinking beer and playing with their communication devices, while I uploaded the pictures for Sunday's blog and published it. Then they went to bed, leaving me to write today's blog. Wifi at the Sunset did not work in oiur rooms, so any web activity had to be done outside, where signal was OK. We had a disappointment, too, when we found out that our iphones couldn't directly access the internet, despite having 4g and a full AT&T signal. A call to customer services informed us that iPhones, Blackberriies and other Smart phone cannot get internet access on AT&T. We also found out that the 250 minutes for international calls we have, included in our airtime package, only applies to land lines and not cell phones, GGRRRR!


Here's today's route Tuesday Route