Orrville, Ohio

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Wow, this is day 50 since I left home! It definitely doesn’t seem like I have been gone that long. Yesterday I rode back roads from Charleston, West Virginia to Orrville, Ohio. It was all nice riding, and it was filled with sweeping turns, blind corners, and lots of elevation changes over blind hills. I even had a large bird almost hit me, I have no idea what kind it was. I do know it had a wingspan of at least 4 feet, and it was diving toward me from behind. It was right at a time where I was cresting over a blind hill, down the other side was a very steep slope and the road took a sharp turn at the bottom. It kinda took me by surprise and I was going a little faster than I had hoped, so I was trying to ride that one out right as this bird was dive bombing me.

Last night Isaac took me on a tour of the place he works, Ventrac. They design and manufacture tractors and attachments. I even got to drive one around, and I will admit it was pretty cool. It had a blower attachment on the front, and Isaac showed me that if you set a soccer ball on the blower with it blowing upward it will suspend the ball in the air. I was quite impressed! It will suspend it up to about 6-8 feet away from the blower; this thing moves some air! The tractors are mostly hydraulic driven, and are pretty easy to drive. Some of the attachments are belt driven too. And Justin works there too.

Last night Justin came over and we all hung out. We played ping pong for a while, and Justin whooped up on all of us. Apparently he is ranked 3041 in the world and 840 in the US. That guy plays a pretty mean game of ping pong, he even almost beat me playing with his left hand. Check this out if you want more info: http://ratingscentral.com/PlayerRank.php?PlayerID=20615. For those of you who know Justin, he is the same crazy and hilarious guy I knew from Hesston. There is never a dull moment around this guy.

I am going to head out shortly and walk to downtown Orrville. I am planning on eating lunch with Isaac and possibly Justin, then I am going to head to Bluffton tonight to stay with Annie. It is only about 120 miles over there so it should be no problem getting there by early evening.

Overall my stay here with Isaac has been wonderful. I had debated on even coming by here since it is a little bit out of the way, but I reasoned with myself that if I don’t stop by now it is going to be a long time until I see these guys again. He owns the house he lives in, and lives with 3 other guys from the area. I think he knows them all from church. It is definitely a bachelor pad, and mean that in a good way! I would love to own a house like that someday.

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Photos

Justin
The ping pong master

plaing
...and getting whooped.