Well Hydrated Raccoons

07/20/09 - Today was the first day of favorable wind we have had in eleven days of riding. Unfortunately we didn’t really maximize our mileage because we wanted to avoid morning rush hour traffic in Cleveland and also get some internet time in, so we went to the library in Wickliffe (award winning library, rated number 2 in something) at 9:00 when it opened. I think we did 65 or 70 miles, nonetheless. We stayed at a nice campground in Huron Ohio and had a great private, grassy space between a creek and the Huron River. Actually, maybe it wasn’t such a great spot. There was a lot of goose poop all over the place and just before dark the whine of mosquitoes revving up to bleed us dry drove us into the sanctuary of the tent. And then what I believe were two frogs had a raucous conversation all night long. I don’t know what they were saying but whatever it was, it took an incredible amount of verbiage to get the point across. We awoke to find that we had been burglarized and vandalized by what appears to have been a knife wielding raccoon. Seriously, Marc had a Ziploc bag of Gatorade powder in a waterproof dry bag that he keeps his camera and other stuff in that he needs frequent access to. Something got into that Gatorade powder by ripping the rip-stop nylon of the bag in a perfect L-shaped tear. It looks like someone cut it with a knife. Of course neither of heard that happening, probably because the frogs drowned it out. But the spot did look really nice when we first got there. Thunderheads were building to the south of us the whole time we were making dinner and we thought we would get wet, but the storm passed us by and it never ended up raining. For dinner we had bean and cheese burritos made with dehydrated refried beans that I had been carrying for the last 750 or so miles. I was glad to finally get rid of them, and the burritos weren’t half bad either.