Day 53 - Columbus IN to Harrison OH

Monday April 15, End of Day Total Miles: 3238

Today started quite chilly in the 30s and cloudy.

Here is Dan my Warmshowers.org host in Columbus. He and his family were fantastic and I got to see the first Game of Thrones season 8 episode with his son and friends the previous evening :-)

Shoulder a bit narrow after leaving town but rideable.

Lots of green cultivation.

Very glad the shoulder got very wide about 9 miles out.

Here is a Gatorade bottle I picked up. Lots of plastic trash on the road.

Although the highway had a great shoulder, I was happy to leave it to ride on this country road with almost no traffic.

Spring is sprung in this area with lots of flowering trees.

And other flowers.

Lots of woods too.

Some houses have super large lawns the size of soccer fields or bigger.

Lots of farming in this area.

Here is a prosperous looking farm.

With an old farm house, nice porch, and patriotic flag.

Another house seemed to have a family cemetery in front of it.

I just thought this tree looked cool standing alone in a field.

Some high voltage lines marching into the distance.

Some donkeys.

A church (Baptist I think) and cemetary.

More empty country road.

I passed a number of christian religious shrines over the past week or so.

Some nice horses.

It seems to be a thing to put old bicycles out as decorations. I passed a number of them in the past week but forgot to take pictures until well past them. I got this one though.

Old abandoned brick building.

Beautiful road to ride.

Very nicely mown, thick lawn.

Distant water tower.

Lush green field.

With a reminder to join the NRA nearby.

More blissfully empty rolling road.

Many houses feature old farm equipment. This one was well staged.

This road was appropriately named Underpass Road.

People in Batesville love their library!

Yes it was a very nice library too.

The librarians recommended I visit The Sherman for lunch, so I did.

I hitched my bike to their hitching posts.

Had a great salad.

And filling pasta and chicken main dish. 

I met Molly & Jane in The Sherman.

Jane makes Nantucket Lightship Baskets and also has a young climate activist daughter. Jane played some TV footage of her daughter talking about climate change -- it is very serious issue we must address immediately -- her daughter is very much like Swedish student Greta Thunberg.

I was still hungry so had some desert as well.

Jody the waitress there was very helpful.

Here is a picture of General Sherman whom the restaurant and inn is named after.

I passed some nice houses after leaving Batesville. 

This picture of roadkill with kids getting off a school bus reminded me that most of our kids will be road kill if we do not address climate change now. More adults need to wake up and take action. We need to pass the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act -- please contact your congress people ASAP!

Back on a highway again but with essentially no shoulder so I took the lane. When taking the lane, it is important to be wearing bright colors like I wear. I also have flashing daytime running lights front and rear just in case.

A little later I went over a bridge.

With a muddy river from the thunderstorms that occurred the evening before while I slept.

I reached the end of Indiana Route 46.

On the border of Indiana and Ohio I considered entering a bar and grill, but they did not want people wearing biker colors so I moved on.

Old Harrison's downtown was interesting.

Later I visited the Harrison Branch Library. It is part of the Cincinnati library system.

They had a great exhibit there showing pictures from children's books about black culture.

They also had a great kid area.

Marshall one of the library assistants is thinking about becoming a librarian.

Michelle, the librarian who heads this branch, was very engaging too. Both she and Marshall agreed we must do more to keep our world clean for our kids. Michelle said that several years ago, before she was at this branch, someone riding a horse across the US also stopped at the library to visit.