After I took a quick dip in the lake, we headed out for the day. Thirty miles from the lake is the town of Butler, where I went to high school. I don't get back there very often, since it is 13 miles north of my hometown of Spencerville, so it was fun to take a look around, go past some old friends' houses and do a quick ride around the school. Lots of memories flowed.

I had been thinking about my parents ever since we rode into Indiana. They gave me incredible love and support and the confidence to do stupid things like this bike ride. I hope I was able to give them everything they gave me.

As I rode around town, I looked at all the faces hoping to recognize one. I'd peer into every car that went past, trying to envision what my old friends would look like now, guessing how they may have changed. The town hadn't changed much, a McDonald's and new gas station the only signs of growth in the last 30 years. As we rolled out of town, my mind was filled with many emotions.

The day was getting hotter and we had lots of miles ahead. Five miles out of town, we stopped for a photo at the Ohio border and then we started riding hard.

Traffic on Rt. 6 was low and the road was smooth all day. As we were flying through the flat Ohio corn fields, I looked down and saw we were going 22 MPH, much faster than our normal cruising speed.

The day flew by. I don't know if it was the heat, the good road, the lack of traffic or my emotions of the day. We made several stops for water and bites of food. Before we knew it, we had covered 100 miles and done it at an average of 16.4 MPH. Our average was faster than our normal pace.

We then drove to Cleveland to make another driver change on Sunday. Since we didn't take our earlier planned day off, we decided it would be best to do it on Sunday, so we could ship off Jeff in the morning and pick up our new driver, Nat Clymer, at the airport in the evening. Monday we'll do a local 100 mile ride to make up for the area we drove past and then head out of Cleveland for real on Tuesday.

We're sorry to see Jeff go. He has been lots of fun and very helpful. He even made some notes to help Nat deal with us. We took a peak and Jeff offered great advice like “Look hot and tired so the riders don't feel bad.”

Jeff and Dan get ready to leave the lake.

An Indiana field of hay.

Loren shows off his new haircut as he enters Ohio.