Dog Day, then Cat Day... OMG!

Our first few days back on the road have been ROUGH (or should I say Ruff?) to say the least!
 

This is where the dog latched onto my rear pannier

Dog day was Tuesday - our first day back on the road. We dropped our rental car off in Bowling Green, OH and were on the road about 2pm. We had a short day planned, and literally nothing of note happened... well... nothing at first. We were out in the country riding along - Jeff was a ways ahead of me and I was bee-boppin along to my handlebar stereo system when I saw this house on the left with their door open about a foot. I figured someone was about to walk outside and presumed I'd wave at them like I always do when we see people out and about and we are cycling by. To my suprise, a person did not come out of the house. It took a second to register in my brain that the streak of fur and saliva speeding towards me was a pitbull, and in the course of about 5 more seconds, about a bajillion thoughts went through my mind. "Should I slow down? Should I speed up? Is speeding up going to piss this dog off even more? Do I yell at it? Should I grab my mace? Oh no, my shoes are clipped into my pedals... if this thing jumps for me I'm going to eat pavement hard"... among many others.

While this was all going on I hesitated and slowed down for a second thinking maybe this dog wanted to be my friend, but that seemed to make the dog's greased-lightning-like-speed go even faster. Suddenly the dog was ahead of me! I yelled at it, but apparently all that did was make it even MORE mad, as it lunged at my front tire and snarled in hate at me. I screamed to Jeff and pedaled as fast as I could. The dog fell behind for a second and then I felt my bike being pulled to the side, then lunged forward. I saw the dog hesitate for a second, screamed to Jeff again (this time he heard me), and the dog ran off. A couple miles up the road we stopped so I could freak out and calm down for a second. Thats when we noticed the strap on my rear left pannier that the dog had grabbed with its saliva soaked teeth --- there was a mark on it where it had grabbed on for dear life... then thankfully slipped off and thudded to the pavement.

Dog day scared me. Hard. Jeff rides a lot closer to me now. Oh, and a couple miles after our little break, Jeff was chased by a ferocious Boston Terrier. Haha.

Cat Day was Wednesday.

One of many roadblocks for the day

I just looked at how much I wrote about Dog Day, and Cat day just seemed worse, so I'll just hit the highlights here. It started out with our directions to tell us to follow a 4-lane divided highway for like 30 miles, but that seemed crazy, so we went an improvised "alternate route" where during the course of the day TWO black cats crossed our paths... and TWO jet black squirrels also crossed our paths... lol. This route took us to 3 different places where the road was under construction, blocked, and gated off... adding multiple more miles to the already 60+ mile planned day. For a lot of the day we were way out in the boonies driving past a lot of Amish farms and being chased by Amish dogs. Our directions kept telling us to go down various dirt roads... which was not a good sign since the sky was turning black with clouds. One particularly excited dog chased us down from about a mile away just as it started to rain (again) - it really freaked me out, but then I saw a tiny pony hooked up to a tiny carriage and all was awesome in the world again.

Yeah,something aint right here...

The last 20 miles of the day it was raining... raining and getting darker and gloomier. Good thing we got into Ft. Wayne, IN right smack in the middle of rush hour! Of course the bike route we were supposed to take in town was gated and locked, so we did the best we could on roads and sidewalks to get to the shady motel we were staying at. About 5 miles from the motel, Jeff went right to get onto a sidewalk by a school near a really busy intersection. I followed, but neglected to factor my speed, angle, rain factor, and pretty much anything else when I hit the 1.5" entry curb to get up on to the sidewalk. WIPEOUT! Good one too. Scraped up my ankle... fist-sized knot on my shin... and my handlebars literally spun 90-degrees to my wheel. But, luckily, it was all made up for when we reached the motel and we realized it was surrounded by about 5 different gentlemen's clubs - haha, I did say it was shady! And what greeted us on the way into our room? A black kitten all curled up and looking cute just waiting to cross our paths! So there it was... after 72 miles... cat day finally came to end with a lukewarm flip-flop wearing shower in a gross bathtub, a paper thin pillow, and a rock hard bed. And just when I thought the night was turning for the better with the Big Brother Season finale, guess what....the station cut out just when they anouncing the winner! Is this some kind of joke? I mean... seriously...

Welcome back to the trail I guess -- still lovin it -- still keepin' on truckin!

~Styx & Bones

All of our pictures are in different "Why Not Bicycle" folders in this picasa album: https://picasaweb.google.com/113448133157937829305