Welcome to Ohio! - Youngstown, OH (Day 5)

What's high in the middle and round on both ends? Give you a hint – it's where we've arrived at today. That's right, Ohio! After a relatively short day, we've arrived at Broadman, Ohio tonight. Thanks to some wonderful route planning today, we still had quite an adventure. The weather has been beautiful however, so there are no complaints about the trip so far!

We started the day bright and early at 6. We've become slightly more efficient at packing now after Clare's pep talk last night. After some wonderful granola and yogurt for breakfast, we set off around 7:30, and ran headlong into one of the most brutal hills so far less than a block from where we stayed. Normally, this hill wouldn't be a problem – it was extremely steep, but very short. However, the extreme cold and the lack of any actual warmup meant lots of pain and suffering. My team, the “Trailblazers”, was assigned the job of backup route marking, in case the vans couldn't stop to mark them. We set off first and blitzed up the hill at full speed – something I regretted for the rest of the day. Part of the problem today was that the route yesterday was far too dangerous and packed with cars (blame Greg!). Thus, we looked at today's route and tried to route around any dangerous roads. Unfortunately, this meant we had to change the directions as conditions required.

Team Trailblazer was moving full speed when we arrived at the first water stop. After a quick stop and welcome to the rest of the team, we set off again at top speed to mark the turns. Shortly after we left, a text message arrived with some new directions – no problem at all, we'll mark them as needed. We flew into New Castle, PA without incident. The rolling hills posed very little problem for team trailblazer and our average speed topped 16 mph. Still following the directions, we smacked into the scariest hill we've seen so far on the trip. This monster hill was extremely short, probably only half a mile. However, the grade was off the charts! Figuring the directions MUST be right, we followed them up the hill, and past it for a good 3 miles before we figured something was wrong. Something WAS wrong – another change was made while we were climbing the hill, and we unfortunately had to descend the scary thing to meet with the rest of the team. Ah well, the price you pay for being a trailblazer...

Lunch was delicious and came none too soon. Joe's Pizza graciously donated three absolutely delicious pies, which we scarfed down without hesitation. After lunch, Trailblazer's job was finished, and we settled into a more sane pace. After the hectic traffic of yesterday, the beautiful countryside was a dramatic breath of fresh air. We were all extremely excited to see the Ohio state sign, and there was a marked improvement in roads too! Before long, we passed Poland and entered Broadman, excited to get to (another) Westminster Presbyterian Church.

We showered at one of the most beautiful YMCA's we've ever seen. The dinner spread that was laid out was absolutely impressive! Roast chicken, sloppy joes, casseroles, and salads all tempted our ravenous appetites, and we devoured almost all of it.

Looking forward to a wonderful day to Cleveland tomorrow – team Trailblazer away!

-James Gao