Day 57 - Xenia to Circleville OH

Friday April 19, Biked 65 miles. Total mileage by end of day: 3454.

Quite cool (40s) all day and cloudy for first hour. Then rain for the rest of the day.

Trigger warning: there are some heartbreaking photos below.

It had just stopped raining for a bit as I left my AirBnB located right next to the junction of all 5 bike trails into Xenia. Sheldyn, my host, was a most excellent bicycle enthusiast as well. Great place for bicyclists to stay.

Had breakfast at the Coffee Hub.

Met Mike, a fellow project manager, who had looked up my website (its on the back of my vest) before we started talking.

The Coffee Hub was outstanding and very friendly too.

After a bit of street riding, I got back on the trail.

I love avoiding large roads.

Saw many more cows and some horses.

Many more farms.

And farm machinery.

Looks like the rain kept the skydivers on the ground.

This rail was just gorgeous and smooth.

Ran into some McDonalds trash along it however. How sad that McDonalds makes so much trash! It kills wildlife and kids. Please don't buy trash. If you find McDonalds trash, bring it back to McDonalds, leave it on their counter, and tell them to stop selling trash and destroying our world.

Passed an automated weather station.

Now back on the road in the rain with a strong side wind (~20mph). The rain kept blowing in under my rain cape :-(.  A bicycling rain cape is a special rain poncho for bicyclists. Normally it is my preferred rain gear because I get warm quickly and it allows a lot of air circulation. But in strong winds it does not work as well.

It was raining steadily as I entered the town of Washington Court House (yes that is the town's name).

Stopped at Our Place for lunch.

Met Linda & Bob who are living in Dayton for a bit to be near their son at the Airforce base. They own a motel in Missouri and we discussed how to get to zero waste.

Some ladies from a table nearby heard about what I was doing, paid for my lunch, and gave me donations too! Yes there are many people who want to take better care of our world and our kids.

It was blowing and raining very hard as I left so I wore my rain pants, rain booties, rain jacket instead of my rain cape.

On my way to Circleville I saw some very fresh roadkill on the side of the road.

A doe and her recently born fawn a few feet away. So sad :-(.

Please note that our own children and grandchildren will die prematurely as road kill from the effects of our current day pollution. We are spewing megatons of greenhouse gases into our atmosphere and upsetting the balance of nature. Balance is important. If a bicycle is imbalanced it falls over. So will our environment. And the bigger it is the harder its fall. Please read about and support the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act.

I did not know that Circleville was built within an ancient circular earthworks.

Lots of lush lawns here.

At last I made it to my cousin Brad's house and met two of my other cousins Tyler and Ryan.

Gracie and Toye joined us for Japanese and Chinese food that evening :-)

Not pictured: I was shocked when the restaurant delivered most of our food in disposables rather than reusables. :-(   That one meal generated more trash than my whole household usually generates in a month. We need to push harder to get businesses to reduce trash.