Slow getting started -- left Aunt Ruth's and Tim's just before ten -- and made slow progress all day, partly due to the urban areas I went through, partly due to the horrible road surface till I left Palma, partly due to a crosswind that was meant to be more of a tailwind, partly due to the preparing-for-a-thunderstorm heat and humidity that persisted throughout the day. The riding wasn't bad, if not as scenic as Ohio 82, which I took the last time I passed this way. After Palma though the scenery and road became much nicer. There are some amazingly deep -- for lack of a better description -- river canyons in this part of Ohio, starting with the one just before the airport.
Valley View was *in* the valley, so the view you got was before and after. Berlin Heights was just what the name suggests. Maple Heights was really striking: every (modest) house was immaculate, every lawn well kept. On the surface it was a picture postcard view of the American dream. The whole appearance of the town said, "we are comfortably middle class, and we know it." And oh, I was the only European pale-skinned face to be seen.
After Maple Heights, I went through the shopping district for, by all appearances, a working-class poor community, then it into heavily wooded countryside with some *amazingly* well-to-do homes and at least one house verging on being a mansion.
I have this particular ridge at the campground all to myself tonight. (The campground isn't crowded, as the holiday weekend ends tonight. For many school children, tomorrow is, of course, the first day of school; summer's over.) The thunder is rumbling soothingly now and again, and there's the occasional flash of distant lightning. I still have not been rained on this entire trip, save once at a campground in Montana when I sheltered under an overhang, and another time in the dry comfort of my tent. Saw lots of puddles and wet pavement this evening though, and the last part of the ride benefited from the rain clearly having just passed through.
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