Medina to Burton: Is that hail? No, but you can see it from here.
Early in the day Rhona found a fresh produce market. Raw green beans were a nice supplement to her peanutbutter and jelly sandwich lunch. Vegetarians face unique challenges on a tandem ride, especially when the captain is a carnivore.
The route took us through Cuyahoga State park. At a covered bridge we met a large group of children on a field trip putting on tall boots. It looked like they were going to have some fun.
Outside of Hudson the traffic intensity increased. How wonderful to enter a designated bike lane. It's amazing how much safer a simple painted line makes a cyclist.
The local historical society in Hudson is located in their beautiful library. I wasn't sure I was going to be able to get Rhona (a retired Reading Teacher) out of the library without a struggle.
The first drops of rain started falling on us while peering through the gate at the Jeremiah Root Brown House in Hudson. John Brown's brother Jeremiah ran an Underground Railroad station from his farmhouse. He stored weapons for his brother at this site and local tradition says the dry cistern was used to hide people.
We attempted to ship the three bottles of HALT Dog Spray home, but learned the local shippers could not accept the pressurized containers. The last half hour of our ride was up a long hill through a torrential thunderstorm. The rain came down so hard we could not see twenty feet from the side of the road and could not locate any building or overhang roof where we could shelter. Lightning was flashing close to us, as close as 75 yards but there was nowhere to go. At one point I interrupted Rhona from her prayers to ask if hail was pounding off the top of my helmet. She said, no, "it's just hard rain". Isn't hail actually very hard rain? Of course we were in the middle of a long climb and had only a limited shoulder to ride on, but drivers avoided the "crazy people on the bicycle" when overtaking.
At noon we had the foresight to reserve what turned out to be the last room at the Red Maple Inn. When we arrived in the lobby, dripping wet, they never even blinked an eye, just pointed us toward wine, cheese and cookies in the dining room. They allowed us to park the tandem and B.O.B. n the garage and did't mind the puddles. The room had a jacuzzi tub in which we finally warmed ourselves from the deluge.
Now that we were settled in such a nice place, we of course decided to get the cheapest meal we could buy. The setting was very nice for my meal of canned meat, cling peaches, and peanutbutter and jelly on good rye bread. The chocolate milk was the beverage of choice.
After dinner we accidentally walked into Century Village even though it was closed. Since we already there, we did take some pictures of buildings which had been relocated to create a old time village.
