On headwinds and glass

(Susan here)

First off, the stats:
Yesterday:
58 miles
9.7 mph
somewhere around 6ish hours
Today:
72 miles
6 h and 17 m
11.7 mph

As you can see from the last two days’ stats, yesterday and today were significantly different: that is, yesterday we were biking into an unbelievable headwind all day. With gusts approaching 20 miles per hour, it made for brutal riding: we’re talking downhills that you stand still on unless you’re pedaling and flats that you grind through on your granny gear (i.e., lowest gear). The unfortunate thing about finally reaching flattish land is that there really is nothing to block the wind. When we finally made Circleville for the evening yesterday, we felt as if we’d gone a hundred miles, not 58.

The sadistic weather was interrupted by a little sojourn we made into the Ohio Glass Museum in the lovely town of Lancaster. We saw it in passing and decided to see whether we could wait out some of the worst of the wind while learning something. The museum director, Bill, personally gave us a tour of the small but interesting space. Lancaster was the center of a major glass industry starting with the discovery of natural gas–a good solid fuel source for heating the furnaces–in the 19th century, and is still the home of Anchor Hocking Glass today. In line with the nature of the industry in that area, the museum has more of a focus on industrial and commercial glass production than the glass museum I’ve been to in Tacoma, WA, which is focused on art/decorative glass blowing. I entered a contest to win a glass bowl produced at the museum’s workshop, so maybe I’ll have a little souvenir if I’m lucky.

We were hosted last night by Dylan and Janet in their beautiful restored Victorian house in Circleville. We ate everything in sight; it was pretty great.

Some pics from yesterday:

Scenery: Note the beautiful blue sky for once.

Action shot!

Crackle glass at the Ohio Glass Museum:

Candy bar break: (We are very food-motivated; we usually promise ourselves a candy bar when we get to 10 miles or less to our destination. Such rewards were especially important yesterday.)

Today, not only was the wind relatively still, it was quite flat until we hit the steep roads to and from the Little Miami River. We really were flying. When we got to Lebanon, I at least still felt like I could have kept going. (Side note: Like many other American towns named after foreign places–I’m looking at you, Cairo, IL–Lebanon, OH is not pronounced like the nation of Lebanon. We learned this after several conversations with locals who asked us where we were going: “Tonight we hope to make it to Lebanon.” “Oh, Lebanin? OK.”) Tonight there’s going to be a thunderstorm–glad we’re not camping–and tomorrow it may rain some and the wind will pick up again, just as we get into the hills around Brookville. Sigh.

Scenery today: (Unfortunately the lighting isn’t good.) Imagine some cows, horses, and maybe some ponies and llamas in this picture; we saw them all today in pastures alongside the road.