18-21

day 18 WAS A TUESDAY. and on it we just hung out in pittsburgh, city of steel making. it has a shit ton of steel bridges and two rivers going thru it, the monongahela and the allegheny. it was a wonderful day of just exploring the city and i spent a lot of time by the allegheny river being crafty with some paper birch tree bark. michelle was really fun to be with and made me laugh really hard.

day 19 WAS A WEDNESDAY and also phil's birthday, which we celebrated at midnite but after that, sadly, kind of had to leave thoughts of it behind because of the intensity of the day. it was about 80 miles from michelle's house to youngstown, ohio, where we would be staying with a couple in their 60s named Peg and Frank from warmshowers.org. however, what made this day so crazy was that it rained about 2 inches, the most rain the area has seen in like a year. the shoulders had rivers running down them by the end of the day and lawns were flooded and all of our stuff was absolutely soaked. luckily we actually had a really good time in it, and even extended our ride on purpose a teeny bit at the end. the sky looked crazy and everything was reflecting off the clouds and the sky would not get dark!
peg and frank are super nice. peg gave me dry clothes and we got showers and a dinner of spaghetti, bread and butter, salad, and beer, phil's first legal beer. we talked with them til like 1am and Frank fixed up our bikes like whoa, including replacing my three broken spokes. so nice main. he biked the first couple miles out with us in the morning too. he is actually a bicycle safety instructor and has some very interesting philosophies, including endless reasons why wearing a helmet is dumb. if u care to hear i will gladly tell u but there's too much to say for rite now.

day 20 we went 80 miles from youngstown to cleveland, leaving at like 1pm which was a dangerous decision. we went thru cuyahoga national park which was beautiful. by the time we got to cleveland it was getting dark, so our friend Sarah from WRFI (the montana trip phil and i both went on) and her husband drove out a few miles to help us out and pick us up! they have been our wonderful hosts for the past 2 days, feeding us indian food, taking us sightseeing, helping me find a harmonica strap so i can play harmonica while biking, etc. good times good times =0) they have four cats and one slept on me/in my sleeping bag/on my pillow last nite, its name is blitz.
on the nite of day 21 aka today i got to see friends from the outdoor school!!!!! it felt so good!!!!! and 3 more of them live in chicago, where we mite b in a week or two, so im super amped =0)