Momma Always Said Never Talk to Strangers!

One of the best parts of the trip for myself, and I think for the others as well, has been the interactions with people we meet on our trip. So often people will see all our bikes lined up in front of a grocery store, gas station or stopped along the road and strike up a conversation with us asking us all about the trip. Just today we were pulled over on the side of the road because my front tire had a rub and a man pulled over and asked us if we needed any help. We soon found out that he had done the exact same trip - Portland to Portland - only in reverse. So that was interesting. There's been numerous times were cyclists will come up and talk to us and its always interesting to hear stories from their past tours. One thing that I always enjoy is watching people watch us. Usually when we go to the grocery store one or two of us will sit outside and "guard" the bikes while the rest shop. Its always funny to watch people try to avoid staring and appear rude but try to figure out why in the world those bikes have all that junk on them.
One thing we learned really quickly though is to be careful who we talk to at gas stations. There seems to be a wierd phenomenom with us at gas stations/convenience stores. We'll be sitting there taking a break, waiting for someone to get finished using the rest room, etc. and out of nowhere someone will come up and bombard us with bad news. Almost every day this happens.

Some of our favorite comments have been:

-Government warning, its supposed to be 103 with humidity and they're telling everyone to stay inside and avoid the heat. People are dying out there!
- Nice little old lady: Did ya get wet?
us: No we managed to avoid it
Lady: Well its only going to get worse
- Theres nothing but hills from here to there (thats a pretty common one)
- You're asking to get killed going that way.
-Theres a major storm coming. Head for cover
- You should be doing 200 miles a day and 50 miles by 9.
- You're never going to get there going that slow.
- The winds are going to kill you in the mid-west

I'm sure people have good intentions, but it seems like we rarely get any encouraging comments, only depressing, negative comments. Although at times its actually kinda nice because we're expecting some major mountain or a torrential downpour and its not nearly as bad as we were expecting. However, there have definitely been times where the hills have lived up to the warning. Especially in Holmes County. Thats where we spend our day yesterday, and it was a long yesterday.

At this point we're just over 1200 miles and we've managed to pick up our pace and have had mostly 70-80 mile days. We should be able to make up some time in the next couple weeks, as long as the wind stays at a minimum. We're in Plain City tonight and from here are heading to Indianapolis, Indiana then on to Arthur, Illinois. For the next week or so we'll be staying with people every couple of days so we're enjoying avoiding the tent still.