Hello Neighbor! Well, at least we tried!

Start:  Comfort Inn, Mentor, Ohio
End:  Holiday Inn Express, North East, Pennsylvania

Mileage:  95 miles
Weather:  Hot!  Humid!  Sticky!

States Conquered:  Washington, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio
State Being Conquered:  Pennsylvania
States to be Conquered:  New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine

Particulars:  Another hot and sticky day for the bicylists.  They left Mentor, Ohio early this morning, and it's quite obvious how they feel at the end when they can't wait to get in the shower.

Hannah and I visited Historic Kirtland where we toured the Visitor's Center and the Newell K. Whitney Store. Our next-door neighbor, Sister Annie Decker is currently serving in the Cleveland Ohio Mission and was scheduled to be at the Visitor's Center this morning, but we missed her.  We did chat with one of the senior couples, Elder and Sister Gray, who just happen to be from Enoch, Utah.  He served on the Enoch City Council and was very familiar with MCM's new building in Enoch.  Definitely a small world and once again experienced our LDS Church one degree of separation.

We ducked out of the tour early to head over to the Kirtland Temple.  It's interesting how different the tours are during the summer vs. the off-season.  This is our third visit to Kirtland , our first in December, 2004 then again in May, 2007.  During those visits we literally had the tour guides and historic sites to ourselves.  For example, in the Newell K. Whitney Store, we had to wait for other groups to leave the upstairs living area before we could move on to the next room.  At the Kirtland Temple, they didn't even bother to take us up to the third floor.  I also noticed that the presentation at the Kirtland Temple has also changed over the years.  Our first visit was very "historical" with no mention of the spiritual history of events that took place.  Today our tour guide, a member of the Community of Christ, was very thorough in presenting the spritual manifestations that took place in the Kirland Temple in addition to talking about the organization of the Aaronic and Melchizedek Priesthood.

We met up with the bicyclists in North East, Pennsylvania, had dinner at the Freeport Tavern, dropped Kelly off at the Lakeside Campground and then off to the Holiday Inn Express.  The area where we are staying in obviously wine country as we are surrounded by fields of grape vines.

A report from Joe Thompson:  Today we rode again in the heat, starting out a bit earlier than previous days. We rode just over 100 miles from Mentor OH mostly up the shore of Lake Erie ending in North East PA just short of the NY border. The shore of the lake is quite an active resort area that has all manner of resorts and private homes and second homes.

A report from Kelly Thompson:  We enter New York at the town of Ripley ......Believe it or not!

Interesting People Along the Way: