I'm in one piece!

Today was an interesting day.

The first thing I did in the morning was check to see if the Celtics won. They lost. The next thing I did was realize that I was out of sunscreen. Uh oh. Gotta find some sunscreen. There was nothing near by so I proceeded to finish off the trail I was on (furiously racing through the parts that weren't shaded) and 22 miles later I found a Walgreens. First problem solved!

About 3 miles later, I was on my own in terms of routing. The Underground Railroad path veers east at this point and I want to go west. So I'm making my way to Madison, Indiana on my own (saving 100 miles). This means I've got to go through Cincinnati. I didn't get to go through downtown, but the uptown part: NOT BIKE FRIENDLY... also hilly. It's especially hard getting out on the west side because there's an interstate there and thus it's very highly trafficked. It wasn't too too bad, but definitely not fun... and it didn't get much better.

After getting out of the city (which took forever because of wrong turns and rerouting bad sections) I finally get to within 9 miles of my motel. Unfortunately it's 9 miles on route 50. This just wasn't safe: two lanes of high speed traffic and little to no shoulder. I spent the first two miles or so terrified out of my mind desperately looking for a place I could turn off and reroute. I found a place, stopped at the nearest Walgreens to reload my water and do some routing.

While I bought my water, someone stole my pepper spray... I'm *pretty* sure I didn't misplace it.

If you look at the picture of my bike that little bag attached to my stem houses my pepper spray and my digital camera. Whenever I get off my bike I take my iPhone, my wallet, and my digital camera with me. I don't carry my pepper spray because I don't like the idea of walking around with a weapon. Basically it's the easiest thing to take if you want to take something, and it got took.

At Walgreens I figured out a route that only required a little under a mile more on 50. This brought me through Aurora, Indiana and I stopped at a bar for some dinner (there's no food near the motel). I was running low on juice for my phone and was able to find an outlet, so I plug my phone in... It didn't charge.

At this point I start freaking out a bit. I had a sunscreen problem, then a whole lot of safety issues, then stolen pepper spray, now my phone won't hold a charge, and it was getting late. I should add that I had dropped my phone earlier in the day.

The guy at the bar reassured me that there was plenty of shoulder on 50 from Aurora to the motel (saving me a couple of miles of rerouting). He said he biked that way before, so I trusted him (this guy is pretty badass. He hiked the whole of the Appalacian trail in '95).

I FINALLY got to my motel after a really long day, rebooted my phone and took a shower. It's charging! I'm alive! Woohoo!

I'm at a motel in Aurora, IN. I think I'm done trailblazing after I get to Madison. I did 62 or so miles (65 including messups and getting back on route in the morning).

The picture is from the University of Cincinnati (about the only interesting thing I saw in the city).

Also, it was really hot.