Thursday – near Mansfield, Ohio
Well, it was raining still, but no way was I staying here for another night, so I packed up and headed off west. The first thing I noticed was that my TomTom GPS was now working fine, the bracket was performing like it should???? I have no idea why, and as their contact details are suspect, I may have to make a phone call to suss out the situation, even to report the fault, so it is on record, how annoying, but I am grateful it is working now.
It was only a short trip to the border of Ohio, but of course being on a highway, you cannot stop, so I managed to find an exit, get onto a country road and navigate back to the state border where there was a nice place to park.
I had looked at my atlas and it showed me that the road from Geneva south to Damascus, where the road ends was a scenic route. Hmm, once again, I am unsure on the definition, but I guess it was rolling hills etc but it was full of vineyards, so I am guessing due to the wineries, it is classified a scenic route.
Most of the road was like that, basically a straight road through small farming villages and grape vines, it went on for hours.
I eventually stopped at a Subway and grabbed a foot long and looked at the map for another re assessment of what to do. I wanted a quiet night, away from people and definitely no beer :), I know, strange I should say that, but a system flush is good once in a while.
I had some contacts in Ohio, but as I had no actual addresses, I had no idea which way would be useful to be. The only one I knew was north of Columbus, so I figured I could head that way and find a quiet place to stay. The rain had been off again, on again so I am not into tents at this moment. On southwards and you get to see a lot of these A frame roofs around, this means it snows around here.
I also noticed quite a few of these, I did not know there was oil out this far east, but there you go.
Once I got to the end of the road, I decided to try for some chain oil as I saw a repair shop. I had emailed Keiko where I bought it from in Germany and he had said get some synthetic chainsaw bar oil, so I tried again to get some. I went into 3 shops between here and after heading west and all of them had biodegradable oil only, which would damage my system, so I continued on.
Of course, being off the main roads, there are no motels, which I guess is common sense but it meant a lot of running around trying to find one. In the end I just picked one as I was tired and even though it was next to a pub, I was not intending to visit it.
I sorted a few things out and then sent another email to Keiko about my chain oil. I needed to know what else to use as the USA does not have the required stuff. This is unbelievable I know, but there you go, it has been quite a few weeks now I have wasted time trying to get the correct oil. I may even have to buy some from Europe and have it shipped ahead somewhere, which would mean another few weeks!
Anyway, some good news at last, my rear tyre is staying the distance, it has just clocked up over 6000 miles and the tread depth looks to be good for at least double that 🙂
I spent a quiet night inside, away from the thunderstorms that hit about 7pm and did a few blog updates. I sent some emails to local contacts as well, to see what is happening for Friday and onwards. The weather channel had its own interpretation on that, they said rain, hail, tornados and not much else for the next 4 days 😦
Day – 260 miles and 418 km
Trip – 19,068 miles and 30,687 km
Cheers
TravellingStrom
TravellingStrom 