I was not wanting to head into the "woods" again and instead wanted more flat open country, even if it meant looking at more corn and soy. We rode along the Ohio River, which is a very very big river right here. Yesterday and this morning we saw large barges going up and down the river. People tend to build their houses a ways away so it must flood from time to time. These rivers were and still are shipping lanes for all kinds of stuff. Coal, sand, containers, etc. And while there are bridges, they are pretty intentional since it is pretty wide and those boats have to go under them. Last night we dropped a lot of elevation when we came down into the river valley off the plain and it seems that on the south side of the river (Kentucky), it is now hilly, not flat. This was the case this morning as we wiggled all over on small roads trying to get back up to Ohio. It was fun, but we were getting close to Cincinnati (congestion) so we jumped the highway and went north right up to and then around the city. The Cincinnati skyline is nice and it really is a small city. Kinda cute actually. Not sure why, but there was a lot of traffic for a Sunday so north until we go to a road that Dave found described as "scenic". Now we were back on the plains above the river with good old soy and corn fields. The towns got smaller and smaller (and emptier and emptier) as we went east. We had lunch in a small place in ?? town and the waitress picked on us because we did not know what "cooney sauce" was. She brought out some and it is chili-dog sauce and we guessed she meant "coney dog" sauce (which I still have not heard of). She then asked if I knew what a BLT was which I admitted I did. Someone has to get out more..
I talked up a local farmer about how this corn and soy was harvested and he said they chop some of the corn for feed, but most is left to get as dry on the stalk as possible, the "shelled" and stored in he big steel silo's we see everywhere. Soy is harvested and the "beans" are shelled from their pods and also stored. They blow air in the bottom of the silos so further dry it and ship it over the winter depending on where the prices were. One woman told us the farmers are all hurting this season because the prices are down (corn is $3 instead of $5).
Dave found this amazing set of roads through an area called Hocking Hills, where people fed up with the flat plains can come see what trees and hills look like and motorcycle riders can make their tires round again. There were very few people on the roads todays and a lot of them were motorcycles anyway.. Amazing twists and turns, roller coaster stuff, and smooth pavement. We kept saying that it was like they stole a piece of twisty West Virginia and put it in the middle of Ohio.
We saw a few places growing tobacco. It looks like giant spinach with big broad leaves. I am guessing it has little commercial value since we did not see much growing, but we did see some plots and some bunches cut and drying. There are still some old tobacco barns here and there. Twisted all afternoon and ended up in Marietta OH, where we realized we had been to and stayed at on a previous years trip. Probably same motel. Another perfect day.
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