Day 4

I woke up to the sun rising above quiet grain silos, birds calling across the marsh and stones poking in my side. My mattress had deflated a few times throughout the night, I knew it had a hole but didn't realize how many. I packed up and got on the road but I had a phone call and it slowed me down for about an hour. I walked through a "farmers' market with no produce, only baked goods and flowers, and was disappointed by the lack of young people. I headed out on the highway and made it a couple miles before I got hungry. I stopped at a greasy spoon near the highway that is open all day every day and scarfed a 1/2 lb burger and a strawberry shortcake. After Makai and I spent an hour out of the sun we took off again, down a long straight road to Bucyrus where there was an antique car show.  I cruised the strip a couple times with the cars and only one drunk old lady yelled at me. I didn't stop in town for the craft fair or two foot long hotdogs I just pumped my way out of town. There were a couple more stops along the way to get out of the sun and then I made it to Ontario. This was the worst part of the whole trip. I was smack in the middle of the Walmart section of town with broken up sidewalks, empty malls, and huge drains that threatened to swallow the trailer. There were five lanes of traffic and no one wanted to merge so they just swerved out of the way at the last moment. I went down a big hill and saw some bikers going the other direction so I turned around and pedaled after them but there was no way I could catch up. Eventually I stood at the intersection long enough to ask people where the fairgrounds were and even had a lady ask me where GOBA was. I finally spotted a sign and made it to the Richland county fairgrounds where there were thousands of people preparing for the Great Ohio Bike Adventure.
    The idea for this festival is to provide a safe comfortable tour experience for bikers of all abilities. They set up camp for the night at the fairgrounds beginning in a different city in ohio and then do 50 miles a day along a set itinerary. All of their equipment is trucked with semis to the next location where they can retrieve it when they arrive.
     I met up with the flock of bikers just before they started their journey. I pulled up in time to ride into Mansfield with the opening parade of a thousand bikers. We had an escort of a mercedes and several police claiming three of the four lanes of traffic and more than a mile of highway. It took around an hour to ride the last four miles of my journey but in the circumstances it was perfect. Upon arrival there were prizes, free beer, and a band. I called Tyler to alert him of the free refreshments and he arrived with his truck to scoop me and my ride up. We took a brief late night tour of the bars, and made it back to his house for a dip in the hot tub before I couldn't keep my eyes open any later. I slept in a spare bed at Tyler's for the next few nights, healing and making final arrangements for my stint at Tree Frog Canopy Adventures.