Day 18
Augusta, KY to Milford, OH 

I woke up and almost wanted to just say, forget it, I’m not biking, I’m just going to stay here on the farm. Maybe Sheila and Ron can adopt me and I can just do all the tractor work on the farm. Ha! But…the road called. I walked back to the main house and Minnie (Not sure if it’s Mini or Minnie or ? but the little pup!) was SO happy to see me. So then I was SO happy to see her too. It was so cute how happy she was. Man, I wanted to take her with me! I kind of overslept a little bit and Ronnie had already gone out to his turkey hunting tent on the back of the property so I didn’t get to say goodbye to him sadly. Sheila had prepared snacks for me. So awesome. She had a bunch of hard boiled eggs and had hand made peanut butter cracker sandwiches. (She’s such a mom). She even made me chocolate milk in a to go cup so I could take it with me since I had mentioned I have been drinking chocolate milk as one of my staples on the trip. I also got a bag of chocolate covered nuts and two mini bottles of wine to take with me. Ron has also pulled out a can of pepper spray for me to take with me just to be safe and they insisted I take it with me. Totally spoiled!! 

I pushed off down the hill, once again smelling like fresh laundry. I waited for the ferry. The guy that was running the ferry was chatty and wanted to know where the heck I was going and how I ended up here. He didn’t even charge me for the ferry ride. I rolled off the ferry in Ohio. Anticlimactic, no sign even welcoming me to Ohio. 

Oh well. I rode towards Ripley, home of the John Rankin House. It is estimated he housed over 2000 fugitive slaves on their way out of the country. The house was at the top of a hill and I was glad someone told me it wasn’t open for tours before I started climbing the hill. Turned out it wasn’t open till May. So I pedaled on. Up a respectable hill to Georgetown and onward another 50 miles or so to Milford. Along the way I saw my very first sign indicating I was on the URR bicycle route! 

Once in Milford I did my normal wander around on my bicycle to explore town. I went to a grocery store and got some food, then putted around. I went to the local police station to get a permit to pitch my tent in the local city park. It was still a bit early to pitch my tent and once I was setup for camping there, since it was just a city park, I didn’t feel like I could leave my stuff so I’d be stuck there for the rest of the evening so I just biked around town for a while..since I hadn’t already biked enough. There were quite a few recreational cyclists around town. This was the first time I had seen so many bikes. I meandered down to the city park around dusk and stood there for a moment deciding where to pitch my tent. In the baseball field? Behind the main field? Was a bit of a weird camping spot. As I was mulling over my options I noticed someone walking towards me, I turned and was introduced to Dave. He said he and his girlfriend were finishing up their pizza dinner and if I was interested there was still some left. They had seen me in a few places around town biking around like a lost dog, ha! I wasn’t super hungry but pizza sounded good so I went over to have a slice, there I met Cindy. The three of us chatted for a while. They were so chill. On the side, they volunteer quite a bit and help homeless people in Cincinnati giving them food and toiletries and help get them on their feet. They both live in Milford. Dave invited me to camp in his yard instead of at the park. This sounded great because the park had some… younger characters that I wasn’t quite sure about. I liked meeting people out and about and chatting, you get a feel for people and can decide if you want to stay with them. I for sure got good vibes from Cindy and Dave. We plopped my bike in Dave’s rig and all headed over to his house. 

I had negotiated a shower too. Ha! This was a super bonus because the park didn’t have shower facilities. Dave had a super cool bachelor pad garage, lots of neon lighting and a cool old car and a Harley. His house was cool. 

Back at his house, Cindy asked how I’d feel about maybe going to her house. She had an extra spare bed I could sleep in. A bed sounded awesome so we again loaded up my bike and rerouted to Cindy’s house. (I’m such a pain! Musical chairs! Ha!) After my shower we all had a glass of wine and just chatted. Cindy’s daughter stopped by too. I’m sure she thought she was nuts for inviting a stranger into her house, ha! They were all so down to earth which made for a very chill evening! Another perfect evening with amazingly kind people.