Day 4 & 5: Van Wert to Ottawa - Ottawa to Findlay, The Home Stretch

We made it home safely! It's taken a day of recovery to get back to the blog — turns out the last two days of the tour were too much fun to interrupt with a laptop!

Day 4 started with a proper send-off from Camp Clay,...

...followed by a very nice breakfast at a local country club in Van Wert.

After the rain and headwinds of Day 3, we rolled out into a sunny, quiet day — the kind that makes you forget your legs were filing complaints just 24 hours earlier.

The Delphos Rotary Club hosted lunch at a local pavilion.

Delphos Rotary is a 12 person club in northwest Ohio.

When we don't have a secure spot for our bikes for the night, we store them in the MESA van. This is one of 2 vans that the MESA program uses to collect and transport medical equipment back to the warehouse. It serves as one of our support vehicles during the annual MESA Tour.

After a 47-mile pedal, the Ottawa Glandorf Rotary Club outdid themselves. They put us up at at the DeFord Hotel, and the accommodations were exceptional — the kind of stop that makes you want to extend the tour by a day just to enjoy it longer.

A few of us snuck in some cold beverages at a local brewery before dinner, because that's how you know a tour is going well.

Dinner and the evening reception were lovely, and Bob and I got to catch up with a couple of Rotarians we hadn't seen in years.

Good food, good company, great day.

Day 5 — our last day on the tour — brought another gorgeous, sunny morning, and spirits were high knowing it was a short 26-mile ride home.

Breakfast at a local diner got us going, and the miles were filled with plenty of visiting along the way, the kind of easy conversation that happens when everyone knows the end is near and nobody's in a hurry.

The highlight of the day was a stop for ice cream in Gilboa, Ohio. A friend of one of our riders owns Knueven Creamery & Market, and she opened up specially for our group, treating us all to ice cream on the house.

It's officially at the top of our list, and if you're ever passing through Gilboa, make the stop. Knudsen Creamery!

There wasn't much fanfare when we finally wrapped up the 220-mile, five-day ride. Everyone was simply ready to get home — tired legs, tanned arms, and all. But the ride, and the fellowship along the way, were rich. Another MESA Tour in the books.

Next year, I have the responsibility of organizing the 5 day event, and it will be in our area of Ohio. I'm looking forward it it!