We made the big U-turn yesterday. Today, the goal was to leave West Virginia and get half way across the Buckeye State. Strangely enough – that would put us half way to the ranch. We weren’t necessarily looking to ride the interstate highway all day. Sometimes there just aren’t any really good roads that go where you want to go.

We parked right at the front door of the hotel and loaded up the bikes. The sun was shining and the temperature was already climbing. According to the local weather forecast, we would be riding in sunshine the entire day.

There are no pictures from today. We spent most of the day dealing with temperatures over 90 degrees and some really rough roads. Come on West Virginia. You can fix the roads – after all, you took my $18 in road tolls yesterday – put it to good use.

We did manage to stop at Point Pleasant, West Virginia. If you followed this blog on previous trips, you know Point Pleasant is the home of the Mothman legend. If you never heard of Mothman, Google is your friend. We were not attacked by Mothman this time and managed to cross the Ohio River back in to the Buckeye State.

Immediately after crossing into Ohio, we drove due north on Ohio Route 7. What a beautiful road that turned out to be. Quiet, relaxing, and lightly traveled on this busy holiday weekend. First impression was that Ohio does a much better job of road maintenance than it’s neighbor to the east. That impression was reinforced we ran across the first highway rest area in Ohio. The building was immaculate and set in a park like area. Ohio got this one right even if it was in the middle of nowhere.

The only real issue we had today (other than the heat) was the GPS nor Google Maps could successfully guide us to our hotel. We had the right address. I even broke down and asked a local for directions (I got lost after the third turn he told me to take – “turn left at the Lowe’s store”). I finally just gave up and tried Google again. That got us to the right neighborhood, even if we took the long way to get there. From there we were able to figure it out. (There is actually a Lowe’s across the street.)

I couldn’t face getting back on the bike to look for dinner accommodations. I decided to join the rest of the universe and downloaded DoorDash. We successfully ordered some of our favorites from Applebees and were able to enjoy dinner in the cool hotel room, I even had my shoes off – something Applebee’s frowns on when dining in their facility.

Time for a dose of reality. This heat, crazy traffic, and bad roadways are wearing me out. I talked to Mrs. Henry and we’ve decided to leave tomorrow morning and head for the Rambling Ranch. It’s a little further than I would like but still manageable. We should be able to get out of the neighborhood assuming the Lowe’s is still there in the morning. Thank you for Rambling along with us.