Ride to Clear Lake

I saw Clear Lake on a map and decided to set up a ride to include a visit.  Clear Lake is in the extreme NE section of Indiana and I had never been up there.  We rode to The Outpost Restaurant near Fairmount for breakfast.  After breakfast, six of us headed north.  We rode up IN 3 to I-469 around Ft. Wayne and exited on IN 37 north to Harlan, Indiana.  Not knowing that Harlan was having a parade, Saturday, we rode right into another parade.  I say "another" as this was our third parade we "involuntarily" rode in.  Actually, the parade had not started yet, but it felt like a parade as traffic was moving slowly and hundreds of people were lining the streets as we crept though town.  The horses and buggies had already ridden through so there were many "deposits" to dodge as we made our way through town.  For such a small town, they had many more people lining the streets than I would have thought possible.  Larry Miller had told me he was going to just ride a few hours with us and when he saw the "parade", he turned and headed home.  We rode on over into Ohio to Hicksville for a coffee break:

Hicksville McDonald's

Hicksville was preparing for a parade but it had not started yet:

Main Street Hicksville, Ohio

I'd planned on going due north into Michigan but a couple of riders didn't have their helmets with them so I decided to head for Angola for "gas and gas".  Lunch and fuel.  We rode to Angola, Indiana to McDonald's, of course.  After buying fuel I decided to head west, but then changed my mind, and decided to ride northeast to Clear Lake.  Clear Lake is a very pretty lake with many sailboats and water skiers:

Close up:

The guys parked while I took pictures:

After we rode half way around Clear Lake, we headed west.  We rode on some very nice roads all the way to Orland, Indiana.  We stopped in Orland and I programmed my GPS for the quickest was to Columbia City as I wanted to head south and go home.  For some reason, my GPS took us south and then east to I-69 and south on I-69.  We got off I-69 at the US 6 exit (they were doing rode construction on I-69) and rode to Garrett for ice cream.  We then rode south to Columbia City, Huntington, and home.  I think the reason my GPS took us off secondary roads (the ones we like to ride) and onto the Interstate was the mode was set on "Motorcycle" and not "Scooter" where I usually have it set.  In "Scooter" mode it won't take you on Interstate Highways.

We had a nice time and ride.  I rode 291 miles

Riders today were: Larry Burke, Larry Miller, John Nave, Billy Niverson, Art Adrianson, and myself.

Close up map:

 

Overall map: